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108 of 109 found the following review helpful:
 Full of good surprises Jan 25, 2006
By J. S. Carr
I am partial to the masticating (rather than spinning centrifugal) juicers for reasons I won't go into here, so I went nuts shopping trying to fit my budget. I looked over this model quite a few times thinking it wouldn't be suitable for more than wheatgrass, or assuming it would be a lot of extra work.
Turns out that it is so easy to use I can't hardly believe more reviewers don't talk about it. Granted I chop the veggies, but to give you a frame of reference it's less effort to turn the handle than to tamp the veggies down the chute, and you have to do that even with an electric (not that either is hard). I could liken the manual/electric usage to driving manual/automatic transmission. I actually prefer this manual over the electric masticating I have used most days. Staying actively engaged makes it go by faster or something.
It is also extremely efficient. I have also used an Omega 8005 and feel like I not only saved money up front, but am spending less on veggies. As a daily juicer, that adds up. It's also lower pulp in the juice and less froth, the first a matter of taste the second a matter of shelf life. If you like the pulp, you can obviously add it back in.
As others have mentioned the pulp wants to drop into the juice container. There are about a hundred ways to easily work around this. My personal favorite is to put something under the container to raise it up a bit, allowing it to slide "out of range." Complaining about that seems to me about as petty as complaining you need an outlet for your toaster. It's really no big deal.
I have been extremely pleased with what it is able to juice. I am growing wheatgrass, but so far have fed it mainly apples, celery, and carrots.
I suspect this is the Green Star or Solo Star or whatever it's called these days with a crank instead of a motor. That is just a guess, based somewhat on the available "conversion kit" for electric model owners. Either way it is a terrific juicer and I'm glad I didn't fork over triple the price for an electric motor.
Update 11 1/2 months after buying:
I finally had something go wrong with this juicer. I was making peanut butter with the plug in the cap and it broke. I jumped on the Tribest web site, found a toll-free number, and in less than a minute I had someone from the company on the phone who replaced the part free of charge. They honored the 1 year warranty with no hassles even though I was pushing the thing pretty hard (I think the rep was surprised I had successfully made as much PB as I had with the plug in). BTW - the peanut butter this makes is amazing. It's actually capable of making creamy peanut butter, just leave the plug out of the front cap. ;)
69 of 71 found the following review helpful:
Fantastic value Oct 02, 2004
By Donovan88
"Donovan88"
I just bought this model and it is far and away the best value I have seen. I have been using a Juiceman 410 for about 6 months, a centrifugal model, and I wanted to try one of the masticating/auger types. The Z-star manual juicer is a single auger juicer without the motor, and cranking the handle was a breeze. I performed a test with it and my Juiceman, where I juiced an apple, lemon, kiwi, 4 strawberries, and 1/8 honeydew, all unpeeled, in each machine, and the Z-star produced more juice. The Juiceman juice was smoother and had a whipped texture, but the Z-star made more and all the pulp was bone dry. In my opinion, there is no reason to buy a motorized single auger juicer as long as they make this one.
32 of 34 found the following review helpful:
 a little more work, a little more efficient Feb 09, 2007
By T. Bates
by the time the plastic motor housing broke on the Jack Lalanne model i'd been using, i knew enough about juicing to know that i wanted to try a non-centrifugal machine. read tons of reviews and agonized sufficiently and was on the verge of buying the Omega 8005 when i noticed this manual juicer. it employs more-or-less the same principles, with the obvious exception that you have to turn the crank as opposed to a motor doing it for you. and it's 1/3 the price. i juice mainly leafy greens, carrots and apples. it does a nice job with them all. it's true that carrots and apples etc. need preparation that would not be required with a powerful, centrifugal maching with a wide feed-chute. (i give the carrots a coarse julienne cut and quarter the apples.) others have remarked that these types of juicers (the auger type) don't do justice to fruits, which may be true of most fruits. but i've found that i get a decent return on oranges. i have come to believe that the juice tastes better, compared with that produce by a centrifugal machine, but maybe that's just the effect of hype. i do know that i get more juice per unit of vegetable/fruit. and the fact is that if you are using a centrifugal machine, and you want leafy green juice, you're gonna waste a lot of veg. plus those machines are obnoxiously loud. my advice: go old school, crank it yourself. btw, 4 stars not 5 'cause nothing is perfect.
