The Hurom H-AI has officially launched in the UK, and as the first ever self-feeding juicer, it has gathered a lot of interest. It’s obvious to see why, as the H-AI represents something very new and exciting. Therefore, juicing experts and first-time juicers alike have been intrigued by what it can provide.
How it Works
A self-feeding juicer isn't actually as complicated and futuristic as it may sound. For the most part, the juicing components match those used in your standard vertical juicer. The only real difference is in the hopper, which instead now serves as a container atop the juicer. Inside the hopper is a single blade component, which is turned by he augur below it. The blade is able to cut up ingredients and force them down to the base of the hopper, where they are sucked down to be pressed by the augur.
The process is as simple as that, and once the hopper is filled with ingredients, the H-AI can fly through a full load in about 4 minutes. That does make it slower than your average manual juicer, but since you aren’t physically using the juicer for that time, it doesn’t really matter.
Day to Day Use
From the start, a self-feeding juicer was always going to be good, but was it ever really going to be a better option for day to day use than a standard manual juicer? Well, we had a look into that and tested both styles against each other, rating the overall process to see which style suited us better.
Ingredient Report
One area of interest for many is how this current self-feeding style copes with different types of ingredients. Overall we can say that the H-AI is surprisingly capable. The biggest weakness we’ve seen so far occurred when juicing leafy greens. This juicer can handle them, but for it to be truly effective, it needs other heavier ingredients to help force the greens into the augur. If you fill the hopper up with just greens, it is going to struggle somewhat (Although, if you’re juicing that many leafy greens, a horizontal or twin gear juicer is probably better suited to your needs in the first place).
Moving on, we were amazed at how well the H-AI coped with tough ingredients such as celery, carrot and beetroot. The blade never got stuck when processing them, and it seemed that a high yield was consistently produced, which was a relief as this had been one of our largest areas of concern.
Finally, we should mention soft ingredients, which were unsurprisingly no challenge at all for the H-AI. At the end of the day, it’s still a vertical juicer, so it will always extract fantastic yields from soft fruits. Furthermore, the self-feeding design interacts perfectly with them, reducing the need for any real preparation.