Frequently asked questions

Check Your Speed
The Vitamix blender performs best on high speed to pulverise food and process thick mixtures.

Check Your Quantity
Processing cooked potatoes, cooked rice or cooked beans creates a heavier than normal load on the machine.  You may want to consider reducing the food quantity placed in the container by half (depending on how much food you started with) and possibly adding a bit of liquid.

Follow Order of Ingredients
When following Vitamix recipes, be sure to place ingredients into the container in the order listed.  If using your own recipe, follow this order for full-size containers: liquid ingredients first (water, juice, yoghurt), followed by softer ingredients (tofu), then juicier fruits and vegetables (grapes, cucumbers), firmer fruits and vegetables (apples, carrots), frozen ingredients (frozen berries), and finally ice.  Dry ingredients like protein powders should follow the ice.

Use the Tamper
If ingredients are not freely circulating, the tamper can be used to improve the flow of food.  While the machine is running and with the lid firmly in place, insert the tamper through the lid plug opening and hold it in one of the corners of the container.  As the food travels around the side of the container, the tamper directs it right into the blades.  If there is an air pocket around the blade, the tamper will release the air pocket and create a continuous flow of food through the blades.

The machine stopped because its thermal protector sensed that the machine was about to overheat. Turn the power switch off for up to 45 minutes, allowing the machine to cool down or reset.  Reset time will be extended if high room temperatures exist.  To reduce the reset time, unplug the machine, remove the container, and blow air into the centre section of the bottom of the base with a hair dryer on the cool setting.

Below are some tips to prevent overheating when processing thick mixtures. If these suggestions do not improve the performance of your machine, please contact Vitamix Customer Service on 1800 709 714.

Although all motors are tested at the Vitamix factory, heavy use will cause further curing of the motor windings. This curing gives off a burning smell and is typical for wound motors. This smell will quickly dissipate after a few heavy uses. In addition, the Vitamix motor is designed to protect itself from overheating.  If the motor should overheat, it may emit a burning smell.

No it’s not recommended. The warranty for any Vitamix machine is only valid in the country where it was purchased (please note if a NZ customer purchases from Australia the warranty is still valid in NZ and vice versa). If the machine undergoes any damage while it is being used in another country, it must be returned to the country where it was purchased for repairs, at the owner’s expense. Please note the transformer needed for the 120v machine conversion are very expensive (a simple adaptor won’t do) and they take up a lot of bench space.

High-speed blade action is the secret to friction cooking and making frozen treats in the Vitamix machine! For frozen treats, the high-performance hammermill and cutting blades crush frozen ingredients and release coldness. Vitamix processing is so fast, there is no time for melting and the mixture refreezes itself. For cooking soups, the blade speed builds a friction heat that can bring fresh ingredients to boiling in 4-6 minutes.

A. Commercial Blenders are designed for high volume restaurant/bar operations and they perform specific drink and or food preparation tasks repeatedly. Commercial units have a 3 year warranty on parts and 1 year on labour. Household units are designed for a wide variety of operations. Household blenders come with a 7-10 warranty, recipe book and an instructional DVD. Most Vitamix machines share the same high-performance motor and patented blade design.

Vitamix full-size machines self-clean in 60 seconds or less – no disassembly required. Containers for the Ascent™ Series and Personal Blenders are also dishwasher-safe.

Vitamix is built with a high efficiency radial cooling fan and has a built-in thermal protection system to prevent overload and burnout.

The blade tip speed is 18 km.p.h. to 386 km.p.h.

Vitamix unique variable speed control dial enables Vitamix to perform mutiple kitchen tasks without attachments. It chops, grinds, whips, blends, freezes, cooks, stirs, purees and so much more.

The wet blade container’s blades are ideal for processing “wet” foods, like juices, soups, and frozen treats. The dry container has blades specially designed for grinding whole grains and kneading bread dough. What is the difference? The wet blades pull food through the blades during processing. The dry blades push foods up and away, making it the better choice for dry grinding or kneading sticky dough.

