KitchenAid KSB4027 K400 Countertop Blender Review

This new KitchenAid KSB4027 K400 Coun­ter­top Blender, released by the icon­ic 100-year brand just recent­ly in mid-2019, is undoubt­ed­ly shin­ing out.

It has not only an attrac­tive vin­tage exte­ri­or design but also a pow­er­ful 1.5HP motor and is avail­able in a wide range of col­ors. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, while the KitchenAid brand has an excep­tion­al rep­u­ta­tion for pro­duc­ing high-qual­i­ty kitchen appli­ances, it does not have a wide choice of high-end blenders. Any­way, this blender has promis­ing potential.

Here is our hon­est review, which must reveal this gad­get’s pros and cons.

Are you also inter­est­ed in alter­na­tive options? Check here our articles:

• Best Blender for Smooth­ies and More – Buy­ing Guide 2020
• Best Blender under $200 – Is There Cheap­er Alter­na­tive to Vitamix?

Dis­clo­sure: As an Ama­zon Asso­ciate, we may earn an affil­i­ate com­mis­sion for pur­chas­es you make using the links on this page.

Functionality and Versatility

Smooth­ie: This machine does a great job on smooth­ies. It blends into smooth drinks, even the tough­est ingre­di­ents like kale, car­rot, spinach, broc­coli, and oth­ers. It han­dles berries and berries seeds quite well but may leave some unblend­ed ones from time to time. The blender also makes excel­lent milkshakes.

Juices: No blender can extract text­book juice that is sup­posed to sep­a­rate liq­uids from the fiber. But this machine is capa­ble of blend­ing very smooth smooth­ies with added liq­uids, aka “Whole Juice,” using vari­able speeds.

Crush­ing Ice/Frozen desserts: KitchenAid K400 Blender crush­es ice bril­liant­ly with and with­out liq­uid added. This gad­get pul­ver­izes it total­ly in smooth­ies. The machine also can crush ice into the snow con­sis­ten­cy, so it eas­i­ly makes snow cones, ice cream, and oth­er frozen treats using the pulse func­tion or pre-set Ice Crush program.

It is also designed to blend high-qual­i­ty slush­es, mud­slides, and frozen cock­tails uti­liz­ing the vari­able speeds or pre-pro­grammed Icy Drink function.

Nut milk: The blender is pow­er­ful enough to homog­e­nize nuts and rice to pro­duce nut or rice milk. It is also able to make deli­cious coconut milk. The user will need to strain the homog­e­nized liq­uid through the nut bag to achieve the best milk consistency.

Puree­ing: This machine han­dles quite well the thick mix­ture and will make decent mashed pota­toes, hum­mus, and a range of deep recipes. It is also suit­ed for mak­ing baby foods. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the gad­get does not come with a tam­per, so you may need to stop the machine from mix­ing the stub­born ingre­di­ents or use the impro­vised tamper.

Soup/ hot ingre­di­ents: The KitchenAid K400 Blender is NOT designed to make hot soup from uncooked ingre­di­ents by heat­ing the liq­uid con­tent via blade fric­tion. How­ev­er, it is per­fect­ly capa­ble of homog­e­niz­ing cooled ingre­di­ents to the soIn addi­tion, this gad­get comes with a vent­ed lid capa­ble of han­dling hot liq­uid and will be suit­able for pro­duc­ing bul­let­proof coffee.

Chopping/food prep: The machine comes with enough speed options and Pulse func­tion, so it can blend the widest range of ingre­di­ents and achieve the appro­pri­ate tex­ture of the food prep recipes such as hol­landaise, sal­ad dress­ings, home­made vinai­grette, sal­sas, and sal­ad dress­ing. The machine also chops nut and grates cheese quite well.

Nut but­ter: Although the KitchenAid K400 Blender gad­get does not come with a tam­per, it is capa­ble of mak­ing cashew, almond, peanut, and oth­er types of nut but­ter. Yet, you may need to stop machines dur­ing pro­cess­ing to stir thick mix­tures with spoonu­la when required.

