Use of Fruits and Veggies
Sometimes our customers experience difficulties when squeezing celery.
What is noticeable are the long fibers of the celery that are clinging to the screw and get stuck in the pulp exit. This is a known issue. We have many customers who like to squeeze celery. (often because they are enthusiastic about celery juice after reading Anthony Willams' book).
The problem then often lies in feeding long pieces of celery in the hopper. There are no knife blades in the Versapers and the screw just presses and bruises the vegetables. Because celery has a lot of hard fibers, these fibers become just pieces of rope that turn around the screw and get stuck in the pulp exit because they can not get around the sharp corner of the pulp exit. This will cause the pulp to not exit properly and get clogged up above. The pressure in the strainer and the bowl thus increases. This situation goes from bad to worse, the pressure increases but the pulp must go somewhere at some point. Then it eventually goes under and over the strainer and you end up with a juice full of pulp.
The best way to make it easy for your machine is to cut these fibers 0.5 - 1 cm very short. The shorter you cut it, the easier it is for the machine to process. So if you have a stalk of celery, cut the bottom off, then remove the individual stalks. Rinse each stalk clean and then put them back together on a large cutting board. Then chop the celery with a large sharp knife into "macaroni curves". Rather more fine than too coarse, but do what you can and are comfortable with.
If you work this way, the pulp output will flow much better and your juice will be of better quality even if you juice 3 whole bunches of celery. The same advice applies to all fibrous vegetables, such as fennel, ginger, dill or parsley stems etc. etc.
Because you can press all kinds of fruits and vegetables with a Versapers, your options are unlimited. Often the preference of your taste determines which juices you would like to make. But try out new variations regularly. Nice, tasty and you learn to discover new flavors.
The Versapers now comes as standard with a recipe book with 64 recipes. This book is also for sale in our shop. Subscribe via the website of Versapers to our newsletter, and you will receive periodically new recipes and tips.
There are several possibilities. A few examples: adding carrot/spinach pulp to lasagne or turning vegetable pulp into a soup. You can use it to make a carrot cake, a veggie burger or with flour and butter as cookies from the oven. It is also tasty to add the pulp partly to the juice again, in a combination with yoghurt or milk and some seeds or crunched nuts to make a smoothie.
Overall, it is definitely worth doing something with it. What is important to know is that the taste of the pulp itself is quite bland, because the tast mostly ends up in the juice. So adding spices such as pepper or a mixture of Italian herbs, is advisable.
When you have found a good recipe with pulp, we would appreciate if you could share it with us. Who knows, it might be included as a new recipe in our recipe book!
Long strong fibers of leafy vegetables can clog the outlet. It is best to have a large cutting board with a knife and cut everything into smaller pieces (1-2 cm). That facilitates the input and improves the extraction and export (the smaller, the better and easier). For soft non-fibrous products such as melon / apple / cucumber etc. this is less important. But the harder and the more fibrous the product, the more it helps if you first cut it into smaller pieces of the size as if you would eat them yourself.
it is best to drink juicers directly or on the same day, because the nutritional value gets less as time goes by. If you want to preserve juice over a longer period of time, pour it into a glass bottle and fill the bottle to the brim so there is no oxygen in it and seal it with a cap. Inside the refrigerator it will keep well up to 48 hours. Some juices such as applejuice will turn brown after some time. Vegetable juicers are teneble for a longer period. Adding some lemonjuice to your vegetables gives it an army green color. The lemon affects the chlorophyll in the vegetables.
On the whole this has to do with the type of vegetables or fruits and sometimes the freshness. Products like wheat grass and kale will create more foam than cucumber or melon. Mainly soapy vegetables or non-fresh products can form foam. This is due to the type of the vegetable and cannot be prevented completey. It often helps to mix things into the hopper. So if you make juice of various products, best is to vary them when you put them into the hopper.
Depending on the product there is more or less water in it. When juices sits for a while, the fibers will float to the top due to the difference in density. This creates a slight separation of juice and fiber. This, however, is not comparable to the effect of a centrifugal juicer. Here the juice is beaten by the high turning force and separated from the pulp with the addition of oxygen. This also makes the color of this juice duller.
The zest of lemon can be put in the slow juicer, provided you only use a few thin slices for an extra aroma in the juice. The skin is relatively tough, so cut it into smaller slices, so that the Versapers can squeeze it more easily and the pressure in the strainer does not rise too high.
The peel of a lime is even stiffer and almost leather-like, it can't go in the slow juicer. The inside of a lime is also stiffer than a lemon, so we don't recommend putting peeled lime in the Versapers.
Always use the citrus press (included with the 5G) for lime juice and also when you want to make 100% lemon juice.
Yes, this is necessary because of the unhealthy substances in the peel. The peel also gives a foul bitter taste to the juice.
Experience show that apples from orchards can be very diverse in structure and generally rather pulpous. The structure of the apples gives relatively little juice, causing excess fibers into the juice. Therefore, we do not recommend you to buy a Versapers for this purpose, unless of course you are planning to make many other juices. With grapes it strongly depends on the type of grape. Seedless grapes are exellent. Most grape seeds add some bitterness to the juice. Yet with other types of grapes you have to clean the strainer after every kilo. Sometimes an increasing number of seeds is left in the strainer, which can lead to a buildup and blockage of the blow. With redcurrants you have to clean the strainer already after half a kilo because of the seeds.
Some products contain from origin little juice and have a dense structure. This means there is relatively not much to juice. Because the structure is dense but fine, the juice result can be somewhat thicker. Examples are banana, avocado or cooking apples. There are no methods to prevent this, because the product happens to be so. When you combine this type of products with very juicy products such as a Granny Smith apple, cucumber or orange, etc. than the thicker juice is easily flushed.
Fiber-rich fruits and vegetables and wheat grass are quite a challenge for the Versapers. The long fibers can wrap around the squeezing screw or accumulate in the pulp outlet, causing a blockage or even stopping the machine. All of this can be avoided by cutting the fiber-rich products into short pieces of 1 to 2 cm, transverse to the fiber. The short fibers will not easily cause a blockage. In addition to smaller, shorter pieces it is also wise to vary with pieces of apple or carrot. This ensures that the fibers are transported againg through the machine, there is more space at the passage and thus prevents a blockage.
Yes, this is possible provided the products have been soaked for at least 6 hours before putting them with some water in the Versapers. When the products enter the Versapers hard and uncooked or non-soaked the strainer will be damaged. With soaked soybeans and water, you can make your own soy milk with the Versapers. The same also applies to almonds and other nuts.
Carrots and beets are very hard. Fibrous vegetables, stalks of celery and stems of herbs can be very tough. Therefore, make sure when you use these products, you cut them into smaller pieces. It works well to mix them with sof pieces which helps to improve the output of the machine. Let the machine 'consume' it before entering more. Too many hard pieces too fast can eventually wear out the machine faster of even damage it. Rule of thumb is that you cut pieces the same size as if you were to put them in your mouth.
Hard stones in cherries, plums or apricots can damage the strainer. Always remove hard stones before juicing. Rule of thumb is: if you can chew on the stone and it does not hurt, you can use it without problems in the Versapers. For example, pits of apples, citrus fruits, etc. are no problem. For example seeds or cores from papaya or Galia melon you'd better remove first with a spoon.