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A slow juicer is also a nut milk machine, and the makers say so: Nama lists nut milk among what the J2 and J3 make, Omega’s horizontal augers are sold with soy milk and nut butter in the pitch, Kuvings sells a smoothie strainer. A centrifugal juicer is not; it will spray soaked almonds around the basket and make a mess.
The method
- Soak a cup of raw almonds (or cashews, or oats) in water for 8 hours or overnight. Drain and rinse.
- Mix the soaked nuts with 3 to 4 cups of fresh water. Thicker milk, less water.
- Feed the juicer alternately: a spoon of nuts, a pour of water, a spoon of nuts. The water carries the nuts through the auger; without it the chamber packs solid.
- Use the fine strainer if the machine has one. The milk comes out the juice outlet, the meal out the pulp outlet.
- Sweeten or salt if you like; keep sealed in the fridge and use within a few days. It separates; shake it.
Oats need a short soak and run through faster; cashews make the creamiest milk and the least meal.
Vertical slow juicer, self-feeding hopper
Nama J2
Nama J2 Cold Press Juicer
The juicer that changed the chore: a lidded hopper takes a whole recipe at once, cuts and feeds it on its own at 50 rpm, and lets you walk away. Nama says the J2 yields up to 60 percent more juice than a high-speed juicer from the same produce, and that each part needs only a light scrub.
- Speed
- 50 rpm, 200 W
- Feeding
- Self-feeding hopper with lid; load the recipe and walk away
- Juice
- Juice and pulp containers, coarse and fine strainers included
- Cleaning
- Light scrub, soap and water; brush included; hand wash (listing)
- Size
- 9 × 9.8 × 17.7 in; 12.1 lb (listing)
- Materials
- Tritan chamber, stainless strainer (listing)
Suits: Daily green juice or family batches, especially when feeding and cleanup have made juicing a chore.
Weigh: The hopper is the point and the price. The J2 is tall at 17.7 in, hand wash only, and like every slow juicer it is slower than a centrifugal machine for a single glass of apple juice.
Which machines
Any slow auger does it. The hopper verticals (Nama, Hurom, Kuvings) handle the nut-and-water feeding well because the hopper holds the mix; horizontal Omegas were doing soy milk before the verticals existed. Hurom’s Easy Clean chambers, with no fine mesh, make a milk with a little meal in it; strain through a cloth if that bothers you.
Horizontal slow juicer, adjustable end cap
Omega NC900HDC
Omega NC900HDC Nutrition Center
The long-running horizontal Omega: a dual-stage auger at 80 rpm, an end cap with five pressure settings, automatic pulp ejection for continuous runs, and the same attachments for nut butter, pasta, grinding and sorbet. Omega describes the gear reduction as equivalent to a 2 hp motor.
- Speed
- 80 rpm, 150 W (listing)
- End cap
- Adjustable, 5 pressure settings
- Pressing
- Dual-stage masticating; automatic pulp ejection
- Extras
- Nut butter, pasta, grinding, baby food, frozen desserts
- Size
- 6.5 × 14.5 × 15.5 in; 13 lb (listing)
- Cleaning
- Hand wash (listing)
Suits: Greens, wheatgrass, nut milk and the second job (nut butter, sorbet) more than big apples; a machine many people keep for a decade.
Weigh: Narrow chute, so prep is a knife job, and apples go through slowly. Hand wash.
The pulp
Almond meal from the pulp outlet is the makings of cookies, crackers or a thickener for porridge; dry it on a low oven and it keeps. Oat pulp goes into pancakes.
When a nut milk maker is the better buy
If nut milk is the main job and juice is occasional, a dedicated nut milk maker (a small heated blender with a built-in filter) does a no-soak version in minutes and cleans faster than a juicer. If juice is the main job and milk is the side, the slow juicer you already own does both. The dedicated machines are compared on our sister site, Milk the Nut.
For the ten slow juicers compared, see the cold press page.
