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Vitamix Standard Programs or Pro Series 500 Blender Review

vitamix pro 500

Vita­mix Stan­dard Pro­grams blenders belong to the C‑series Vita­mix prod­uct line. These machines are pret­ty sim­i­lar to the flag­ship Vita­mix 5200 Stan­dard mod­el but come with some extra con­trol pan­el fea­tures. The Stan­dard Pro­grams, 6300, and 61106 mod­els are absolute­ly iden­ti­cal machines and only dif­fer by the avail­able col­or options and recipe books. And mod­el 61106 is the only mar­ket­ing name for Cana­di­an con­sumers. The cer­ti­fied recon­di­tioned label names for the Stan­dard Pro­grams 1891 and 6300  machines with all tech­ni­cal para­me­ters are absolute­ly like the orig­i­nal version.

Read our review below to find out more about each of these machines and also about their sim­i­lar­i­ties and differences.

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

Table of Contents

Functionality and Versatility

Smooth­ie: These machines make per­fect­ly smooth smooth­ies and eas­i­ly pul­ver­ize dif­fi­cult-to-crush straw­ber­ry, rasp­ber­ry, and black­ber­ry seeds. They always pro­duce the silki­est drinks, no mat­ter what you toss in as far as the leafy greens, car­rots, or oth­er tough ingredients.

Juices: These gad­gets do not squeeze juice sim­ply because they are blenders and do not come with a juicer attach­ment to sep­a­rate the pulp from the liq­uid. How­ev­er, these machines are per­fect­ly capa­ble of pro­duc­ing very smooth smooth­ies, aka “whole juice”.

Frozen ingredients/desserts:  These gad­gets not only pul­ver­ize any frozen ingre­di­ents in smooth­ies incred­i­bly well but also shave ice and frozen fruit with­out any liq­uid added, pro­duc­ing creamy ice cream, deli­cious sor­bet, frozen dessert, and iced alco­holic drinks.

Puree­ing: These machines are also able to make the most deli­cious hum­mus, pure raw and cooked veg­eta­bles, and var­i­ous recipes for baby food with­out any problem.

vitamix chocolate mousse

Soup/ hot ingre­di­ents: These gad­gets heat any liq­uid to a boil­ing tem­per­a­ture from blade fric­tion and thus can make a vari­ety of the most deli­cious soups with­out pre-cook­ing, and will also pro­duce bul­let­proof coffee.

Chopping/food prep: The machines are equipped with 10 vari­able speeds, and since the low­est speed is real­ly low (500 RPMs), it can per­fect­ly chop dif­fer­ent veg­eta­bles and per­form oth­er food prepa­ra­tion tasks.

Nut milk: These machines are equipped with enough pow­er to pul­ver­ize nuts into excel­lent qual­i­ty nut milk. You may need to use a nut bag to remove excess fiber from the final prod­uct, however.

Nut but­ter: The gad­gets can make silky smooth con­sis­ten­cy nut but­ter from any type of nuts. They come with a tam­per, which is a nec­es­sary tool, and dur­ing this task, it push­es the ingre­di­ents down to cre­ate a good vor­tex while processing.

vitamix green smoothies

Dough/batter: These gad­gets are able to mix a bat­ter and even knead thick doughs.

Grinding/milling: These machines will grind any herbs or cof­fee beans or mill var­i­ous grains with­out any effort into the per­fect pow­der. They are able to make bak­ing qual­i­ty flour not only from tough grains like rice but also from tiny ones like amaranth.

The machines are designed to be tru­ly ver­sa­tile. They are equipped with a very good range of speeds where the low­est speed is 500 RPMs, and the high­est is 37,000 RPMs, and this allows the pro­duc­tion of a range of chef-qual­i­ty recipes. How­ev­er, there is a learn­ing curve to ascer­tain how to use the tam­per most effec­tive­ly, which speed is most suit­ed for par­tic­u­lar recipes, or how to achieve the desired tex­ture of blend­ed ingre­di­ents. After a few weeks of test­ing, the user will even­tu­al­ly learn all of the tricks and find the best ways to oper­ate this blender.

