Oster Versa 1100-watt Professional Performance Blender Review

The Oster Ver­sa 1100-watt (BLSTVB-103–000) Blender is often con­fused with the Oster VERSA Pro 1400-watt (BLSTVB-RV0), which is more pow­er­ful and could be con­sid­ered a cheap­er alter­na­tive for Vita­mix. Even though the 1100 watts mod­el is less pow­er­ful but it is equipped not only with a tra­di­tion­al blend­ing con­tain­er but an addi­tion­al food proces­sor and sin­gle-serve attach­ments that make this machine a ver­sa­tile kitchen appliance.

Read More: Nin­ja BN801 Pro­fes­sion­al Plus Kitchen Sys­tem Review 

Read our review to get famil­iar with all pros and cons of this very good machine.

How­ev­er, sup­pose you are not sure about this blender. In that case, you can alter­na­tive­ly check our arti­cle Best Blender under $200 – Cheap­er Alter­na­tive to Vita­mix 2017 Guide or Oster Ver­sa 1100-watt (BLSTVB-103–000) Blender vs. Nutri Nin­ja Auto-IQ Com­pact Sys­tem BL942/BL492.

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

Functionality and Versatility

The 64 oz. jar, sin­gle-serve, and food proces­sor attach­ments with appro­pri­ate blade assem­blies allow the Oster Ver­sa 1100-watt (BLSTVB-103–000) Blender to per­form a vari­ety of tasks.

Smooth­ie: The 64 jar and sin­gle-serve attach­ments make smooth drinks from soft, rigid, or leafy ingre­di­ents. It is also per­fect­ly suit­able for green smooth­ies and will process kale or spinach stems with­out crunchy pieces left. How­ev­er, it can­not com­plete­ly homog­e­nize the straw­ber­ry, blue­ber­ry, or rasp­ber­ry seeds in the drinks; you will find some seeds unprocessed. How­ev­er, it process­es nuts, chia, and flax seeds well in drinks.

Juice: This machine does not come with any juic­ing attach­ment; thus is not able to make the clas­sic juice by sep­a­rat­ing the liq­uid from fiber, but it is quite capa­ble of pro­duc­ing very smooth drinks, aka “whole juice.”

Frozen ingredients/desserts: This machine is also very good at pro­cess­ing ice, and frozen ingre­di­ents in smooth­ies and slush­es with­out any chunks left. It is also able to crush ice into snow-like con­sis­ten­cy with­out liq­uid added, but you have to add up to 6 large ice cubes and process with the pulse func­tion until the desired result. Thus, this blender is per­fect for mak­ing sor­bet, ice cream, and oth­er frozen desserts. The recipe book that comes with the unit also includes sor­bet and slushies recipes.

Soup/ hot ingre­di­ents: The Oster Ver­sa 1100-watt (BLSTVB-103–000) will not heat liq­uid via fric­tion, but you can process hot liq­uids in this blender, and it is equipped with a filler cap that allows vent­ing steam. Thus the blender is per­fect­ly safe to process ingre­di­ents from the stove or pre­pare bul­let­proof coffee.

Puree­ing: The S‑blades that come with the food proces­sor attach­ment with con­tin­u­ous speed are per­fect for mash­ing pota­toes, puree­ing baby food, or churn­ing out pesto and hum­mus. In addi­tion, the food proces­sor attach­ment eas­i­ly han­dles cooked veg­eta­bles and soft uncooked ingredients.

Chopping/food prep: The food proces­sor attach­ment with the s‑blades and slic­ing disc and using pulse func­tion, low and medi­um con­tin­u­ous speeds, or Dip/Salsa pre-set pro­gram allows to shred, slice, mix/chop food effi­cient­ly for a vari­ety of recipes.

Shred disc will also slice veg­gies, shred­ded cheese, car­rots, cab­bage for slaw, and a crunchy sal­ad or slice 0.25 inch­es thick pota­toes for fries.

Nut milk: The Oster Ver­sa 1100-watt (BLSTVB-103–000) machine is pow­er­ful enough to make excel­lent qual­i­ty nut milk. You may need a nut bag to strain the liq­uid for the best result.

Nut but­ter: This machine is able to make creamy nut but­ter using a food proces­sor attach­ment with s‑blades on low or medi­um con­tin­u­ous speeds. The cook­book that comes with the blender includes a recipe for Peanut But­ter, Agave Almond But­ter, Hazel Nut Spread, Maple Nut But­ter, Cocoa- Hazel­nut Spread, and Coconut Macadamia Butter.

