Which juicer do you need for fresh-juice drinks? A picker for citrus press, fast and slow

A glass of fresh juice is the quickest way to make an alcohol-free drink taste like something. Lime in a spritz, carrot and ginger over ice, apple with a squeeze of lemon: all of it starts with a machine. But there are three very different machines, and the one that is great for limes is hopeless for spinach. Pick by what you actually juice, and the choice gets simple.

Three machines, three jobs

A citrus press is a ridged cone that spins or is pushed into a halved fruit. It only does citrus, but it does it fast, it is small, and it costs the least. A fast juicer (also called a centrifugal juicer) shreds the produce against a spinning blade and flings the juice through a sieve. It is quick and easy to wash, and handles hard things like apples and carrots well. A slow juicer (also called a masticating or cold-press juicer) squeezes the produce with a slowly turning screw. It is quieter, gets more out of leaves and soft fruit, and makes less foam, but it is slower to feed and has more parts to clean.

Here is how they compare in plain terms:

Try the picker

Choose what you mostly juice, how often, and what matters most to you. The bars show how well each machine fits. For citrus it also does the squeeze maths, so you know how many fruit to buy.

Why citrus is different

Citrus juice is the most important juice in the glass, because acid is what makes a mocktail taste finished rather than sweet and flat. Typical yields are small and vary with ripeness: a lime gives around 30 ml, a lemon around 44 ml, and an orange around 60–75 ml. That is why one cocktail's worth of lime juice needs about a lime, and why a jug of lemonade needs a bowl of lemons.

Lemon and lime juice can taste better after a few hours in the fridge.

One test from America's Test Kitchen found that lemon and lime juice rested for about four hours in the fridge, covered, tasted better in lemonade and limeade than juice squeezed straight away. Contact with air slowly forms a compound called limonin, which adds complexity in small amounts, but past roughly six hours the bitterness becomes unpleasant. Orange juice is the exception: most people prefer it fresh. So squeeze citrus the morning of a party, not the week before, and squeeze oranges to order.

What about the other juice?

Fast juicers spin at high speed, which brings in more air and more foam, and the juice oxidises faster, so it is best drunk soon after you make it. Slow juicers are gentler, and their makers say the juice keeps longer in the fridge. Treat that as a ceiling rather than a promise; fresh juice is always at its best on the day. A spoon of lemon juice in apple or pear juice slows browning, and a fine sieve fixes most foam.

Soft fruit and leaves are where the slow juicer earns its price. A fast blade tends to leave wet pulp behind and the yield drops. Hard produce like carrot, apple and ginger is the opposite: a fast machine copes happily, and it is quicker to feed and clean.

Three drinks to try

• Lime and mint fizz: 25 ml fresh lime juice, 15 ml simple syrup (1:1), a few mint leaves, topped with about 120 ml soda water over ice in a highball glass. Build it in the glass.
• Carrot, apple and ginger over ice: juice 2 carrots, 1 apple and a thumb of ginger in a fast juicer, add a squeeze of lemon, and pour over ice.
• Green apple and cucumber cooler: juice 1 green apple and half a cucumber in a slow juicer, add 10 ml lime juice, and top with tonic water for a lightly bitter, long drink.

All three work without alcohol, and each is also a good base for a lower-strength drink if you want one.

What to look for

• Match the machine to your produce. If you mostly juice lemons and limes, buy a press and stop there. Buy a bigger machine only when leaves, berries or carrots are on your list.
• Easy cleaning. The best juicer is the one you will actually wash. Fewer parts and dishwasher-safe pieces matter more than a long feature list.
• Pulp and foam control. A removable filter or foam separator lets you choose between a clear or thick juice.
• Feed size and noise. A wide feed chute saves chopping, and a slow machine is far quieter if you juice early in the morning.

The examples below are links to product pages with current prices from several shops. They are affiliate links, they are examples of each type rather than reviews, and we have not tested them.