Breville BBL620 Fresh and Furious Blender Review

Breville BBL620 Fresh & Furious Blender is the updated version to the discontinued Breville BBL605XL Hemisphere gadget. America’s Test Kitchen, Culinary Institute of America’s and the number of other publications promote Breville old BBL605XL Hemisphere and new BBL620 Fresh & Furious Blender as the half-priced best alternative to commercial standard machines like Vitamix or Blendtec. No doubts, it attracts consumers. However, even at the glance the comparison is not fair. The Breville BBL620 comes with 1100 watts motor power that is 25-30% less than Vitamix’s power. It has only 3-year Limited Warranty as opposed to the 5-10 years Full Warranty for Vitamix and 8 years for Belndtec models. Some other arguments for the Breville exceptional features are also not completely true.

For this reason, we decided to look closely at this machine and settle if the Breville BBL620 is a valid alternative to the industrial standard blenders.

 Functionality and Versatility

Smoothie: Breville BBL620 Fresh & Furious Blender is able to blend smooth consistency drinks only from soft ingredients. However, it will not completely obliterate apple or pear peeling leaving some residues in the drinks. It will not make smooth smoothies from tough or leafy ingredients like carrot, kale and others but deliver chunky or grainy output. Even blending using the Green Smoothie pre-set program this machine will not deliver smooth liquid from leafy greenies.

This gadget also will not pulverize nuts or dates added to the smoothies but leave the chunks in the drink. Liquefying strawberry or blueberry seeds is also the unattainable task for this blender, it will leave them intact as residues in the drink.

Juicing: Since this machine is not able to produce really smooth smoothie it will not suite for making the “whole juice” also.

Frozen ingredients/desserts: The Breville will shave standard size ice cube into the snow consistency. The maximum amount it can handle it the one standard ice tray or 250g at any one time. So this machine is able to make snow cones or frozen drinks like margaritas.

It will pulverize well only small pieces of frozen ingredients, the user will need to add some liquid to process the large pieces. It is a really challenging task to pulverize frozen fruits within one cycle of pre-set AUTO PULSE/ICE CRUSH program, most likely you have to run it twice.

Soup/ hot ingredients: The BBL620 Fresh & Furious machine is not designed for processing hot ingredients and require to cool them down before the liquefying soup. Therefore, this machine cannot make hot soups heating it via frictions. That is the signature function for proper heavy duty blender, so Breville must be excluded from this category and thus not suited for comparing with Vitamix.

Pureeing: With some efforts, the machine is able to mash boiled potato, steamed parsnip or broccoli but will hardly puree any raw vegetables. Processing any thick texture makes this motor overheating with triggering shut off of the system. The user manual also requires blending all the heavy mixture for less than 10 seconds then stop blender for stirring the ingredients and continue.

Chopping/food prep:  The Breville is quite good at performing light duty job and will easily make the variety of salsa, salad dressing and, marinades recipes. However, to make proper dip it will require adding enough liquid. So the hummus could be done only with enough oil and other liquid added.

Nut milk:  The BBL620 Fresh & Furious machine is not good at processing nuts so you can try it but have to use a nut bag to separate fiber from the liquid for the proper milk quality.

Nut butter: This machine is not strong enough to make nut butter. The nut butter usually requires more power than this blender has (1100 watts), tamper help during the processing that is not included into Breville set. However, you can try to make it with some extra efforts and soaked the nuts but you will need to stop machine during the processing for mixing ingredients.

Grinding/milling: The Breville BBL620 Fresh & Furious machine will grind coffee and soft grains like oats, but it will not make baking quality flour from hard grains like wheat or rice.

Dough/batter: The blender is not designed to knead dough what user manual clearly mentions also.

Although many reviewers claim that the spherical bottom of the Breville pitcher is designed to create proper vortex all the time and this is the distinguishing feature of this blender, in fact, it is not always true. The food is indeed well pulverized at the bottom of the pitcher where it is stacked. There is not enough vortex for pulling the ingredients above the spherical bottom down and thus require to stop gadget and manually mix them with the spatula. It is possible to use pulse function for this purpose, however, it disregards the unique idea of the spherically designed bottom.

In fact, Breville BBL620 Fresh & Furious gadget is light to medium duty blender. It is suitable only fruit smoothies and food prep tasks such as mayonnaise, salad dressing, and other mixers.

