A few months ago, I had a sneaky peek behind the curtain at Smeg and saw this product in the pipeline. It has taken all my willpower not to write about it; adding vacuum technology to a blender is such a good idea. The main issue with making your own smoothies and dips is that they expire pretty fast. Vacuum sealing means no more brown smoothies and grey guacamole.
This is Smeg’s most technologically advanced blender by a long way. In fact, it's a rival to the best blenders on the market. It’s a marvel to look at, a joy to use, and it boasts some impressive performances across smoothies, dips, and ice.
As you can imagine, I’ve been itching to review this for months, so as soon as I could get one into the kitchen, I started blending. In spite of the hefty price tag, I love it. It’s perfect for busy, modern kitchens, but that doesn’t mean it’s perfect for you. Here’s everything you need to know.
Specifications
Unboxing
It was great to see a real effort on the sustainability front from Smeg. This comes in a big cardboard box and cardboard packaging. There are some plastic sleeves to keep parts scratch-free, but this is minimal and could be taken to soft plastic recycling.
On the countertop, this is simply stunning. As soon as the brushed stainless steel base came out the box, I was taken back to Smeg’s exclusive unveiling of their blender. It looks like a really premium product, but they haven’t made it overwhelming either. The buttons all have simple icons and the big LCD dial on the front is extremely self explanatory: it will countdown or time your blends, as well as navigate through different blending speeds.
Smeg provides some cleaning tools, the vacuum sealant, and a thick, but not heavy 51 oz glass pitcher. They’ve put quantity measurements on both sides of the pitcher, so that you can slot the jug on to suit both right and left handed users, which is a feature not to be underestimated.
Who would it suit?
The sheer size and capacity of the Smeg blender tailors it to large homes specifically. It’s beautiful, but also extremely big, so you need deep countertops or cupboards if you want to keep the Smeg without resenting its space consumption.
Unlike most big blenders, this could still appeal to single-users, especially those who batch blend. The useful vacuum seal will slow how quickly your smooth oxidizes, so you can make huge quantities and store them in the refrigerator and they'll stay fresher for longer.
What is it like to use?
There’s a lot to love about the Smeg, most specifically the way that the design blends smart, sleek finishes with simple controls. The icons meant that I only needed to a cursory glance over the instruction manual, more to confirm that, yes, the ice cube icons were ice cubes, and, yes, the fruit icon is for smoothies.
I gave the pitcher a rinse and pushed it onto the rubber base. The first time I pushed the pitcher into the base and the lid onto the pitcher, I found the rubber gave back some resistance. Over the course of our tests, it became a lot smoother and easier to do, but if you’re not very strong, get ready to use a bit of muscle the first time you use the Smeg.
There are plenty of neat features which it would be easy to overlook. For example, the stopper which should sit in the feeding chute hole on the lid can also be used to measure syrups and other liquids which you might add to your smoothies.
Test 1: smoothies
What’s a blender without smoothies? It’s the first test we put every blending appliance through. I placed frozen berries, banana, spinach, and almond milk into the pitcher. There’s a special smoothie function which you can select, a time will appear on the main dial, and then simply pushing it in will start the blender. It’s quite noisy, making on average 82 dBA of noise. You can hear the automated function running through different blending speeds and strength in an attempt to blend the ‘smooth’ into ‘smoothie’.
Towards the end of the blending, the power really went to full force and I was worried something was jammed. I lifted the stopper on lid off and added more almond milk, which the blender quickly incorporated into the drink. I was curious to see whether it had been jammed, so ran a smoothie bowl (with the same, original amount of almond milk) and heard that same, high speed blending at the end. It turns out, this is all part of the blending pre-sets, so there’s no need to worry. The results of both my smoothie and smoothie bowl were flawless: there were no seeds from the berries, no traces of spinach, and no ice crystals. I don’t like to say that things are ‘the best ever’ because it gives no scope for other blenders to come in and do a better job, but this is the best smoothie, texture wise, I’ve ever made.
I added some Free Soul protein powder to my smoothie mix and sent it through the blender again, testing how well it would handle potential lumps of protein powder. The Smeg whizzed through them, leaving no grains, pockets, or bubbles.
