The outside of the bottom is product of put on-resistant plastic within the client’s desire of white, black, crimson, platinum or brushed-stainless finishes. Inside is a new Swedish-designed motor designed and synthetic mainly for the 5200. The 11.Five amp, 1380 watt motor is advertised as 2-height horsepower (2HP). Though technically no more potent than that in the earlier version, the brand new motor is extra green due to engineering upgrades in its capability to sustainably cool itself all through operation, which interprets to both energy savings and progressed motor performance. Top-cease blade speed on the 5200 has been measured at 37,000 revolutions according to minute (RPM). Significant dialogue and debate maintains within the blender enterprise on what position horsepower plays with these machines as well as pointers for calculating it, and on my internet site I offer a layman’s explanation in an editorial on high-overall performance blenders. Vita-Mix has additionally issued its own announcement on motor horsepower.
The majority of the enhancements to the 5200 are featured on its jar and lid. In early 2007, Vita-Mix announced a partnership with the Eastman Chemical Co. For building new bins for this model. The traditional (and already robust) polycarbonate containers have now been replaced with an even more durable copolyester known as Eastman Tritan™. The new jar isn’t most effective stronger, but is likewise notably greater chemical and warmth-resistant, is quieter throughout operation, and includes no Bisphenol-A (BPA) normally observed in polycarbonate.
Tapering from huge and spherical at its pinnacle to narrow and square-shaped at the bottom, the jar easily holds contents totaling 2+ quarts in quantity. It is marked in oz. As much as sixty eight and cups up to 8 ½ on one facet, milliliters as much as 2 hundred and liters up to two on the other. Marked with a “Max” fill line at 68 ounces. (eight ½ cups), the jar sincerely holds 80 oz. (10 cups). A unmarried spout on the top of the container, opposite the handle, has been redesigned for extra effective pouring and is marketed as “no-drip.” The deal with, too, has been up to date and now functions an ergonomic design which include an indented thumb-rest on its rubber “gentle-grip” for extra effective manage over the jar. From the lowest of the field, a 1 ½” lip fits securely in each nook of its squared eastman cello price layout round 4 rubber posts that make bigger upward from the motor base. Combined with the slotted blade meeting and correspondingly-geared up power socket, the jar is fantastically solid on the base at some stage in operation. The force socket, itself, is formed, hardened plastic and the 5200’s four-sided (crisscrossed), chrome steel hammermill-formed “wet” blades spin in a unmarried, counterclockwise course. Each of the blade’s four extensions are approximately 1 ¼” long. If wanted, the blade assembly is detachable from the jar the use of a mainly-designed wrench (not covered) from Vita-Mix.
The 5200’s redesigned two-part lid includes a molded-rubber cowl edged with a lip which secures inside the opening of the box via resting on yet any other lip shaped in the jar itself. The newly-designed cowl also capabilities tabs which “grasp” a 2d lip on the outside of the jar, insuring the lid remains in vicinity at some stage in operation. These “easy off” tabs are loosened with a unmarried finger whilst disposing of the lid. A 2″ by way of 2″ hole inside the center of the lid is the egress factor for a tamper that’s included with the 5200. This hollow also houses the second one part of the lid – a removable, copolyester plug with multiple features. It may be removed completely from the primary lid with a simple twist, growing an opening for the addition of ingredients at some stage in operation. When inserted, the plug also serves because the jar’s vent, allowing pressure to break out while making warm contents consisting of soups and syrups. Finally, while inverted, the middle of the plug is also an ideal jigger for liquid ingredients, and is actually marked at 1 and 2 oz. On one aspect, and 30 and 60 ml. On the alternative.
For grinding of whole grains and beans into flours, powdering sugar, and making bread crumbs, Vita-Mix makes a “Dry Blade” container which capabilities a specific blade design and configuration. It is sold one by one from the 5200 package deal. The Vitamix Super 5200 and Vitamix Deluxe 5200 are packages which encompass this field, but.
Its superior performance notwithstanding, the function that generates possibly the finest quantity of debate surrounding the machine is its tamper. This is a tool designed to be used for the duration of blending to direct large or denser substances into the reducing direction of the blade, as well as to relieve air wallet that expand all through cavitation. Just underneath thirteen” in duration, the tube-shaped, molded plastic tamper is formed with a deal with and lip at its upper cease which, while inserted into the container thru the opening inside the essential lid, will save you the bottom of the tamper from making contact with the blades. When now not in use, the tamper can save inside the field. The general height of the machine including the jar and tamper is 22 ¼”.