Alternatively, check here our articles the Best Blender under $200 – Cheaper Alternative to Vitamix 2019 Guide.

Speed Settings and Programs

Breville BBL620 Fresh & Furious control panel comes with the On/Off button, four pre-set programs, and five speeds. It also has an LCD timer that counts up while five-speed settings are used (showing how many seconds passed) and counts down when four pre-programmed settings run (indicating for how long the set is operated).

ON/OFF button powers the machine into the ready mode or used to stop gadget during processing when needed.

5 speeds – (1) MIX (is the lowest speed and combines and is good for mixing wet and dry ingredients), (2) CHOP, (3) BLEND, (4) PUREE, (5) LIQUEFY (the fastest setting, and is best for breaking down ingredients to make cocktails and other finely blended mixtures). Each of the 5-speed settings is designed to run for up to 120 seconds. After 120 seconds the blender will automatically stop.

Four pre-set programs – AUTO CLEAN, GREEN SMOOTHIE (runs 60 seconds and designed for leafy, soft, hard ingredients and berries), AUTO PULSE/ICE CRUSH (optimised to crush ice, and also good for processing foods that need pulse function, the program has an intelligent sensor to stop the motor when the ice is done) and SMOOTHIES (runs 60 seconds and designed for soft and frozen ingredients).

You can repeat the settings if the blender has not achieved the desired result in one go. If the result is achieved sooner than 60 – 120 seconds, you can press the ON/OFF button to finish the blending. You also can select the speed or pre-set program at any time during the blender processing. Just press the new speed or program, and the blender will change speed or program immediately, its button will illuminate and the previous button illumination will go out. When you change the speed and programs during the processing the Breville BBL620 will automatically turn off at 120 seconds of total running time. Or you can stop it earlier by just pressing ON/OFF button.

The 2 minute maximum blending time is another indication of the light-duty blender, the commercial type machines like Vitamix can run up to 10 min in one go without harm to the system.

Check here today’s best price for the Breville BBL620 Fresh and Furious Blender

Ease of Using and Cleaning

Operating: BBL620 Fresh & Furious machine has the blades permanently inbuilt in the pitcher, so it is very easy to operate. Just place the jar on the base unit, fill it with ingredients, close the lid and run. The lid consists of two pad the lid and the removable cup what allow to add extra ingredients during the blending process. However, blender does not include tamper and requires to stop it from mixing the food or getting rid of air pockets. The air pocket also could be removed using the pulse function.

Cleaning: Like any other blender with inbuilt blade assembly the BBL620 Fresh & Furious Control is really easy to clean. The container is dishwasher safe. It also could be washed using the self-cleaning mode. Just fill the container with the water, add few drops of dish-washing liquid, and run it for 1 minute or less. It is advisable to hold the lid during the self-cleaning procedure because the bubbles may burst the top off.

Base Unit and Motor Power

Although the exterior design of BBL620 Fresh & Furious has the heavy duty die-cast metal base and looks very solid, it is equipped with only 1100 watts motor and the plastic base unit socket for connecting the blade assembly to the drive system. What is obviously a weak side of the construction and questions the claim about the good built and performance of this machine. The blender, as a result, is able to handle only light-medium duty tasks and could not perform any job that is usual for commercial type blenders.

However, the machine is equipped with an overload protector system to prevent overheating the motor and will extend the motor life expectancy. It also has great cord storage that is neatly coiled around the base of the blender.

Containers

The BBL620 Fresh & Furious Blender comes with 50 oz. (6 cups/1.5L) Eastman Tritan copolyester container made from premium quality BPA-free and the lightweight polymer material. It also has clear measuring guides printed on the side. The container is shatterproof, dishwasher safe that can survive repeated dishwasher cleaning. However, the container is not designed to for blending hot liquids what is the obvious drawback for the premium quality jar.

Another negative of the Breville container is the inaccurate design of spout that tends to splash the poured liquids after blending. And the lid fitted not very securely at the pitcher and keeps pulling off during blending.

Blades

The Breville BBL620 Fresh & Furious designed with the blade assembly semi-permanently attached to the container but it could be removed with a special wrench if needed. The blades are strong and made from the surgical grade stainless steel to ensure them stay sharp for longer. The blades are constructed as 6-prong with two of them wide and straight, another four with serrated edges with medium and small teeth. The blades, bearing assembly and drive nut is also all-metal with a couple of rubber sealing. The blades and all assembly are well made and good quality.