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Speed Settings and Programs

vitamix pro series 500 control panel

Stan­dard Pro­grams and 6300 machines con­trol pan­el is equipped with an on/off switch that starts/stops the blend­ing process, a dial knob that reg­u­lates the use of 10 vari­able speeds, three pre-set pro­grams, and a pulse switch. The pre-set pro­grams and pulse func­tions are the fea­tures that dis­tin­guish these mod­els from the clas­sic Vita­mix 5200. The pulse func­tion can be used only when the machine runs on one of the vari­able speeds or pre-set pro­grams (and not on its own). This func­tion cre­ates a brief burst of 50% of the high­est speed pow­er while the user holds the switch­er. It is use­ful for push­ing down stub­born ingre­di­ents and remov­ing air pockets.

The three pre-set pro­grams — Hot Soups runs for 6 min­utes 30 sec­onds, Smooth­ies runs for 45 sec­onds, and Frozen Dessert runs for 55 sec­onds – are the auto­mat­i­cal­ly var­ied speed set­tings that stop on their own when the appro­pri­ate cycle is over. Pre-sets do not add much func­tion­al­i­ty to the blender, but peo­ple like this fea­ture. When the user exper­i­ments with his or her own (not pro­vid­ed cook­book) recipes, the pre-sets will not always achieve the desired tex­ture of blend­ed ingre­di­ents and may require a tweak man­u­al­ly with vari­able speeds.

Ease of Using and Cleaning

Oper­at­ing: These machines are very easy to use and clean. There is no need to dis­as­sem­ble them or take any­thing apart. Instead, the user needs to place the jar on the cen­ter­ing pad of the base unit that is spe­cial­ly designed to keep it secure with the four stick­ing guards, add ingre­di­ents, and close it with the flex­i­ble rub­ber lid. Then it is ready to run. The lid is equipped with two flaps that keep it safe­ly in place. These machines are also very sta­ble on the counter and can eas­i­ly be left with­out mon­i­tor­ing when pre-set pro­grams are run.

Tam­per: The Stan­dard Pro­grams 1891, 6300, and 61106 machines, includ­ing the refur­bished and recon­di­tioned mod­els, are equipped with a tam­per. It is specif­i­cal­ly cus­tomized for the pitch­er size and will not hit the run­ning blades. The tam­per is a nice and almost nec­es­sary fea­ture for high-pow­er blenders. Air pock­ets or cav­i­ta­tion are a com­mon occur­rence when pro­cess­ing tough ingre­di­ents, and the tam­per is a great help in alle­vi­at­ing them.

Clean­ing: The clean-up process for all Vita­mix mod­els is the same, and it is amaz­ing­ly sim­ple and done fol­low­ing a stan­dard pro­ce­dure. Rinse it with water and use the sponge/dish brush to remove the most stub­born residue if required. Fill the con­tain­er with some water, add a few drops of dish­wash­ing deter­gent and run it for 30–45 sec­onds on high speed; repeat if nec­es­sary. Then rinse and dry it with a cloth.

Base Unit and Motor Power

Stan­dard Programs/6300 mod­els come with the stan­dard for the C‑series prod­uct line 2 HP (1492 watt) at peak pow­er motor, 120 V, and 11.5 Amps that cor­re­spond to the 1380 watt effec­tive pow­er. The motor is man­u­fac­tured in the Unit­ed States, in Ohio, and the design is based on ball-bear­ing tech­nol­o­gy. This is what makes the Vita­mix blender so effi­cient and able to out­pace all of the com­peti­tors, even those with much more pow­er­ful motors. The motor is well designed and strong­ly built with an all-met­al bear­ing, shafts, and met­al dri­ve sock­et that makes it amaz­ing­ly durable.

Containers

Vita­mix Stan­dard Programs/6300 mod­els come with the clas­sic, high pro­file nar­row bot­tom 64 oz. pitch­er. It is made from pre­mi­um qual­i­ty BPA-free stress and tem­per­a­ture-resis­tant Tri­tan copoly­ester mate­r­i­al. The pitch­er is almost unbreak­able and will nev­er devel­op any cracks. It han­dles low and high food tem­per­a­tures and will eas­i­ly process any ingre­di­ents, from frozen to boiling.

While Vita­mix does not man­u­fac­ture blenders and glass or stain­less steel con­tain­ers, you can buy option­al Vita­mix 48 oz. WET blade stain­less steel jar that was released in July 2020 to meet the needs of health-aware customers.