Getting Started is a forty-web page owner’s manual containing overviews of the system and its components, care and cleaning tips, guidelines on the usage of the machine in several capacities as well as 20 individual recipes using most of them. Let’s Get Started! Is a cooking magnificence-themed DVD demonstrating the actual arrangements of juice, soup, ice cream, and bread dough. Emphasis is positioned on order of elements loaded into the jar, safety while the use of the tamper, and operation of the device’s manage dial and levers. Instruction is also given on chopping and grinding of both wet and dry elements and, eventually, on a way to clean the machine. The layout offers the user alternatives to skip to unique demonstrations or watch the DVD uninterrupted from its starting.
The recipe ebook included with the 5200 is entitled Whole Food Recipes and is designed as a unfastened-leaf binder with a creased cowl. When folded at its crease, the cover features as an easel taking into consideration clean countertop web page-turning and viewing of character recipes. Color-coded and classified dividers separate the book’s 250 recipes into categories which includes Beverages, Soups, Dips & Spreads, Sauces, Breads, Breakfast, Deserts, Dressings & Marinades, and Recipes for Kids. There also are numerous clean pages for entries of personal recipes. Each recipe consists of factor content material, yield, dietary data, instruction and processing time, and numbered, step-by-step person commands.
A 14-page proprietor’s manual covers device safeguards, registration information, a breakdown of the machine’s person parts, usage suggestions, unique features, and care and cleansing instructions. Completing the Vitamix 5200 package is a Quick Tips card, registration card, assurance certificates, and bonus offers. Like the recipes themselves, the owner’s guide and Getting Started guide are punched with unfastened-leaf openings and may be saved inside the Whole Food Recipes binder for safekeeping.
Operation
To perform the Vitamix 5200, a user need to turn out to be familiar with the functions of just two levers and one dial, all placed on the middle interface panel of the motor base. The lever to the proper of the dial is purely for powering the system on and stale. In the up (On) position the machine will run. In the down (Off) role it’s going to not. To the left of the dial is a lever that initiates either of the 2 pace settings for the device. If the gadget is powered on and this lever is in the up role (High) it’ll run at its highest velocity (240 miles in step with hour on the blade’s guidelines), uninterrupted, until the person both toggles the switch to the down role or uses the electricity lever to show the machine off. In the lower function (Variable), this identical transfer lets in the machine to run at any person speed other than its highest. The precise speed is then decided on using a rotating dial within the center of the interface. The interface panel is numbered 1 via 10 along the dial’s circumference, with 1 representing the lowest pace.
The majority of blending operations with the 5200 will involve the usage of both levers as well as the dial. The High setting performs most of the people of the mixing, but it’s far encouraged that the person “paintings” his way to that putting instead of by way of truely starting there. Generally, the gadget need to constantly begin in the Variable velocity setting with the dial on speed 1. Once the machine starts, the person ought to move the dial to its highest variable setting, speed 10, just previous to switching to High with the velocity lever. From this point the consumer handiest need challenge himself with how long the machine runs on High. This is the preferred technique required to make maximum whole juices, smoothies, soups, syrups and ice lotions, and, with little or no practice, is a easy manner to grasp.
Loading components into the jar with the softest, maximum liquid elements first, and stable and/or frozen ingredients last can even notably enhance effects and shorten blending times. The design of the 5200’s jar and blades create a vortex the usage of drinks to draw ingredients loaded higher into the jar downward into the reducing direction of the blades. Each recipe inside the Whole Food Recipes e-book indicates the “beverages low/solids excessive” method of loading the container, and lists the elements at the page inside the order in which they must be loaded. It is a simple concept that becomes effortlessly ingrained into the user’s blending recurring, whether or not the use of the recipe e book or not, with minimum practice.