Grinding/milling: It is designed to grind cof­fee beans and herbs. It has enough pow­er to turn the soft oats or hard rice grains into good bak­ing qual­i­ty powder.

Dough/batter: It will mix the bat­ter and not knead the dough.

This machine is tru­ly ver­sa­tile and out­puts a very good qual­i­ty of blend­ing. On aver­age, it homog­e­nizes the fruit and veg­eta­bles with 85–90% effi­cien­cy of Vita­mix or Blendtec.

Speed Settings and Programs

This machine con­trol pan­el looks delight­ful­ly min­i­mal­is­tic and fea­tures only a dial knob and

START/STOP but­ton with LED ring. The dial knob regulates:

• Pulse function,
• Five (5) vari­able speeds,
• Four (4) pre-set pro­grams (Ice Crush, Icy Drinks, Smooth­ie, and Clean).

The speed num­bers, pulse mode, and all four pre-sets are depict­ed around the dial knob.

To acti­vate blender man­u­als’ speeds, the user must turn the dial to the desired speed posi­tion and press START/STOP to start run­ning. The man­u­al speeds will stop auto­mat­i­cal­ly after 3 mins, or you can stop it ear­li­er by push­ing the START/STOP button.

The pulse func­tion is acti­vat­ed by mov­ing the dial to the Pulse posi­tion and hold­ing it until need­ed. It could be acti­vat­ed only when the blender oper­ates on one of the vari­able speeds and will pulse at the cho­sen speed only.

To acti­vate the pre-set pro­gram user has to turn the dial to the need­ed pre-set pro­gram posi­tion (Ice Crush, Icy Drinks, Smooth­ie, or Clean) and then push the START/STOP but­ton. The cycle will auto­mat­i­cal­ly start and stop at the end of the cycle. The user can also stop it before the time by press­ing the START/STOP but­ton. All pre-set pro­grams are opti­mized for each pro­gram and oper­at­ed at dif­fer­ent dura­tions and speeds, alter­nat­ing with pulsing.

For exam­ple, the Ice Crush pro­gram lasts 30 sec and chops ice even with­out adding any liq­uid ingre­di­ents; this pro­gram is able to bring the ingre­di­ents to a snow-like con­sis­ten­cy. While the smooth­ie pre-set runs for 45 sec­onds, it puls­es the con­tent before ramp­ing up to the high speed. The Icy Drink pre-set grad­u­al­ly ramps up to full pow­er and blends hard food; it is set to 30 sec­onds dura­tion. The Clean pro­grams alter­nate puls­ing and high speed for 13 seconds.

Ease of Using and Cleaning

Oper­at­ing: KitchenAid KSB4027 K400 Blender, like any oth­er blender with the blade assem­bly inbuilt into the jar, is extreme­ly easy to use and clean. The user just has to place the jar on the top of the base unit, fill it with ingre­di­ents, place the lid on it, and be ready to run.

The machine does not have any lock­ing mech­a­nism to fix the jar to the base. But it has a very safe con­struc­tion when the jar sits on the gear with the guard­ed perime­ter. So there is no chance it will come off dur­ing the operation.

Clean­ing: The KitchenAid pitch­er with the inbuilt blade is designed to be cleaned in a self-clean­ing pro­ce­dure, which is very easy. It requires fill­ing the jar halfway with the warm water, adding a few drops of wash­ing liq­uid, and set­ting the Clean pro­gram. Then rinse and dry with a cloth. It is typ­i­cal for heavy-duty blenders with an inbuilt blade assem­bly. You can also wash it by hand.

There are only a lid and 48 oz. glass con­tain­ers are dish­wash­er safe on the top and low rack, respectively.

Base Unit and Motor Power

The KitchenAid KSB4027 K400 Blender has a styl­ish and retro design and comes with a sol­id die-cast met­al base unit and a pow­er­ful 1.5HP at-peak motor. No doubt, it is capa­ble of per­form­ing heavy-duty tasks.

The motor seems to be well made. The cus­tomers report­ed no design flaws by now, and no sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of blender users com­plained regard­ing motor fail­ure. More­over, the blade-to-motor cou­pling also looks quite reli­able with all parts, includ­ing the sock­et dri­ve, splined shaft, and blades made of met­al. That indi­cat­ed that the motor must be durable, but still, it could be con­firmed only with time.