Test 2: dips
After the success of the smoothie, I was hopeful that the hummus would be smooth too. I placed a can of chickpeas, tablespoon of tahini, juice of half a lemon, salt, and cumin into the blender. I used the manual mode to set this running and discovered that if you don’t use one of Smeg’s presets, rather than counting down for you, the LCD screen will start timing how long the blender has been running. The hummus only needed twenty seconds before it was perfectly smooth. I set up a bowl with some chips and crudités and almost before I could taste test, the rest of my team were demolishing the bowl. It scored top marks for texture, another speedy success from Smeg.
I have high countertops, and I’m quite small, so I had to judge the texture from the side of the blender. You can see in the picture that there were a few chunkier pieces of hummus up the sides of the pitcher, so I had to assume that it was smooth and lifted the lid off. The hummus was perfect, but I ran a spatula around the size to incorporate those larger chunks into the hummus and gave the blender another five seconds to run though.
I also tested making guacamole in a similar way to the hummus, but I was keen to see what the Smeg would make of onion and tomato. Plus, some blenders work avocado into lumps, rather than a smooth dip. However, as you might have guessed, this expertly whizzed my onion into nothing, making a delicious guacamole dip. The Smeg has no business being this incredible at both dips and smoothies. It's remarkable.
Test 3: Crushed ice
Unlike others I've tested, this blender has a special ice function, so I was, again, hopeful that I would get some success. All of our tests are on standard bullet ice cubes, so this was the first one that I carried out. It only took fifty seconds (and a 85 dBA of noise) to make a good batch of crushed ice.
I was curious to test the limits of the Smeg, so brought out some larger ice cubes (the kind you would use for whiskey). The blender struggled with these, I mean, it’s a bit unfair that I even tested them. Plus, you can see in the image above that it worked them into much smaller ice cube shapes and, if I could have stood to listen to the Smeg running for a few more minutes, it would have easily worked through them. My concern was that it would work the already crushed ice into water. Anyway, I don’t think many blenders could handle such huge ice cubes, but it’s nevertheless worth knowing.
Test 4: special features
The vacuum pump is one of this blender's most intriguing features. It has the potential to be incredibly innovative or a gimmick, so I was keep to give this a good test.
To use the vacuum pump, you need four AA batteries which can be inserted in the pump. Mine came with batteries already inside, but this is no guarantee. I was apprehensive about both the complexity and noise that a vacuum pump might induce, but it was really easy to use and actually didn't get any louder than 80 dBA.
The vacuum pump works before blending, so I had to put my food into the blending pitcher and then place the pump on the lid. Activating the pump was really easy: I pressed a button, the LED lights lit up, and the pump got to work. The pump stopped when it had reached pressure and could then be removed. After this was finished, I used the blender as normal and removed the pressure of the jug.
I had a smoothie bowl from the jug as soon as it had finished blending and it was delicious. I kept the rest of my smoothie in a jug, in the refrigerator for a few days. The vacuum pump didn't stop it from discoloring, but I would say that my purple-colored smoothie stayed brighter for a couple of days longer, before slowing graying, as you might expect. I was happy to drink my way through the pitcher all week, so I think the vacuum did a good job of keeping my drink fresh. It wasn't as dramatic as I was expecting, nor did my smoothies taste like they had been 'enhanced' in any way. However, I suspect this is the kind of feature which you notice when it isn't working.
Cleaning, storage, and maintenance
I'd blended a lot of different food colors and textures in the Smeg, so I didn't expect an easy clean-up. You can imagine my pleasant surprise when all this needed was a quick run through on the cleaning function before it was sparkling. The matte, stainless steel finish on the base was really low maintenance. Even though I know my hands were covered in smoothie mix and hummus and the base was definitely splattered, it didn't look like it.
Whilst I think this is an attractive blender, I should tell you that it's also really big. The Smeg demanded a lot of countertop space, plus it's quite tall, so I wouldn't like to try and tuck it into a cupboard. The best thing you could do is embrace the size and style this as a smoothie station on your countertop.
How does it rate online?
