| Our top picks at a glance Best overall: Nama J2 – a self-feeding vertical machine with the best yield here and a hopper that lets you load a batch and walk away (around £450). Best value: Fridja f1900 – horizontal cold-press with near-premium extraction and a build that outclasses its price (around £200). Best vertical alternative: Hurom H320N – a slimmer, quieter vertical juicer with a redesigned auger that copes well with soft fruit (around £400). Best budget: Aicok Slow Masticating Juicer – a compact horizontal machine that delivers genuine cold-press yield for around £100. |
A masticating juicer works nothing like the spinning-basket machines most people picture. Instead of shredding produce against a mesh at high speed, it turns a heavy auger slowly – typically between 40 and 80 revolutions per minute – crushing the fruit or vegetable against a screen and squeezing the juice out under pressure. The process is closer to a mangle than a blender, and it is why these machines are also called cold-press or slow juicers.
Weighing up the options? See our round-up of the best juicers in the UK.
The consequences are consistent across every machine in this category. Yield is higher, particularly on leafy greens and fibrous stems, because crushing releases liquid that shredding cannot reach. The juice takes in far less air, so it separates less and keeps two to three days in the fridge rather than one. And the machines are quiet, running at a hum rather than the scream of a centrifugal juicer – which is why they suit early mornings and open-plan kitchens.
The cost is time. Every slow juicer here takes longer to run and longer to clean than a centrifugal machine, and most need produce cut smaller. If you have not decided which format suits you, the broader best juicers UK guide compares the two head to head. If you already know you want cold-press, this is the shortlist.
At a glance: the slow juicers in this guide
Two vertical machines and two horizontal ones, spanning £100 to £450. Vertical juicers use gravity to help feed the auger and generally have a smaller footprint; horizontal juicers feed sideways and tend to handle very fibrous produce and wheatgrass better. Each gets a full write-up below.
Nama J2 – best overall
The Nama J2 is the machine that removed the main practical objection to slow juicing. Every other juicer in this guide requires you to stand there feeding produce through a chute with a plunger for the duration of the run. The J2 has a sealed hopper on top: chop the produce, load the lot, close the lid, press start and go and do something else. It is a simple idea and it changes the experience of owning a slow juicer more than any refinement of the auger could.
Yield is the strongest here across every category of produce, and the difference is most obvious on the things slow juicers are bought for – celery, kale, spinach, ginger. The pulp comes out dry rather than damp, which is the honest test of extraction, and the juice is noticeably less foamy than anything from a centrifugal machine. It separates slowly enough that a batch made on a Sunday is still perfectly drinkable on the Tuesday.
Cleaning has more steps than a centrifugal juicer but fewer than you would expect from a machine this capable. The screen rinses clear more readily than most, the parts disassemble without force, and the whole process takes four to five minutes. Nama also supplies a brush that actually fits the screen, which is less common than it should be.
At around £450 the price is the objection, and it is a fair one. This makes sense for someone juicing several times a week who values the hopper and the quiet. For occasional use it is a great deal of money sitting in a cupboard.
Fridja f1900 – best value
The Fridja f1900 is the machine that most people asking about slow juicers should actually buy. It is a horizontal masticating juicer at around £200 – roughly half the cost of the premium verticals – and the gap in extraction between it and the Nama is much smaller than the gap in price.
The horizontal layout gives the auger a longer crushing path, which pays off on the fibrous produce that gives vertical machines trouble: celery, ginger, hard herbs and wheatgrass all juice well. Hard produce yield is close to the Nama’s; leafy greens are only slightly behind. It runs quietly, comfortably quiet enough to use at six in the morning in a flat without complaint.
Build quality is the surprise. The housing feels dense, the auger is substantial, and the whole thing sits still on a worktop rather than creeping under load. Fridja back it with a long motor warranty, which is a reasonable proxy for confidence.
The compromises are the ones you would expect at the price. There is no hopper, so you feed it piece by piece; the chute is narrow, so most produce needs cutting into batons; and cleaning takes five or six minutes with the brush. Accept those and it is the best value in cold-press juicing.
Hurom H320N – best vertical alternative
Hurom effectively created the vertical slow juicer category and the H320N is the current expression of it. The headline change over earlier Hurom machines is a wider feed chute and a redesigned auger with a slower, deeper crushing action, which addresses the two long-standing complaints about vertical juicers: that they clog on soft fruit and that everything needs chopping small.
It is the quietest machine in this guide by a small margin and the slimmest on the worktop, which matters in a kitchen where every centimetre is spoken for. Yield on soft fruit – berries, pineapple, oranges, tomatoes – is excellent, and better than the horizontal machines here, because the vertical auger has gravity working with it rather than against it. On very fibrous produce it is marginally behind the Fridja.
Cleaning is straightforward for a vertical machine, helped by a spinning brush built into the strainer housing that clears most of the pulp as it runs. The screen still needs a manual scrub afterwards, but the pre-clear meaningfully reduces the work. At around £400 it sits just below the Nama, and the choice between them comes down to whether the hopper is worth £50 to you. For most people who juice regularly, it is.
Aicok Slow Masticating Juicer – best budget
The Aicok is the answer to the question of whether cold-press juicing can be had for around £100, and the answer is a qualified yes. It is a compact horizontal machine with a slow auger and a proper screen, and the extraction is unmistakably cold-press rather than a centrifugal machine in disguise – the pulp comes out dry and the juice comes out with barely any foam.