Unfortunately not, Vitamix have not yet released a 1.4L Wet or Dry Container for use with the Ascent Series Blenders in Australia. Vitamix Australia currently recommend purchasing an additional 2L Wet Container for grinding purposes (as grain will etch the inside of the container, they recommend a separate container) or using the 225ml Ascent Blending Bowls.

Vitamix have released a 1.4L Dry and 1.4L Wet Container for the Ascent Series in the USA but unfortunately, they are not compatible or certified for use with the Australian models, as they don’t use the magnetic interlock lid containers in the US.

As soon as they are available in Australia, we will have them listed on our website for sale.

Unfortunately, these products are not available in Australia yet and we have been provided with no expected release date from Vitamix.

When a Vitamix product is released in the US it can take 1-2 years to be released in Australia and disappointingly not all products are released internationally.

Please note the US versions of these products are not compatible or certified for use in Australia and we do not recommend purchasing from overseas as this would void your Vitamix machines warranty.

The moment these accessories are are available in Australia, we will have them listed for sale on our website.

If you would like more information, please contact the Vitamix Australian importers Fackelmann Housewares by email at hwenquiries@fackelmann.com.au or by phone 1800 709 714.

Due to the high speed of the blades and the powerful motor, glass is an unsafe option for Vitamix. If a spoon, or other utensil, were to be accidentally dropped in or left in the container during processing, the glass container could shatter or explode and cause serious injury.

Yes, it is normal for this to happen as the coupling is aligning with the drive socket.

The minerals from fruits, produce, and leafy greens can cause a film on your container. We recommend pouring one cup of white vinegar into the container and filling it half-full with warm water. Let the container soak in an upright, standing position for several hours, then pour the contents out and use a soft pot scrubber to clean the inside of the container. Be careful while cleaning around the blade assembly as the blades are sharp. Please see our blog here on How to Clean Your Vitamix.

There is a lot of chemistry involved in the explanation, but basically, here’s how it works: Polyesters are made by stringing together a chain of esters using multifunctional molecules (acids or esters). The polyester most people are familiar with is called PET, and some copolyesters are based on PET but tailored to yield a range of properties for specific applications. Eastman’s new Tritan™ copolyester is produced in a similar way, but it is not based on PET chemistry, but rather a new monomer that gives it higher heat resistance, excellent impact resistance and increased resistance to cleaning agents.

Absolutely not. Vitamix household products are built to maximise the performance for the expected application, not the horsepower of the motor. Some machines use misleading INPUT horsepower rather than the more accurate peak motor OUTPUT that Vitamix uses.

No particular process requires 3 HP. Vitamix has determined that there is a benefit to a 3 HP motor in commercial applications that produce hundreds of blends of thick purees and thick drinks in a single day. Vitamix 3HP commercial machines are designed to be used under a significantly higher daily cycle count and heavier loads than our household machines which do not require 3 HP.

3 HP offers better performance in commercial applications requiring continuous heavy load capability. This type of performance is not needed or beneficial for household machine performance.

When all is said and done, it is the entire machine design—including blades, container, tamper, motor, bearings and more that guarantees consistently exceptional performance in Vitamix machines.

Input horsepower, which is a term used with many 3 HP appliances, can be misleading because power is wasted in terms of heat to reach a true output horsepower reading. The Vitamix machine operates at 2 peak output horsepower.

Absolutely not. The 2 peak HP Vitamix machine does a fine job of grinding avocado pits.

(The following is an extract taken from ‘Green Smoothie Revolution’ by Victoria Boutenko). After I published my first book about green smoothies, I have received many inquiries from my readers asking whether blending was preferable to juicing. I also heard that some nutritionists were concerned that blending might accelerate the oxidation of the food. I was very curious to find the answer for myself and decided to seriously research this question.