Dough/batter: The Oster Ver­sa 1100-watt (BLSTVB-103–000) does not include any dough-mak­ing attach­ment and thus is not designed for dough/batter kneading.

Grinding/milling: This blender is able to han­dle dry ingre­di­ents like lentils, oats, or rice using pulse to make good qual­i­ty flour. It is also can ground spices or grind down the cof­fee to an espres­so grind.

The Oster Ver­sa 1100-watt (BLSTVB-103–000) Blender is designed to per­form a vari­ety of tasks. The food proces­sor that includes s‑blades and shred discs adds a lot of ver­sa­til­i­ty to the machine and allows them to shred, slice, and mix/chop food. So the pulse func­tion must be used for mix­ing and chop­ping food while at con­tin­u­ous speed for blend­ing and pureeing.

Speed Settings and Programs

The Oster Ver­sa 1100-watt is equipped with an On/Off but­ton, pulse and reverse blend tog­gles, two pre-set pro­grams (Dip/Salsa and Smoothie/Frozen Drink), and 3 speeds (Low, Medi­um, and High) reg­u­lat­ed by a dial knob. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the blender does not have con­tin­u­ous speed incre­ments, and if you move the dial in between Low-Medi­um or Medi­um-High speeds, it just oper­ates at the low­er speed.

The On/Off but­ton acti­vates the blender and stops the con­tin­u­ous cycle when it oper­ates at one of the three speeds. The pre-set pro­grams are auto­mat­i­cal­ly shut off at the end of the cycle or could be man­u­al­ly stopped with the On/Off but­ton before the pre-set time.

Pulse and reverse blend func­tions are acti­vat­ed by press­ing the tog­gle. These func­tions are very use­ful for remov­ing air pock­ets when blend­ing thick ingredients.

The 64 oz. jar and sin­gle-serve attach­ment are designed to be used with all func­tions the blender is equipped with, while the food proces­sor attach­ment can be used only with low and medi­um speed and pulse functions.

Ease of Using and Cleaning

The Oster Ver­sa 1100-watt (BLSTVB-103–000) Blender comes with 3 attach­ments, and each has its assembling/disassembling procedure.

Blender: The blender jar is equipped with remov­able blades; thus, it takes some effort to assem­ble. First, con­nect the blade assem­bly to the jar with the seal­ing ring in between, screw in the cap tight­ly to pre­vent leak­ing. Next, place the jar with blade assem­bly on the base unit; it does not have any lock­ing sys­tem but sits very secure­ly. Then fill the jar with ingre­di­ents, place the two-part lid on a place, and it is ready to run.

The jar lid is equipped with a cap that has a few pur­pos­es. It could be removed to add some extra ingre­di­ents dur­ing blend­ing; it can release steam when blend­ing the hot food and could be used as a wrench to fasten/unfasten the blade assem­bly to the jar. How­ev­er, some cus­tomers com­plain that the blade assem­bly could be dif­fi­cult to screw/unscrew, and they do not pay atten­tion to the user man­u­al, which clear­ly explains the addi­tion­al func­tion­al­i­ty of the cap/wrench.

Tam­per: This machine does not include any tam­per, but it is equipped with the reverse blend func­tion that removes air pock­ets and helps with vor­tex when blend­ing tough and thick ingre­di­ents. How­ev­er, it is pos­si­ble to buy the tam­per sep­a­rate­ly for this machine from the Oster website.

Sin­gle-serve attach­ment assembling/disassembling: It is more or less the same as the 64 oz. jar and includes adding ingre­di­ents to the cup and screw­ing the blades to the cup (with a seal­ing ring) using the fix­ing cup. Just place it on the base unit, and is ready to run.

Food proces­sor assembling/disassembling: The Oster Ver­sa 1100-watt (BLSTVB-103–000) Blender comes with one bowl, the assem­bly shaft, the s‑blades, the slic­ing disc, and the lid. The food proces­sor attach­ment is quite easy to assemble/disassemble. It just requires con­nect­ing the assem­bly shaft to the bowl, con­nect­ing the s‑blades or slice disc to the shaft, lock­ing the lid by match­ing the arrows on the lid and the bowl, and turn­ing it until clicks, so it is locked. And it is ready to operate.