The greater diligently this loading system is observed, the much less often the usage of the tamper that comes with the 5200 can be required. In my personal experience with the Vitamix, I’ve used the tamper in fewer than 1/2 of the recipes I’ve created with it, and I’ve spoken to hundreds of 5200 owners who claim to nearly in no way use it. That stated, while the use of the tamper is required, it’s far vital that or not it’s used most effective with the lid at the jar and most effective through the hole created inside the lid thru the elimination of the plug. This insures that the tamper by no means reaches the blade. It is handiest a query of while, now not if, the user will need to update the tamper (not to say damage his smoothie) if a exercise of using it without the lid in region is made.
Cavitation is a not unusual incidence in all blenders – the Vitamix 5200 included – through which an air pocket develops round its blades during mixing. A mixture of excessive blade speeds and thick, fibrous elements can create such an prevalence as can extraordinarily bloodless temperatures on account of frozen foods or ice. The finest advantage of the tamper is in its effectiveness in opposition to cavitation. By continuously assuaging air wallet as necessary all through a blending manner, the tamper always assists the machine in its performance. In general, the consumer will find the best want for the tamper while the use of big quantities of frozen ingredients in smoothies and ice lotions, or while acting wet grinding techniques inclusive of making peanut butter out of roasted peanuts.
Different, but similarly easy, blending techniques additionally permit the 5200 to be used for the whole thing from a meals processor to a churn. For example, beginning the gadget with an empty jar on one of the lower variable pace settings and then dropping strong, fibrous ingredients like carrots, nuts, or cheese via the opening within the lid allows the consumer to create finely diced results to unique coarseness degrees with out turning into thoroughly pulverized.
After maximum mixing operations, cleansing the container of the 5200 is a easy technique. Simply filling the container approximately halfway (4 cups), adding a small amount of liquid dishwashing detergent, and jogging the machine at the High putting for 30 seconds to one minute is all it’s required. It is possible to hand wash the jar as properly, however interest must be paid to the blades as they’re noticeably sharp. It is suggested that the container not be wiped clean in dishwashers.
Performance
The energy and flexibility of the Vitamix 5200 is not anything brief of great, and is obvious in several particular practical programs. As one would expect, dense, fibrous fruits and greens are without problems transformed into flawlessly clean juices and smoothies. Equally if not extra vital than the created textures of these drinks, though, are the brought health blessings derived from making them in this machine. The 5200 is certainly one of a choose few blenders available on the market these days designed for domestic use this is robust enough to micronize raw, whole fruits and vegetables at some stage in the blending manner. This effects in a maximum nutritional fee of complete foods being made conveniently available to the consumer inside the form of entire juices and smoothies. In short, phytonutrients contained in the pulp, fiber, skins, seeds, and cores of fruits and veggies that could otherwise remain trapped (and digested unutilized) within the meals’s cellular shape if sincerely eaten or processed in much less effective blenders are “unlocked” thru the 5200’s strength and blade design. This feature is of big significance to maximum consumers of excessive-performance blenders just like the 5200.
The 5200’s power and layout additionally makes it appreciably more various than any preferred blender. Extended mixing instances at the High putting generate outstanding blade speeds which, in conjunction with a given set of components, creates enough friction within the jar, itself, to cook dinner elements into soups, syrups, fondues, and many others. Temperatures are determined solely through the period of the blending procedure. There isn’t any heating element within the machine. Raw, fresh vegetables and room-temperature water end up hot soup in as low as 3 minutes.
Using frozen components and plenty shorter blending instances, ice lotions and sorbets also can be created with the 5200. Textures and temperatures for recipes of all kinds are determined really with the aid of how a whole lot friction the person permits to be delivered to component contents. The recipe ebook is a brilliant source with which to turn out to be familiar with these blending instances, as it gives specified, step-via-step commands on all the gadget’s features. Experience is possibly the pleasant teacher, though, and intimate know-how of the 5200’s “secrets” to amazing outcomes is easily attained with a touch exercise. The person becomes familiar with the manner particular ingredient combos look during mixing as indicators of recipe completion. Also effortlessly learned might be numerous motor pitches and sounds at some point of blending, signifying diverse levels of the mixing process.