Although the high-pro­file con­tain­ers seem to be old-fash­ioned and do not fit under stan­dard kitchen cab­i­nets, they do have some ben­e­fits. This high pro­file and the nar­row bot­tom con­tain­er are able to process small and large batch­es of food with the same effi­cien­cy, while the low pro­file con­tain­er can han­dle medi­um to large amounts of blend­ed ingre­di­ents. In addi­tion, the min­i­mum recipe vol­ume it can han­dle is about 6 ounces as opposed to 10–12 ounces for the low-pro­file G‑series type con­tain­er. So, sup­pose you buy the Vita­mix blender for a small house­hold or antic­i­pate reg­u­lar­ly blend­ing a small por­tion of food. In that case, the high-pro­file mod­els are more advan­ta­geous for this purpose.

Blades

vitamix wet blade

The blender has a wet type, non-remov­able inbuilt into con­tain­ers blade assem­bly. Still, it is pos­si­ble to remove the blade with the spe­cial wrench, but it is not rec­om­mend­ed unless it is absolute­ly nec­es­sary. The 3‑inch and 4‑pronged dull by design blades are made from hard­ened air­craft qual­i­ty stain­less steel and designed to per­form wet and dry func­tions such as pro­cess­ing liq­uids, frozen ingre­di­ents, sauces, soups, purees, and bat­ters, wet chop­ping and also grind­ing grain and knead­ing the dough. How­ev­er, there is an option­al dry blade assem­bly con­tain­er for bet­ter qual­i­ty dry food pro­cess­ing for peo­ple who intend to process large quan­ti­ties of dry ingre­di­ents often.

Special Features

Col­ors: Vita­mix Stan­dard Pro­grams are avail­able only in black, 6300 mod­els in plat­inum, black, red, white, and cream col­ors, and TNC 3 (Cana­di­an mar­ket mod­el) in black and red.

Cer­ti­fied Refur­bished: There are cer­ti­fied refurbished/reconditioned mod­els avail­able for Vita­mix pro series 500/6300 blenders, and these mod­els are often offered at the sale price on Ama­zon and oth­er retailers.

The man­u­fac­tur­er’s web­site offers cer­ti­fied recon­di­tioned Stan­dard Pro­grams and 6300 machines under the label Vita­mix Cer­ti­fied Recon­di­tioned Stan­dard Pro­grams. By order­ing these mod­els from the Vita­mix web­site you may receive any col­or and mod­el (with­out pri­or con­fir­ma­tion ) of the fol­low­ing C‑series machines selec­tion: Vita­mix Stan­dard Pro­grams, 6300, 6500, or Total Nutri­tion Cen­tre 3.

Use in coun­tries out­side of the USA/Canada: The Vita­mix units sold in the USA are designed for a 110–120 volt sys­tem exclu­sive­ly. To oper­ate the gad­get in coun­tries with oth­er volt­age sys­tems, it is nec­es­sary to use a volt­age transformer.

Set Includes

Both Vita­mix Stan­dard Pro­grams and 6300 mod­els include the same set of items but slight­ly dif­fer­ent cookbooks:

  • 2 HP motor base unit;
  • 64 oz. wet-blade con­tain­er with lid;
  • Cus­tom tam­per designed for 64 oz. container;
  • Instruc­tion­al DVD;
  • User man­u­al;
  • Cook­book.

Stan­dard Pro­grams come with Cre­ate recipe book (3‑ring, easel-style, 354 pages), while 6300 comes with a Savor recipe book (spi­ral style, 348 pages). Both books con­tain main­ly sim­i­lar recipes, includ­ing some spe­cif­ic ones that uti­lize pre-pro­grammed set­tings but have a slight­ly dif­fer­ent appearance.

Warranty and Customer Service

vitamix warranty

Stan­dard Pro­grams, 6300, and 61106 machines come with a 7‑year Full war­ran­ty. The cer­ti­fied refur­bished Vita­mix Stan­dard Pro­grams come with 5 year Full war­ran­ty. The Full war­ran­ty means that man­u­fac­tur­ers pay all the nec­es­sary repair and ship­ping costs in full with no extra charges. In addi­tion, the Vita­mix war­ran­ty deliv­ers the best cus­tomer ser­vice in the industry.

In addi­tion, orig­i­nal and recon­di­tioned machines both come with a 30-day mon­ey-back guar­an­tee and free return ship­ping for cus­tomers who decide to return the item for any reason.

Noise

Although all high-pow­ered blenders are quite noisy, Vita­mix is prob­a­bly one of the qui­etest ones. The Stan­dard Pro­grams, 6300, and 61106 machines pro­duce approx­i­mate­ly 82–84 deci­bels, which is com­pa­ra­ble with the noise com­ing from a pass­ing diesel truck.