Clean­ing: The Oster Ver­sa 1100-watt (BLSTVB-103–000) Blender is quite easy to clean; all the con­tain­ers are dish­wash­er safe and most of the blade assem­bly is hand washed only it is not a prob­lem to clean with the soap and brush. The con­tain­ers with blades are also could be washed in a self-clean­ing way. Just add some dish soap to the con­tain­er with half of the water, run it on a med and high speed, and then rinse it out in the sink or with a cloth.

Base Unit and Motor Power

This Oster Ver­sa 1100-watt (BLSTVB-103–000) Blender is equipped with a pow­er­ful 1100 watts motor, a max­i­mum of 28,000 RPM, and all-met­al dri­ve con­struc­tion. So, the gear attached to the motor and all the parts of the blade assem­bly is met­al. That ensures good qual­i­ty and dura­bil­i­ty of the sys­tem. Besides, the motor is equipped with an auto­mat­ic shut­off sys­tem that stops the machine when it is over­loaded and thus ensures that it will not die prematurely.

Although made from plas­tic, the base for the machine is of good qual­i­ty and seems well-made and durable.

Containers

The Oster Ver­sa 1100-watt (BLSTVB-103–000) Blender comes in 3 containers:

• The 64 oz. main jar with lid and cap that allows adding extra ingre­di­ents dur­ing blend­ing or releas­ing steam when blend­ing hot foods;
• The 5 cups (40 oz.) food proces­sor bowl, plas­tic lid, and food pusher;
• Two 20 oz. sin­gle-serve cups with two blend–and-go lids that fit most car cup holders;

The 64 oz. the con­tain­er is made of pre­mi­um qual­i­ty shat­ter-proofed and tem­per­a­ture-resis­tant Tri­tan copoly­ester mate­r­i­al has clear mark­ings and a soft-grip han­dle. The oth­er con­tain­ers are also made from qual­i­ty strong poly­car­bon­ate with­out any crack­ing problems.

Blades

This Oster Ver­sa 1100-watt (BLSTVB-103–000) Blender comes with 2 sets of remov­able blades and food proces­sor blades assembly:

• The blade assem­bly for the 64 oz. pitch­er includes 4‑point stain­less steel qual­i­ty blades, a seal­ing gas­ket, and a fix­ing cap;
• The sep­a­rate small­er in-diam­e­ter blade assem­bly for 20 oz. sin­gle serve attach­ment, which also includes 4‑point stain­less steel qual­i­ty blades, seal­ing gas­ket, and fix­ing cap;
• The blade assem­bly for 40 oz. The food proces­sor bowl includes a razor-sharp stain­less steel S‑type blade, assem­bly shaft, and stain­less steel slicing/shredding disc.

All blades are made of durable and qual­i­ty stain­less steel. Both caps that screw the blades to the con­tain­ers are plas­tic and also well-made.

Special Features

Col­ors: The Oster Ver­sa 1100-watt (BLSTVB-103–000) Blender is avail­able in one col­or: a black base with red trim­ming on the 64 oz. con­tain­er and to-go lids.

Cer­ti­fied Refur­bished: There is no cer­ti­fied refur­bished machine avail­able for this model.

Use in coun­tries out­side of USA/Canada: The machine comes with a 110–120 volt­age sys­tem and is suit­able for USA/Canada and oth­er coun­tries with an appro­pri­ate volt­age. This machine is cur­rent­ly not cur­rent­ly avail­able with a 220–240 volts sys­tem; how­ev­er, it could be used in oth­er coun­tries via a volt­age transformer.

Noise

Oster Ver­sa 1100-watt (BLSTVB-103–000) Blender is quite a loud machine that out­puts approx­i­mate­ly 95–100 deci­bels. The usu­al advice to reduce the noise out­put is to place the rub­ber mat under­neath the blender base unit.

War­ran­ty and Cus­tomer Service

The Oster Ver­sa 1100-watt Pro­fes­sion­al Per­for­mance comes with 7 years lim­it­ed war­ran­ty for the blender parts and a life­time sat­is­fac­tion guar­an­tee on the all-met­al dri­ve. Such a gen­er­ous war­ran­ty ensures its good qual­i­ty and dura­bil­i­ty. Although the lim­it­ed means that the machine ser­vice may imply extra ship­ping and repair charges, Oster’s cus­tomer ser­vice has a very good rep­u­ta­tion and does not over­charge its customers.