The blender is also equipped with a motor pro­tec­tion sys­tem that auto­mat­i­cal­ly stops the machine when the motor is over­loaded and pro­tects it from an ear­ly death. If the shut­off was trig­gered, the machine oper­a­tion could be resumed after 15 min­utes by switch­ing the Reset/Power Switch, locat­ed on the base’s right-hand side. This switch also could be used to switch off the machine when it is not oper­at­ed with­out a need to unplug it.

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Containers

Jars: The KitchenAid KSB4027 K400 comes with a square shape of 56 oz. BPA-free poly­car­bon­ate con­tain­er. It is impact and tem­per­a­ture resis­tant and can han­dle hot tem­per­a­tures up to 208F, and is almost impos­si­ble to break. The jar has a com­fort­able, rub­ber­ized han­dle and a very thick rub­ber lid. It also has to mea­sure marks in ounces and cups on the side of the wall. The jar is pre­mi­um qual­i­ty and has no issues with leaking.

There are also pack­ages avail­able with 48 oz. strong and tem­per­a­ture-resis­tant Borosil­i­cate Glass container.

Lid: The machine is also equipped with a very thick rub­ber vent­ed lid that cre­ates a strong seal and is quite unlike­ly to fly off dur­ing blend­ing, but it may be a bit dif­fi­cult to take it off after use. An open­ing of 2.0 inch­es in the lid is designed for vent­ing when pro­cess­ing hot food and could be removed to add extra ingre­di­ents dur­ing blending.

Tam­per: The pack­age with 56 oz. the plas­tic jar does not include the tam­per, while the pack­age with 48 oz. Glass includes a cus­tom-built tam­per designed to help process thick mix­es and remove air pock­ets or push stub­born ingre­di­ents down. The tam­per is a very use­ful tool when blend­ing nut but­ter, frozen desserts, or var­i­ous spread recipes.

Blades

This machine comes with blade assem­bly per­ma­nent­ly inbuilt into the con­tain­er, which is com­mon for heavy-duty com­mer­cial-type blenders. The blades are 4‑prongs and an asym­met­ric blade that blends at four dis­tinct angles. They are sharp and made of stain­less. Over­all, the blades and assem­bly are well made and look durable.

Special Features

Col­ors: It is avail­able in a wide range of col­or solu­tions – mat­te black, con­tour sil­ver, pas­sion red, pis­ta­chio, blue vel­vet, white, and ink blue.

Cer­ti­fied Refur­bished: There are cur­rent­ly no cer­ti­fied refur­bished mod­els for this blender.

Use in coun­tries out­side of USA/Canada: This machine comes with a 110–120 volt­age sys­tem for use in the USA and Cana­da and 220–240 for Euro­pean, Asian coun­tries, Aus­tralia and New Zealand via local dis­trib­u­tors of KitchenAid products.

Set Includes

• • 5HP motor base with vari­able speed and pre-set pro­grams con­trol panel;
  • 56 oz. polycarbonate/or 48 or glass con­tain­er with inbuilt blade assem­bly and 2 parts vent­ed lid;
  • Cus­tom tam­per For glass con­tain­er pack­age only);
  • User man­u­al;
  • Get start­ed with a quick start guide.

The pack­age does not include any recipe book.

Warranty and Customer Service

KitchenAid KSB4027 K400 Coun­ter­top Blender is assem­bled in the USA and comes with a 5‑year full war­ran­ty, which con­firms KitchenAid brand qual­i­ty and dura­bil­i­ty. The full war­ran­ty means that it cov­ers the machine’s basic wear and tear can expect.

The KitchenAid cus­tomer ser­vice is well known for its excel­lent support.

Noise

This machine is loud, con­sid­er­ing the pow­er­ful motor like most pow­er­ful blenders. It out­puts approx­i­mate­ly 94–100 deci­bels. The noise lev­el huge­ly depends on the ingre­di­ents you process.