Special Features

Colors: BBL620 Fresh & Furious machine is available in stainless steel color only.

Certified Refurbished: There is no certified refurbished blender is available for these models at present.

Use in countries outside of USA/Canada: The Breville BBL620 Fresh & Furious sold in the USA equipped with 110-120 voltage system. It is possible to use it in 220-240 voltage system countries over the voltage transformer. However, this machine is available to buy in many countries over local retailers so it is better to buy it locally and use over transformer if the user needs to take it abroad for a short period of time only.

Noise

The BBL620 Fresh & Furious machine is a loud blender despite the fact it has not extremely powerful motor (1100 w). It outputs around 80 at low speed to 95 at high-speed decibels what is comparable to the sound from the passing diesel truck.

Warranty and Customer Service

Breville BBL620 Fresh & Furious comes with only 3-year Limited warranty what is rather short for the blender that tries to compete with high-end blenders and cost nearly $200. The Breville is quite good at replacing faulty units but if you decide to return the machine they will charge usually $40 fee.

The Customer Service is not very helpful and ones the warranty period is passed they unlikely to offer helpful solutions to the customer.

Optional Accessories and Attachments

There is no extra attachment and accessories available for this blender. There is only available replacement pitcher to buy from the manufacturer or different retailers.

Set Includes

• Base unit with 1100 watts motor;
• 50 oz Tritan copolyester rounded container and inbuilt blade assembly;
• Lid with measuring cup;
• Breville Instruction Book and recipes card

Dimensions

The Breville BBL620 Fresh & Furious gadget will not occupy much of your counter space. It has quite a compact 6.9 inches x 8.5 inches base unit footprint and height of only 17.2 inches what allow to fit the machine under the standard kitchen cabinet.

The total weight of the assembled machine is 8.4 pounds, which is quite light for the machine, especially with the metal base unit coating. No wonder this machine is not very stable during operation and may move across the counter especially when blending on the high speed. The Machine no doubt will move over the counter during operation because of the very light weight of it.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Breville BBL620 Fresh & Furious Blender has a sleek and modern design with the die-cast base unit enclosure.
• The machine equipped with good quality blade assembly;
• Breville BBL620 Fresh & Furious machine comes with inbuilt into the container blade assembly what makes this machine very easy to use and clean.

Cons:

• The Breville BBL620 Fresh & Furious machine is rather overpriced for the medium-duty blender with only 1100 watts motor;
• The blender is fairly noisy;
• It comes without tamper;
• The machine does not blend all the ingredient smoothly and easily and requires to stop it from time to time to mix the ingredients manually for easier blending;
• The BBL620 Fresh & Furious machine comes with quite a short only 3-year limited warranty;
• Although the blender was designed in Australia, it was manufactured in China, so it has durability issues typical for China outsourced appliances.

Check our article the Best Blender under $200 – Is There Really Cheaper Alternative to Vitamix?

Breville BBL620 Consumer Reviews

This blender has the very good recommendation from America’s Test Kitchen and other reputable reviewers so it has also may have the favorable reviews from the customers what is quite common when the heavy advertisement usually accompanied by the positive reviews from customer no matter how good the product in reality.

The Amazon rating varies from 4.4.

Price

The price for the Breville BBL620 Fresh & Furious Blender is stable for majority retailers at around $190.This model it quite new and have no certified refurbished model yet available, so no chance to buy it much cheaper than average retail price.

Check here today’s best price for the Breville BBL620 Fresh and Furious Blender

Summary

Even the Breville BBL620 Fresh & Furious Blender is a better version than old BBL605XL Hemisphere with more 1100 watts powerful but is not as excellent as the many reviews suggest. It handles ice crushing, makes good smoothest but not silky like Vitamix, good at chopping and mixing job but is not able to handle tough and leafy ingredients in smoothies. Advertisement insists that it pulls the contents towards the blades for homogeneous blending but this is not always true. It might be a very good machine with a price tag under $100 but it is unreasonably overpriced and certainly under-perform for the machine that costs $200.

Alternatively, check here our articles the Best Blender under $200 – Cheaper Alternative to Vitamix 2019 Guide.