For Oster to hon­or the war­ran­ty, the cus­tomer should reg­is­ter it and keep the orig­i­nal proof of pur­chase. The war­ran­ty is not trans­fer­able and valid only for the orig­i­nal purchase.

Optional Accessories and Attachments

There are quite a few replace­ments and extra acces­sories avail­able for the Oster Ver­sa 1100-watt (BLSTVB-103–000) Blender via the man­u­fac­tur­er’s web­site or oth­er online retailers:

• The Oster Ver­sa 1100-watt replace­ment con­tain­ers (64 oz., 20 oz, and 40 oz. bowl), blades, gas­kets, and lid;
• The tam­per could be bought sep­a­rate­ly for this mod­el (although it is not includ­ed in the set);
• The Oster Ver­sa 1100-watt (BLSTVB-103–000) is also com­pat­i­ble with a Mason jar that could be used with sin­gle-serve attach­ment blades;
• Some ice-crush­ing and milk­shake blades are com­pat­i­ble with this model.

Set Includes

• 64 oz. (8 cups) main jar
• 64 oz. jar blade assem­bly (gas­ket and fix­ing collar);
• Lid and cup with the role of blade fix­ing wrench;
• Two 20 oz. per­son­al blender cups;
• 20 oz. cups blade assem­bly (gas­ket and fix­ing collar);
• 5 cups (40 oz.) food proces­sor bowl
• Food push­er and cov­er for food processor;
• Blade shaft to use with the cut­ting disc (slice and shred functions);
• S‑type blade for food processor;
• Recipe Book;
• Instruc­tion manual.

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Dimensions

The Oster Ver­sa 1100-watt (BLSTVB-103–000) Blender foot­print is not big and mea­sures only 8 inch­es x 9 inch­es. The total height of the machine with the lid and 64 oz. con­tain­er on the top of the base unit is 17.5 inch­es. The machine weighs only 7 pounds and thus usu­al­ly trav­els over the counter dur­ing the operation.

The only prob­lem with this machine is that it comes with many attach­ments and requires con­sid­er­able space for storage.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• The Oster Ver­sa 1100-watt (BLSTVB-103–000) Blender is a pow­er­ful and ver­sa­tile machine;
• The machine pro­duces good qual­i­ty smooth­ies, includ­ing green ones;
• The sin­gle-serve cups’ to-go lids are no doubt a plus to any blender;
• The food proces­sor also out­puts decent performance;
• The Oster Ver­sa 1100-watt (BLSTVB-103–000) Blender is a well-built machine with an all-met­al blade to dri­ve coupling;
• The 7 years war­ran­ty con­firms the dura­bil­i­ty of the blender.

Cons:

• Stor­ing all the acces­sories might be a challenge;
• The tam­per would be a plus for pro­cess­ing tough ingredients.

Oster Versa 1100-watt (BLSTVB-103–000) Blender Consumer Reviews

This Oster Ver­sa 1100-watt (BLSTVB-103–000) Blender is quite pop­u­lar with the con­sumer. The major com­plaint from the con­sumers is that it may require some effort to dis­as­sem­ble the blades. How­ev­er, those cus­tomers do not pay atten­tion to the user man­u­al, which clear­ly explains that the lid’s cap is also designed as a wrench to help to screw/unscrew the blade assembly.

Oster Versa 1100-watt (BLSTVB-103–000) Blender Price

The Oster Ver­sa 1100-watt (BLSTVB-103–000) price dif­fers from dif­fer­ent retail­ers and nor­mal­ly will be under $200.

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Summary

The Oster brand has an excel­lent 50-year rep­u­ta­tion; no won­der the Oster Ver­sa 1100-watt (BLSTVB-103–000) Blender has an all-met­al dri­ve and a very decent war­ran­ty. Also, it not only pro­duces a good blend­ing job but also decent food proces­sor per­for­mance while the sin­gle-serve attach­ment makes quick smooth­ies for tak­ing them out. So if you are look­ing for a well-built and pow­er­ful blender with­out plans to break the bank, then this machine is very worth considering.

Alter­na­tive­ly, check our arti­cle The Best Blender under $200 – Cheap­er Alter­na­tive to Vita­mix 2017 Guide or Oster Ver­sa 1100-watt (BLSTVB-103–000) Blender vs. Nutri Nin­ja Auto-IQ Com­pact Sys­tem BL942/BL492.