The stan­dard advice for peo­ple sen­si­tive to noise – place the rub­ber pad under­neath the base unit, which will also reduce the loud­ness of the blender.

Optional Accessories and Attachments

There are the fol­low­ing addi­tion­al acces­sories and attach­ments avail­able for the machine:

• 16-oz Per­son­al Blender Jar Expan­sion Pack for KitchenAid K400 Blenders. It includes a sin­gle-serve cup, the blade assem­bly, and a resal­able, screw-on lid for easy drinking.
• 6‑oz. Small Batch Jar Expan­sion Pack for KitchenAid K400 Blenders. It includes this 6‑oz. Small Batch Jar, the blade assem­bly, and a sealed lid to store the blend­ed food in the same container.
• 32 oz. capac­i­ty Cit­rus juice ream­er attach­ment. It con­verts your blender into an elec­tric cit­rus juicer machine.
• 48 oz. glass container.

You can also buy replace­ment parts from blender retail­ers or the man­u­fac­tur­er’s cus­tomer service.

The KitchenAid K400 Blender Dimensions

This blender is not huge and will not take up much of the counter space in the user’s kitchen. Its foot­print mea­sures 9.02 x 7.59 inch­es only. With a height of x 15.80 inch­es, this machine must fit under the stan­dard kitchen cab­i­net. How­ev­er, it is a bit heavy — 14.7 pounds. The machine comes with the unit base cord stor­ing feature.

This machine-based unit is very heavy and will not move over the counter dur­ing processing.

KitchenAid KSB4027 K400 Blender Pros and Cons

Pros:

• The Jam­ba Appli­ances 2.4 HP out­puts very good qual­i­ty blend­ed drinks, includ­ing the green smooth­ies, which are com­pa­ra­ble to Vitamix;
• This machine is tru­ly ver­sa­tile and able to per­form the range of tasks usu­al for the major­i­ty of heavy-duty com­mer­cial type blenders;
• It has a sleek look with a heavy-duty die-cast met­al base unit;
• The machine is well made and comes with the qual­i­ty jar, blades, and all-met­al motor to blade cou­pling, which indi­cates that it must be durable;
• The gad­get has a range of option­al acces­sories that expand the blender’s versatility.
• It comes with a 5‑year full war­ran­ty that con­firms its durability.

Cons:

• The poly­car­bon­ate con­tain­er mod­el does not come with a tamper.

The KitchenAid K400 Blender Blender Consumer Reviews

A major­i­ty of the retail­ers well rates this machine. It is a new blender, and being on the mar­ket for over a year, it does not have many reviews. How­ev­er, most users find this machine very ver­sa­tile and well-made.

KitchenAid KSB4027 K400 Blender Price

The price for this machine fluc­tu­ates with dif­fer­ent retail­ers and is usu­al­ly around the price for good Vita­mix clone machines. Often, the unit is avail­able for a dis­count­ed price with some retail­ers. Prob­a­bly the man­u­fac­tur­er wants to get more reviews and win some pop­u­lar­i­ty among the con­sumers before set­ting the final price. Ama­zon offers the best dis­count for this machine most of the time.

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Summary

KitchenAid KSB4027 K400 Coun­ter­top Blender is a solid­ly built blender with a lux­u­ri­ous retro look and die-cast met­al base unit. It deliv­ers high-qual­i­ty blend­ing with excel­lent tex­ture. This machine is well-con­struct­ed and has no obvi­ous flaws. Apart from that, it is desir­able to have a cus­tom-made tam­per for heavy-duty pro­cess­ing. The blender could be a decent alter­na­tive to Vita­mix and join the club of oth­er Vita­mix copy­cat new­com­ers who are ambi­tious to com­pete with old and rep­utable brands.

Over­all, KitchenAid KSB4027 K400 Blender is an excel­lent option for those look­ing for an afford­able heavy-duty, durable machine from a rep­utable brand with a sol­id 5‑year Full warranty.

Are you also inter­est­ed in alter­na­tive options? Check here our articles:

• Best Blender for Smooth­ies and More – Buy­ing Guide 2020
• Best Blender under $200 – Is There Cheap­er Alter­na­tive to Vitamix?