Gastroback vital mixer
Rating: 7/10
- Power: 850W
- Dimensions: (W)17.5cm x (D) 18.5cm x (H) 39.5cm
- Capacity: 1.5l
- Colours: Silver
- Guarantee: Two years
Design and features
The Gastroback vital mixer is designed like most upright jug style blenders, whereby a large bladed jug sits atop a main power unit. In this case, the jug is made from heat and cold-resistant glass and has a 1.5l capacity, while the blending section is made from six super sharp stainless steel blades. Gastroback says that the blender can be used as an ice crusher (a big claim) as well as to whisk, chop, shake and mix up anything from smoothies to purees and spice pastes to cocktails with its 850W power.
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The blender unit is made from brushed stainless steel and features non-slip feet to keep the machine in place. Place the jug blender on top of the power unit and load up your ingredients (recipes can be found using the QR code supplied) and you’re ready to get whizzy. You can select from two manual speeds or go for the pulse function via the manual dial on the front of the motor.
The lid also has a handy opening slot so you can add more ingredients or liquids to your concoctions without stopping the blend function. Once you’re satisfied with the mix, the jug has a pourable spout for easy serving of soups and smoothies. To wash up stubborn residues, warm water and detergent can be added to the jug and mixed quickly before rinsing by hand, while the power unit can be easily wiped with a soft cloth.
Performance
OK, so things like protein smoothies, banana milkshakes and blitzing up soups and sauces are no problem at all for this machine. In this sense, it outperforms all the budget blenders we’ve tried in this same style, and a lot of this is down to its fairly powerful 850W motor – impressive for the price point. But soft sweet potato soups, berries and powders aren’t enough to wow us; we need to see how it takes care of the crushed ice.
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We’re going to be really honest: this machine is no match for the Vitamix (£599, Vitamixuk.com) or the triple figure price machines when it comes to ice. Load up the jug with ice cubes and the blender doesn’t do so well; we found ourselves having to manually dislodge cubes from the blades and shake the whole jug up and down.
However, if you take care not to overload the jug, it works better (and we mean better, but not brilliantly). For what we’d call good ice crushing ability you’ll need to add a significant amount of liquid in there too. Iced lattes, frozen margaritas and granitas all work, but go heavy on the juice and coffee for the best effects. This isn’t ideal, but for the price – a mere £54.90 – it’s pretty good and outperforms all your Nutribullets and similarly priced blenders.
It works really well on hard veg and chops things evenly, quickly and not too loudly, but you’ll find some manual intervention may be required for trickier ingredients like nut butters or claggy foods like pate. We made a tasty hummus without the usual shaking and worries that the blender motor would pack up, but it did need the sides scraping down in between rounds of blending.