What you give up is refinement and margin. The motor is less torquey than the Fridja’s, so it can stall on very hard produce fed too quickly – beetroot and dense carrots need feeding slowly with the plunger. The plastic parts feel lighter, and the chute is narrow even by the standards of this category. The reverse function, which every masticating juicer needs for clearing jams, works but has to be used more often than on the better machines.
It is also small, which cuts both ways: easy to store, but the pulp and juice containers need emptying part-way through a large batch. For a single person or a couple juicing a few times a week, it does the job honestly and cheaply. For a household juicing daily, the Fridja is worth the extra £100.
Vertical or horizontal: which layout suits you?
Vertical juicers stand upright and use gravity to help feed produce onto the auger. They occupy less worktop area, tend to be quieter, and generally handle soft fruit better because there is less risk of the pulp packing at the far end of a horizontal chamber. Most also have some form of self-clearing mechanism in the strainer housing.
Horizontal juicers lay the auger flat and push produce along its length, giving a longer crushing path. That makes them better at fibrous, stringy produce – celery, ginger, wheatgrass, hard herbs – and they are more likely to come with extra attachments for nut butters, sorbets and pasta. They take up more worktop depth and are usually a little louder.
In practice the layout matters less than the individual machine, and both formats will make excellent juice. Choose vertical if worktop space is tight or you mostly juice fruit; choose horizontal if celery and greens are the point and you want the attachments.
How much should you spend on a slow juicer?
Around £100 is the realistic floor for a machine that genuinely presses rather than shreds. Below that, products advertised as slow juicers are often underpowered, prone to stalling and built from parts that crack. The Aicok sits at the sensible bottom of the market.
£180 to £250 is the value sweet spot, and it is where most people should buy. That buys a well-built horizontal machine with a torquey motor and extraction close to the premium machines. The Fridja f1900 is the clearest example, and for most households it is the last juicer they need.
Above £380 you are buying convenience rather than juice quality. The Hurom’s slim footprint and quiet running, and the Nama’s hopper, are genuine improvements to daily life – but they are improvements to the process, not to what ends up in the glass. Spend it if you juice often enough that the process is what you notice.
What to look for in a masticating juicer
Start with the reverse function, which is not optional. Every slow juicer will eventually jam on a stringy piece of produce, and reverse is what clears it without disassembly. Any machine lacking it should be discounted immediately.
Then look at the screen. It is the part that determines both yield and cleaning time, and the two pull in opposite directions – a finer mesh gives clearer juice and takes longer to scrub. Machines that ship with a coarse screen as well as a fine one give you the choice, which is worth having. Check that a screen brush is included and that it is shaped to fit the mesh rather than being a generic bottle brush.
Check the motor warranty, which is a more useful signal than the wattage. Good manufacturers offer ten years or more on the motor, because in a slow juicer the motor is barely stressed – it is the gearbox and the auger that take the load. A short motor warranty on an expensive machine is a warning.
Finally, count the parts and look at the chute width. A machine that comes apart into four pieces will be cleaned; one that comes apart into eight will not. And a wider chute is worth real money in saved preparation time, though no slow juicer takes whole apples the way a premium centrifugal machine will.
FAQ
What is the best masticating juicer in the UK?
The Nama J2 is the most capable, thanks to its self-feeding hopper, best-in-class yield and quiet running – though at around £450 it suits regular juicers rather than occasional ones. The Fridja f1900 is the better buy for most people at around £200, giving up surprisingly little extraction for half the money.
Is a masticating juicer worth the extra money over a centrifugal one?
It depends on what you juice. On leafy greens, celery and wheatgrass the yield difference is large enough to pay for itself over a year of regular use. On apples, carrots and citrus the gap narrows considerably, and a good centrifugal machine will make the juice in a quarter of the time. Buy cold-press for greens, quiet running and juice that keeps.
How long does it take to clean a slow juicer?
Realistically four to six minutes, done immediately after use. Rinsing the parts straight away is the single biggest factor – dried pulp in a fine screen can take three times as long to remove. Most manufacturers also supply a rinse function where running water through the machine between batches clears the bulk before disassembly.
Can slow juicers make nut milk?
Yes, and horizontal machines in particular do it well. Soak the nuts overnight, then feed them through with water using the coarse screen. The result is a smooth milk with the solids extracted as a dry pulp, which can be dried and used as flour. Vertical machines can also manage it but tend to need a slower feed.
Why does my slow juicer keep jamming?
Almost always because produce is being fed too fast or cut too large. A slow juicer needs time to draw material in and crush it; pushing hard with the plunger compacts the pulp and stalls the auger. Cut produce into smaller pieces, feed one at a time, alternate soft and hard items, and use the reverse function for a couple of seconds whenever the sound changes.
The final word
Slow juicers reward people who juice regularly and punish people who do not. The extraction is genuinely better, the juice keeps genuinely longer, and the quiet running is a bigger quality-of-life difference than the spec sheets convey. But all of that is paid for at the sink, several times a week, and that is the part to be honest about before buying.
For most people the Fridja f1900 at around £200 is the right machine: proper cold-press yield, a build that will last, and a price that does not demand daily use to justify itself. Step up to the Nama J2 if the hopper and the walk-away convenience will change how often you juice, and down to the Aicok if £100 is the budget and you want to find out whether the habit sticks.