We're some of the first people to review this, so there actually isn't any customer or expert feedback online yet. I'll update you with the people's opinion when it's more widely available.
When I attended the launch for the Smeg, there was a lot of excitement around both the aesthetics (which break away from Smeg's retro aesthetic) and the vacuum sealant, which could change the game if you like to batch blend. This was the most intriguing part of the Smeg blender. Back when we saw the preview, this is the feature that all the other experts were skeptical about, but I can attest to the fact that it's genuinely good, not just a gimmick.
How does it compare?
I took a picture of the Smeg next to my Ninja Foodi Heat-iQ Blender, which is less than half the price of the Smeg. You can see that their dimensions are relatively similar, but the Smeg is leagues ahead in terms of aesthetics. The simple design of the Smeg looks so much sleeker and smarter than Ninja's very functional-looking blender.
On smoothies, dips, and ice, I would say that the two blenders are head-to-head. They both offer pre-sets, so that all you have to do is add your ingredients and you're good to go. Their results were faultless across all of our tests too. However, even though the Ninja is cheaper, it has more pre-sets, which cover ice cream, soups, jellies, and dips. The Ninja also has capacity to heat up your blends, making soups, sauces, and sautéed vegetables.
In some aspects makes the Smeg seem a little basic, especially for the price, but the Smeg has a different offering. The simple, minimalist controls are stress-free. They're not quite as overhwelming as Ninja's array, plus, the Smeg has one final trick up its sleeve. It has a vacuum seal. This means that you can take the oxygen out of your smoothies and dips, keeping them fresher, for longer. Plus, the Smeg can be fully submerged in water to wash (the Ninja is much more fiddly) and the Smeg works for both right and left-handed users (the Ninja is designed for right-handed users only).
The Smeg is packed with some useful features, but whether these warrant the hefty price tag is a decision you can make for yourself. Other blenders which boast Smeg's smart vacuum sealing technology are either commercial (and so a lot more expensive), such as the Kuvings CB1000, or Oster's surprisingly inexpensive BLSTAB-CB0-000. Neither of these have the same aesthetic appeal as the Smeg, so they're not quite as kitchen-friendly. If you'd make use of the vacuum feature, I think the Smeg is the one I'd settle on.
Should I buy it?
If you care deeply about aesthetics and want to be able to batch-blend, the Smeg is an excellent investment. Sure, it comes with a significant price tag, but if you'll make use of their innovative settings and you want to enjoy their simple design, you're in extremely safe hands with this brand.
Personally, I love the heating function on my Ninja. I'd struggle to give it up, especially for a machine which is over double the price, but the Smeg is a tempting model nonetheless.
How we test
At Homes & Gardens, we make sure that all of our blenders work hard to earn any praise that they get. It's not something that we hand out lightly. We have a team of experts who are always researching and reading-up on the latest, most innovative blenders on the market. As soon as we spot one which we think you might like, we call it in to our test kitchen. Once there, we have a series of standard tests that we put it through. The first test is making a smoothie with frozen fruit, spinach, and protein powder. This will show us how well the blades can handle seeds, tough greens, and how well it can incorporate powders without creating any lumps.
The next test is making dips. Our standard test is hummus, but, if possible, we will test guacamole too.This can give us a good indicator of how the blender handles drier ingredients, such as chickpeas, which also have tough skins or onions, which are typically hard to make into a smooth paste.
The final test we put every blender through is our crushed ice test. Whether you're making ice cones or frozen cocktails, you want your blender to crush up ice into consistent, small crystals. If it can stay relatively quiet whilst doing so, well, that's a big bonus.
When a machine has some special features, we always test them. In the case of the Smeg, it was the vacuum pump, which was designed to improve the life of each blend. However, this could range from anything to a heating function, portable bottles, or a different texture functions. You name it, we've tested it.
Our experts will also make notes on all the external factors, such as cleaning, storage, maintenance, and unboxing. These will all impact your perception of a blender, so we think it's important that you know every detail possible about them. That way, if you choose to invest in one of these, you're not in for any nasty surprises.
If you'd like to know more about, you can visit our dedicated page for how we test blenders.
