3.2.2013

I have had this spiraliser for just over 2 years now (not bought on Amazon). I noticed & was surprised it had been given poor reviews here & felt I had to redress the balance. At the time of purchase I spent a great deal of time debating whether to go for this spiraliser over the cheaper models, but I am very glad I did buy this one.First of all the blades & cutters are very sharp & manufactured with great precision. There are 3 thicknesses of cutter for fixing into the unit, or the unit can just be used plain to produce thin non-stop long spirals of such things as cucumber by the in-built flat cutter blade. Note: after not using this for about a month I was surprised to find it not working very well & sort of mushing up a carrot,it turned out I had fitted the shredder cutter in upside down! This is an important point to look out for. The arrow engraved into the blades must point up otherwise it does not work correctly.I have found that even very hard vegetables such as sweet potatoes go through this item with ease. At all times you must apply a certain amount of pressure against the sliding base unit to ensure the vegetable or fruit continuously feeds against the front blade & cutters, this is the case for any of these types of spiralisers. It rinses very easily if you do this the minute you are finished before food dries on. I am not sure how the Lurch type spiraliser works for rinsing since surely the blades stored in the base of it must be removed before washing or they will get all wet?I store the additional blades in a little box for safety, I do not want them to get damaged, (the finest one is a miracle of precision metal cutting & engineering). I also store a champagne cork between the front plate to prevent accidents, & stop the sliding base moving forward when moving about for storage etc. This item does not take up very much room, is easily stored in a cupboard & lifted in & out for use. It has 2 sticky suction feet for suctioning it onto a flat surface, sometimes I use these, other times not, it depends on what I am spiralising & what quantity.The instruction leaflet is a poor translation into English, but nonetheless can be understood. Additionally it tells you how to attach an electric hand drill to the gadget if producing large quantities of spiralised food, which would be tiresome to crank by hand, & the additional necessary parts for this purpose are included with the purchase. I have not used this facility since I only use the spiraliser for my own family's use, but I think this indicates the quality of the machine that an electric hand drill can be attached to power its use.Here is a list of some of the foods I have used it for: cucumbers, carrots, parsnips, sweet potatoes, apples (dowse in lemon juice immediately they are cut to prevent browning caused by oxidation), beetroot, courgettes, onions, white & red cabbage, celeriac, butternut squash & fennel. All have spiralised beautifully & with ease.All vegetables & fruit need to be wide enough in diameter to allow the small circular blade (like a small diameter apple corer blade - it is 1 cm in diameter) to sink into the centre of the vegetable, this anchors the food to be processed. There then needs to be enough vegetable either side of this 1 cm diameter to shred. A small sausage (which feeds out of the "apple corer" centre) is left behind un-shredded; this can be nibbled, sliced up or used for juicing. Therefore thin diameter foods, such as small carrots, do not work in this type of spiraliser, anything about the diameter of a cucumber or wider is perfect.I have not used the Lurch or similar spiraliser so cannot comment on them, but would highly recommend this gadget. I suspect the quality of the cutter blades in this one are superior & will have longevity, & this is probably a factor in why it is used by commercial kitchens & chefs. If you are a salad fiend or into raw food, this gadget will last for many years, be a pleasure to use, produce good end results & pay for itself over time.Katy Thompson - Home Economist & Aga Cookery Demonstrator

19.7.2017

I have owned other mandolins but none had worked as effectively with the simplicity of this model, so I decided to invest again in this classic. WHat you see is what you get; a sharp blade, a plastic frame and a hand-guard (more on that later). Build-quality is excellent, if feels strong and robust and built to last in that Japanese manner of enduring quietly. The blade is sharp but will benefit from sharpening now and then. Raising and lowering the cutting plane is handled by an embedded screw, a simple an elegant solution which enables a finely-tuned cut to be achieved. Nuts on the side of the device allow other blades to slow-in,

15.11.2019

Benriner mandolins are what you will find in professional kitchens, so you know they gotta be good. Dead simple & sturdy with none of the fancy and unnecessary extras like a stand.I also own the previous version of this mandolin. In order to adjust the cut thickness on the old model, it was necessary to dial in two small thumb screws on the back. This new model replaces the screws with a large dial which greatly simplifies thickness adjustments — it's definitely a big upgrade not having to fiddle with two small screws.My first mandolin was a Selkin Borner V1 which for some reason was very highly rated (it was America's Test Kitchen's pick & they are usually pretty good about their picks).

15.1.2014

I've used a number of different mandolins and this Benriner is simply the most efficient and best slicer.The beauty of this model is that you can adjust the thinness of the slices by turning the small button on the back of the mandolin to raise or lower the top part of the mandolin. It's therefore effortless to set your desired slice size and with no additional parts, so simple to clean.You receive three blades for juliennes. I inserted the medium blade to julienne a carrot and I was simply amazed that a) this mandolin could actually julienne it properly and without applying huge force and b) that the juliennes were perfect. Passing the "carrot test," which my other mandolins could not manage,

1.1.2015

I bought this because I just wanted an easier way of slicing vegetables easily and evenly. Now I use it for everything - jobs that used to take ten-fifteen minutes are done, quite literally, in two. It is, in my opinion, probably THE most useful item that I've ever bought for the kitchen, after knives and pans.Take, for example, making a curry base with five finely chopped onions - that would take me fifteen minutes to peel the onions, chop lengthways, rotate and then chop sideways, and even then the results would not be even. It now takes me longer to peel an onion than it does to slice it into fine, even pieces with the mandolin.What I particularly like about the Benriner is that it is so easy to wash and keep in good condition.