Users will speedy find out there’s little or no in terms of ingredient content material that the 5200 is not capable of processing. Should its limits be examined, but, the machine is geared up with automated overload protection with the intention to have interaction when the motor has reached an inner temperature at which endured blending might damage its additives. The motor will truely shut itself down if it is being examined past its secure working abilities. In hundreds of blending operations with my Vitamix machines, simplest once have I ever in my opinion witnessed this characteristic at paintings. During the making of peanut butter, prolonged mixing thickened my mixture to the point in which excessive pressure became created upon the motor, and the machine halted. Resetting was as easy as unplugging the blender and allowing the motor to cool itself for about an hour. It is really worth noting that had I stopped blending once the peanut butter to start with reached a clean texture, this will no longer were an trouble, and I’ve made peanut and almond butters successfully in my Vitamix machines numerous times seeing that. I actually have in my view by no means as soon as damaged the box, blades, nor blade assembly within the lifetimes of my machines. I actually have bought severa tampers, but. Each time this has been necessitated because of person mistakes – i.E. Using the tamper with out the lid in area. As noted above, right use of the machine must put off the danger of this ever happening.
Performance Issues
No blender is without its obstacles, although, and my unmarried experience with the Vitamix’s overload protection is not precise. I even have spoken to numerous proprietors of the system who’ve suggested comparable stories with the machine preventing itself beneath immoderate load. I’m of the opinion that this in and of itself have to now not be taken into consideration a completely terrible phenomenon. The power of the gadget is plain and is quite simply obvious all through use. If the motor unearths itself under such duress that it desires to halt as opposed to burn itself out, I deem it a small inconvenience in relation to purchasing a brand new machine – a trial maximum proprietors of lesser blenders have all skilled at one time or any other. Though I have no personal enjoy with Vitamix customer support in phrases of using warranty insurance (a testomony to the machines’ fine), I have been informed on a couple of events of their advanced service with regard to restore and replacement of motors rendered inoperable due to everyday use. A little on-line due diligence at the warranty at the Vitamix 5200 well-knownshows an remarkable customer service enjoy, and, based totally on my actual conversations with proprietors of the system, I don’t have any doubts by any means that theirs is amongst the great within the commercial enterprise.
Standard installation top of higher kitchen cabinets is typically 17″ to 18″ above countertop surfaces. At just over 20″ tall with the field at the motor base, the 5200 is just too tall to keep under maximum cabinets. This is a particular downside given my kitchen’s layout. I keep my gadget after every use.
The tamper is beneficial in manipulating larger components into the slicing direction of the blades as well as putting off air pockets created during blending due to cavitation. Users will quick discover it isn’t essential for most of the people of the 5200’s capabilities. When it is wanted, however, it’s far the best device so one can assist in the proper incorporation of certain factor mixtures. In different words, it ought to be used for certain recipes to be made properly. Personally, with the exceptions of these short periods when I’ve been with out my tamper because of person-negligence (referenced above), I’ve in no way considered the necessity of the tamper to be a bad. Customer remarks indicates to me, even though, that the requirement of a tamper can be a much less than suitable feature of the model to some.
Finally, customers of the 5200 will have to renounce themselves to the fact that the gadget is loud when in use. Acoustics of individual kitchens and factor content material and quantity within the jar will of path have an effect on the unique noise tiers at some stage in any given mixing operation, however, in widespread, the gadget is louder than a much lesser-satisfactory blender. Given the superior strength of the 5200 to other blenders, this ought to not come as a complete surprise. Also worth noting is that the improved jar design of the 5200 over the previous model outcomes in a significant reduction in noise in my non-public enjoy.
Summary
As noted above, Vitamix has been the de facto name in the high-overall performance blender marketplace for approaching 80 years. You will find their machines with the identical (or inferior) vehicles because the 5200 in bars, eating places, and culinary faculties throughout the usa. Competition does exist, but. There are other blenders with comparable motor strengths, capability, and simplicity of use available on the market today. All of them, although, use the Vitamix wellknown as their benchmark. In fact, during my tenure on this enterprise I’ve but to satisfy a wholly unhappy customer of considered one of their products. I have, but, met several second and third-era proprietors of the very identical Vitamix gadget – it having been exceeded down from one member of the family to the subsequent. They are constructed to remaining. The first-rate of this American-made logo is unsurpassed. And, as the 5200 model represents now not most effective the best of Vitamix craftsmanship determined in earlier fashions, but additionally contains numerous newly-located technological advances, there is no motive to trust that many, many 5200s, too, will not be discovered within the kitchens of more than one generations to come back.