I conducted a simple experiment. I chose potatoes for my experiment because it is easy to observe the process of oxidation in potatoes. You probably remember an instance when you left a slice of raw potato on your cutting board and observed it turning brown within several minutes. That is why my grandmother used to put peeled potatoes in water, to prevent browning or oxidation.

First, I peeled two potatoes so that the color of their peel wouldn’t interfere with the results of my experiment. I then juiced one potato in a twin-gear juicer and blended the other one in a Vita Mix blender with one cup of water. I placed both cups of fluid on the table and took a photograph of them. I was taking photographs frequently for two days. The potato juice started to turn brown within a matter of minutes and became dark brown by the end of the first hour. The blended potato stayed almost white for two days. The top of both liquids, which was exposed to the air, turned dark almost instantly. I repeated this experiment three times with different kinds of potatoes and various shapes of glasses. The results were the same.

It was clear that the juiced potato oxidized much faster than the blended potato. Since I am not a professional scientist, I decided to seek the opinion of someone with the appropriate expertise. I went to the local university  and consulted with Gregory T. Miller, professor of chemistry of Southern Oregon University. After researching this matter, he wrote the following:

The browning is the result of oxidation of specific biomolecules in the fruit or vegetable. My students study this in lab so I have some familiarity with the process (albeit they are studying the enzymatically regulated oxidation). My wife is also a winemaker and deals with oxidation of her juice/wine or a regular basis. I also possess a huge number of resources on the oxidation topic in the form of biochemistry, medical, and nutritional books. Here are my thoughts: respiratory tract ailments.

Many people believe that the blending process will cause increased oxidation due to thousands of tiny air bubbles getting mixed into the “juice”. This effectively increases the surface area of oxygen in the liquid and facilitates the oxidation process. However, in grapes at least, I have observed the opposite to be true. The blended grape stays a truer color much longer. I believe this observation in grapes to be a result of numerous antioxidants released as the grape is blended (breaks open more cells than juicing). I believe this is what you are seeing with the potato, as well.ermelon-like slices, or scoop out the two white fleshy halves with a tablespoon.

Potatoes contain numerous antioxidants. This may come as a surprise to many people because of the pale color of many varietals. Among others, potatoes are rich sources of phenolics, flavonoids, carotenoids, and anthocyanins. The concentration of each vary with the type of potato. Since your potatoes are skinless (where the greatest concentration of the tyrosinase enzyme is located), I believe the blending process releases a much higher percentage of these antioxidants from the tissue than the juicing process.

It is also possible that, in many fruits and vegetables, the bulk of the fiber released during blending reduces the oxygen saturation in the solution but, if true, I think this is a secondary issue.

Now I understand why it is commonly advised to drink squeezed juice within minutes of making it, and why smoothies can stay fresh for two or three days in the fridge. Even though I can clearly see the many benefits of smoothies, I still don’t want to completely disregard juicing. One of the main advantages of juice is that it requires next to no digestion and can be absorbed and assimilated immediately into the bloodstream, allowing the digestive system to rest. This important quality of juice allows it to be used by people who suffer from severe nutritional deficiencies or have highly irritable digestive system. People with these conditions often cannot tolerate any fiber at all, and juice may provide invaluable nourishment for them. Later, when their health will improve, these people can switch to drinking smoothies.

I agree with Dr. Doug Graham that juices are a fractured food, which is missing an essential component—fiber. When we consume enough fiber, we take a load off of our organism by improving our elimination. Toxins often build up in the colon and fiber cleans them out. When most toxins have been removed by fiber, then the body has a greater ability to absorb nutrients, thus improving digestion. Humans could not live on juices alone, whereas green smoothies are a complete food.