14.5.2015

Summary: This one works the way the others are supposed to. Buy cut resistant gloves rather than using the handpiece.Long version: When I was a kid, my mum bought a mandolin of the 'JML/as seen on TV' type, and it lay at the back of the cupboard unused. I spent £40 on a mid-top range one from my local kitchen store. It was better, but still didn't live up to expectations.This one is exactly what I'm after. Potatoes, onions, carrots... It treats them like air. The main blade is ridiculously sharp, as are the julienne blades. Hold veg, rub up and down over plate - sliced veg. It's THAT simple and quick.Seeing some comments about the fixings, the main body of the one I received was plastic,

2.4.2015

I looked at several other mandolins and read reviews before going for this one. Its design is excellent , compact and won't take up your kichen drawer space up full of never used attachments like other gadgets. There's 3 blades and the guard and thats it. Easy to clean as the slide flips up an a rinse under the tap is usually enough or if bits get caught in the blade its a second to drop it out and wash it off. So far I've used it for julienne carrots, swede and parsnip. also for thinly sliced tomato and peppers which it does brilliantly . (for slicing you just loosen and drop out the second blade). It's only failure was Mushrooms. Can't fault it's performance really,

19.3.2016

This was bought as an experiment to see if Spiralising veg would work for me in a recent drive to eat more healthily.I watched some tv and online demos, most seemed to be quite big, plastic and with lots of bits - and a fair bit of food wasted. I bought a vertical one from Lakeland but found it too hard on my hands to use, plus very awkward to have to keep on disassembling/reassembling it when doing a good quantity of veg, so it went back.Then I saw this. It seemed expensive but to have good reviews and also, to be small and neat. I did contact the seller to ask what to do if UK customs duty was applied, and had a very polite reply that if that happened,

19.10.2008

Bought this about 7 years ago to slice potatoes thinly enough for gratin dauphinoise. I'd previously used my food processor but the size is much better with this mandolin, you can adjust it to suit you perfectly.One great thing about it is it takes minimal space in a drawer so is great for people like me who don't have the luxury of a big kitchen (or even a medium sized one!) and have to utilise their space. It can also be used for julienne and grating but I predominantly use it for the purpose I bought it for. I no longer have a food processor, just knives and this. And of course the Kenwood Chef for cake mixtures which I'd never have trusted a food processor for anyway (not enough air).At the time I bought this mandolin,

21.7.2011

I have this mandoline since few months, I didn't buy it in amazon, but in a local shop in barcelona (a smaller one, cost me 50 euros! In amazon costs only 35! should have checked here before I bought it, although in Amazon USA it cost only 29 USD!!! So I am sure the seller can lower the price in amazon uk).I know this looks "ugly", not fancy nor resistant as a inox one may look like, but it works great and very resistant! A lot better than a WFM inox one I had. Super sharp slides, with 4 different functions (slides, coarse, Julianne and "very fine Julianne"). Very easy to change the blades, not difficult as those mandolin with V shape blades.And I must said it is used by lots of chefs/food writer like Gordon Ramsay,

31.10.2012

This is an absolutely fantastic gadget. I use it at least once a week - usually to make vermicelli from carrots which saves on calories no end & is genuinely nutritious & tasty. I never buy pasta now - I just used 'cheats': for lasagne sheets I use layers of leek flattened out and blanched (thanks Hairy Bikers), for tagliatelle I simply peel a courgette down to the seed layer (eat raw - just pour the pasta sauce on as normal) and for spaghetti I use this gadget.It can be a little fiddly to use. While you are turning the handle you also need to keep pressure on it to drive the vegetable through the blades. I do this by wearing oven gloves & stabilising the blade end with my little fingers and apply pressure at the handle end with my thumb.

10.9.2015

Having been asked by my teenage daughter to buy her a 'spiraliser' I first had to find out what that was! My research highlighted that these were originally designed in Japan and are the current 'fad' in the kitchen. This particular model had some excellent reviews although a large number of the UK/European produced versions have a horizontal mechanism so my only concern was the vertical nature of its operation. To my surprise the product took some time to arrive and was sent directly from Japan. It was easy set-up and is incredibly simple and easy to use - the pigeon English instructions whilst humorous aren't really necessary as the use and operation is obvious in many respects.

9.10.2013

I bought this spiralizer after purchasing another model that had a design flaw. This one does the job beautifully, cutting extremely cleanly and producing a perfect result. Worth spending the extra money to get a trouble-free product that's manufactured by a known brand. At least in ten years time I'll still be able to buy spare blades - so it will pay for itself in the end. And the product will last that long judging from the materials from which it's made.More critically, I would have liked rubber pads on all four feet rather than just the front two. How mean can you get! At least four rubber feet would give it a better chance to stop sliding around - as it does when you're cutting something.The

29.6.2015

I was really concerned when the package arrived as the box was really small and light!I should not have been worried at all! The spiral cutter is quite small, but pretty robust. It is made of nylon and the blades are really sharp. There are 3 blades and they cut really well.Slight markdown on starts because it is quite hard to hold it still while you are turning the handle. It could really do with some suckers on the feet.I had tried another model before which was a lot bigger - I prefer this one as it fits easily into a small place in the cupboard and doesn't take a huge amount of room!I did a large red cabbage on it - made easy work of it. Despite the dinky size this cutter can cope with every size vegetable.

2.4.2016

I'm so glad I got this. It's so easy and fast to use and really easy to clean. I love the small footprint because it makes it so easy to store and I keep the blades in a pill bottle that just sits underneath it on the shelf. It doesn't do 'fat' spirals but I knew that when I bought it. The vertical design means that it's really easy to apply downward pressure while spiralising. Unlike a horizontal spiraliser this doesn't remove a core from the middle of the vege/fruit so in veges like cucumbers or courgettes you also get the softer, moister core that contains the seeds, which can make the spirals a bit moist.

Benriner CBV04 - Reviews

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