The best advice to reduce the noise out­put from a blender is to place a rub­ber mat under­neath the gadget’s base unit.

Optional Accessories and Attachments

48 oz. stain­less steel con­tain­er: this jar is an equal­ly great addi­tion to the Vita­mix blender for health-aware con­sumers and for those who want a life­long dura­bil­i­ty jar that will serve as long as leg­endary Vita­mix motors.

32 oz., 48 oz. wet blade con­tain­ers: These small­er size con­tain­ers may be a rea­son­able invest­ment for cus­tomers who intend to process very small batch­es of food such as baby food or a small por­tion of nut but­ter on a reg­u­lar basis.

32 oz. dry blade con­tain­er: The dry blade con­tain­er has a slight­ly dif­fer­ent blade shape com­pared to the wet con­tain­er. It is specif­i­cal­ly made for milling and grind­ing grains, spices, or cof­fee beans and knead­ing the dough. The blade align­ment is designed so that it pre­vents the cak­ing of the milled grains at the bot­tom of the jar and push­es the knead­ing dough from the bot­tom prop­er­ly. It will help to achieve the best qual­i­ty milling, grind­ing, and knead­ing for those cus­tomers who will do a lot of dry processing.

Per­son­al Cup Adapter: The sin­gle-serve blender attach­ment for Clas­sic Series models.

Spat­u­las: The man­u­fac­tur­er also sells an espe­cial­ly nar­row head-designed spat­u­la that will help to pull out a thick mix­ture from the con­tain­er. 

Dimensions

These machines have an 8.75-inch x 7.25-inch base unit foot­print, and the unit height is 20.5 inch­es with the pitch­er on the top of the unit base. This unit cer­tain­ly will not fit under a stan­dard kitchen cab­i­net. The blender is also quite heavy and weighs 10 lb 9 ounces. It stays sta­ble on the counter and usu­al­ly will not trav­el on it.

This machine is equipped with a long, 6‑foot pow­er cord, and the user can con­ve­nient­ly store the unused part under­neath the base unit.

Pros & Cons

Pros
  • Like all Vita­mix gad­gets, Stan­dard Pro­grams 1891, 6300, and 61106 mod­els are ver­sa­tile machines that pro­duce the high­est qual­i­ty blend­ing result;
  • The machines are able to pro­duce the widest recipe range, from the smoothest smooth­ie to hot soup and ice cream, using one con­tain­er and blade assembly;
  • The blenders are designed and man­u­fac­tured in the USA and have a rep­u­ta­tion for being incred­i­bly durable and well-built;
  • Stan­dard Pro­grams, 6300 and TNC 3 mod­els are able to process small to large batch­es of food with the same efficiency;
  • These mod­els are equipped with 3 pre-set pro­grams that allow the user to rule out any guess­work from the blend­ing process;
  • These machines come with a leg­endary 7‑year Full war­ran­ty that cov­ers all wear and tear, ship­ping cost, all repair, and parts replace­ment dur­ing the war­ran­ty period.
Cons
  • As are all Vita­mix blenders, the Stan­dard Pro­grams, 6300 and 61106 mod­els are quite pricey machines;
  • These mod­els come with a high-pro­file jar and thus will not fit under stan­dard kitchen cabinets.

 

Consumer Reviews

Stan­dard Pro­grams, 6300, and 61106 mod­els have many high­ly rat­ed reviews for the orig­i­nal mod­el and recon­di­tioned mod­els with many online retailers.

Vitamix Standard Programs/6300 Price

As with most oth­er Vita­mix mod­els, these machines are expen­sive, with a price tag between the bud­get Vita­mix Explo­ri­an and 5200 Stan­dard mod­els. How­ev­er, the cer­ti­fied recon­di­tioned machines for these mod­els are often offered at dis­count­ed prices, and for this rea­son, they are very pop­u­lar among consumers.

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Summary

The Vita­mix Stan­dard Pro­grams, 6300 and 61106 machines, are more than just blenders. They make excel­lent ice cream and frozen desserts, soups from scratch, nut but­ter, a vari­ety of dips, sal­ad dress­ing, and oth­er most deli­cious recipes. The motor and blades are so strong that they han­dle any heavy-duty tasks bril­liant­ly. While these blenders have a scary price tag, every pen­ny reflects the high quality.

Do you want to find out which Vita­mix blender suits you best? Then, go to our Vita­mix Blender Guide arti­cle and reviews.

Posted in Vitamix Reviews

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