If I don’t have a blender around me, I juice. One time I gave my blender to my brother because I thought that he needed it more than I. While waiting for my new Vita-mix, I was juicing greens because I could not live without them. While I was juicing, I quickly got tired by the limited variety of flavors, in addition to that, I noticed that I I felt hungrier and I had to add more salads to my menu, as juices were not as filling as smoothies. Contrary to that, smoothies are very filling; I can live on them for days, and even weeks. I know of people who have chosen to live on smoothies for several weeks or months with beneficial results. You will find the extraordinary story of Clent Manich’s green smoothie experiment further in this book.

There is a difference in air temperature and food temperature. Most of the time moist food is around 20 degrees cooler than the air temperature in your dehydrator and it’s the evaporation process that makes the food cooler than the temperature at which you have set your dehydrator.

The thermostat in your food dehydrator regulates the air temperature and not your food temperature. This is to ensure that the dehydration process temperature stays at the desired setting.

It is always recommended to begin the process of dehydration with a high air temperature to reduce the risk of unhealthy bacteria and mould forming on your food. A higher air temperature at the start of the dehydration process creates a fast evaporation of the moisture on the surface of the food that you are dehydrating.

Remember that enzymes are only going to be damaged when the food is wet and the actual food temperature, not air temperature, is raised to the point of destroying the enzymes. Your food will always be susceptible to being destroyed by heat when it is wet and once it is dried, the enzymes can withstand much higher temperatures.

Please note that there will always be different and varying opinions on the temperature at which food is destroyed.

View our recipes for food dehydrators.

BPA Free Plastic Trays and Tray Mesh Screens:

A Masticating Juicer, a Slow Juicer, and a Cold Press Juicer all refer to the same type of juicer. The juice extracting mechanism rotates very slowly (usually under 200 RPM ) which means little to no heat is generated during the juicing process, this slow rotation retains the nutrients in the extracted juice.

Masticating juicers typically rely on plastic and stainless steel augers or gears that crush and press the fruits, vegetables and greens into a smooth juice, which closely mimics the natural mastication or chewing of the human mouth.

Masticating or slow juicers require a little more elbow grease and take a little longer to use then fast centrifugal juicers, this is due to masticating juicers operating at a slower RPM in order to preserve the nutrients and enzymes. Masticating juicers can be divided into 3 categories:

• Vertical Juicers – rely on a plastic squeezing screw (auger) and are best suited for juicing soft fruits, with some vegetables mixed in. Vertical Juicers are the most compact juicers and take up the least bench space.
• Horizontal Juicers – rely on a plastic squeezing screw (auger) and are best suited for juicing soft fruits, with some vegetables mixed in.
• Twin Gear or Triturating Juicers – rely on stainless steel gears which are better designed for juicing hard vegetables and greens, and will result in the highest yield and most nutrient dense juice. They can also be used to juice soft fruits alone or with vegetables.

There are many juicers that claim to be masticating juicers, and to a certain extent, what they claim is true. Most of these “masticating” juicers — single-auger, horizontal, or vertical — employ an auger or a dual gear system that works to crush produce and press the juice out. These so called “masticating” juicers are missing crucial steps in their juicing process and fall short of being a complete mastication system.

Comparing these features to the human mastication system, such incomplete masticating juicers only utilize the molar (crushing) function and lack the incisor (slicing) and canine function (cutting function. Juicing with these kinds of juicers would be comparable to chewing only with your molars, or even just your gums.

For this reason, Tribest offers the Greenstar juicers as Complete Mastication juicers providing all 3 steps of the mastication process.

Centrifugal juicers or fast juicers, have sharp blades or teeth that spin very quickly against a mesh filter which shreds and separates the juice from its body. The juicer then separates the juice and the pulp, and they end up in separate containers. This fast spinning action creates friction heat which is known to damage the enzymes and nutritional content of the extracted juice.

It’s very quick and easy to make a juice in a centrifugal juicer but due to the high speed they are quite noisy and can also result in a more frothy and oxidised juice. However, the froth or foam can easily be scooped from the top of the juice.

Centrifugal Juicers are best suited to juicing soft fruits, not leafy greens and hard vegetables, as these may cause the machine to jam up and will result in a low juice yield.

Masticating Juicers use a slow turning screw or gears to press and squeeze the juice from the produce, and will result in a higher yield and more nutrient dense juice.

Centrifugal Juicers use centrifugal force (by fast spinning blades), which is known to create heat which can damage enzymes and result in a lower nutrient content juice.

Masticating Juicers are slower to use and Centrifugal Juicers are quicker to use. Centrifugal Juicers are best suited for commercial use due to their faster speed and Masticating Juicers are best suited for home use due to their increased nutritional content.

In short:

• Slow Juicer A.K.A. masticating juicer
• Fast Juicer A.K.A. centrifugal juicer

All masticating juicers are believed to offer more nutrients in the juice because of the grinding and chewing (masticating) action they have which does a more thorough job of breaking down the plant cells and releasing more nutrition.

Due to their low turning speed, masticating juicers can operate very quietly and extract much higher yields of juice from the same weight of ingredients. The juice quality is better and therefore extends the shelf life of your juice.

Complete masticating juicers like the Greenstar are equipped with all the functions of a complete mastication system. The powerful design of the Twin Gears makes it easy for the Greenstar to exercise a mastication that imitates the human teeth. The pocket recesses were created for slicing (incisors), the cutting points for cutting string cellulose like celery strings (canines), and the gear teeth base for crushing (molars).

These three processes portion produce into smaller pieces for easy juicing and cut stringy vegetables down for trouble-free processing and ejection (preventing produce from tangling around the gears and jamming up the pulp ejection system). Not only does the Greenstar Elite utilize the complete 3 stages of the mastication, but also adds a new mixing stage. In the mixing stage, the broken-down produce to interact and activate, thereby increasing the nutritional value of the juice to its maximum.

Centrifugal juicers typically tend to have fewer parts which may make the clean up process quicker and easier. Due to their high speed the juicing process is almost instantaneous and due to their widespread availability, they are generally less expensive. This is why centrifugal juicers are the most common juicers found in commercial establishments.

Juice will last in the fridge for 24 to 72 hours depending on the juicer used.

Centrifugal made juice has a shorter lifespan than juice from a masticating juicer and usually lasts up to 24 hours. Juice from a masticating juicer can last up to 72 hours as these juices contain more antioxidants, nutrients, and enzymes.

Greenstar Complete Masticating Juicers have built in bioceramic and magnetic technology which preserves the life force in the food, this allows the extracted juice to hold more energy and even more minerals, and can remain fresh up to 72 hours in the refrigerator.

Storing juice in glass or a high-quality stainless-steel bottle is ideal as the tight seal keeps out any excess oxygen and reduces oxidisation. If you are storing juice in a glass mason jar you can wrap the mason jar in a tea towel to minimise any light reaction with your juice.

Juice will last in the freezer up to 6 months if you store it immediately after juicing. Some nutrients will be lost in the process. Freezing your juice is the perfect way to ensure none of your expensive fruits and vegetables go to waste. When filling your storage container be sure to leave some space at the top to allow for expansion.

You can tell if a juice has gone bad or rotten if you smell a strong, sour odour, or notice a change in the colour. The brown colouring in a juice is a clear sign that it is degrading and it’s best to avoid drinking this. If in doubt, it’s recommended to drink your juice within 24hours.

Oxidisation isn’t harmful to you, it simply means that discolouration will happen, and nutrition is lost. It’s a natural chemical process that occurs in living cells. When the skin of a fruit or vegetable is broken, cell walls and membranes are ruptured, allowing oxygen in. The taste is not pleasant when compared to the taste of freshly made juice. Oxidation and discolouration don’t generate a harmful substance.

At the end of the day, you want to be eating and drinking as many nutrients as possible so it’s always best to drink your juice as soon as possible after making it.