26 of 27 found the following review helpful:
Juices greens wonderfully, falters a bit with juicier fruits/veggies Feb 13, 2010
By J. Krishnaswami
I scoured Amazon for weeks before finally deciding to enter world of juicing with this manual juicer. I did a ton of research, and my decision to buy this was motivated by 1) the mastication involved (low temperature, extracts maximum juice, retains nutrients) 2) the ability to juice greens as well as harder veggies (other juicers have trouble with leaves and herbs, ie fennel - common cause of motor breakdowns in other juicers, I hear) and 3) manual feature.
I've had this for about a week and have thus far have juiced carrots, celery, parsley, cilantro, ginger, tomatoes, spinach, kale, chard, fennel, collard greens, oranges. Each time, I've enjoyed great tasting and fresh juice that FAR beats anything you can buy in grocery stores (even the "fresh" kind from, say, Whole Foods.) Nothing beats producing juice in your own kitchen!
Basic operation and concept :
Place cut veggies in a chute and tamp down with a plastic plunger (included). The produce meets a single barrel/auger which, while turning, crushes and feeds the produce through a stainless steel filter. Juice pours out the bottom while pulp is extruded out the opening on the front end.
Here's my take overall:
Pros:
- love the manual juice aspect: no motors that could potentially break, no elecriticity required, get a good arm workout in the process
- works like a charm for juicing greens (everything from parsley to spinach - this is apparently troublesome for other electric juicers)
- good construction - parts easily fit together, intuitive disassembly and setup, is a snap to attach and take apart
- good amount of juice extracted from veggies ($1.50 worth of kale or chard --> 10 oz juice)
- pulp seems relatively dry (esp from greens)
Cons:
- You need a stable, protruding surface to attach the clamp. Usually not a problem for most people, but I live in a studio apartment about 400 sq foot with a tiny kitchen. My counter does not "jut out" enough to securely clamp the stand - thus, I have it attached to a mobile wheeling cart which used to support a microwave. This is fine, but it is a bit wobbly which makes juicing a bit harder. Make sure you have a good surface for attaching. Also make sure you have a lot of room to maneuver so you can get good traction for turning the arm.
- The juicer didn't work so well for tomatoes - most of the pulp and juice stayed in the auger/filter part and wet all the pulp extruded. Would not recommend this for juicing tomatoes.
- Harder veggies have to be cut into smaller pieces. For example, you couldn't juice a whole carrot or even a whole carrot cut in half. I would recommend all hard produce be cut to the size of baby carrots. Once you do this, no problem at all.
- stainless steel mesh takes a lot of scrubbing to fully clean - the included 'toothbrush' for cleaning is already frayed after just 3 uses!
And there's the whole pulp falling into the plastic container thing, which as another reviewer helpfully pointed out, you can evade by simply using a different container or propping the plastic container on a plate to keep it out of the way of falling pulp. Not a big problem at all.
What about the work involved with the manual handle? Not too bad, in my opinion - it is a little tougher with harder veggies - I'd equate it to the arm effort involved in grating manually, for example. Nothing too crazy if you don't overload it.
All in all, I am very happy with this purchase. I'd certainly recommend this as a starting juicer that's an easy way to get in the world of juicing.
Note: for people who anticipate juicing a lot (and a lot of different veggies besides wheatgrass), this may be a little impractical as it does take time with the manual process to juice - about 20-30 minutes for 10 oz juice including prep, setup, juicing and cleanup time.
17 of 17 found the following review helpful:
A Good Less Expensive Alternative May 17, 2008
By GlacierLily Spencer
I like the fact that the Z-Star juices wheatgrass as well as fruit and vegetables. I do not mind turning the handle at all. It did a great job on the wheatgrass. As someone mentioned the pulp did tend to fall into the juice, but all I had to do to remedy that was use a taller container to catch the pulp as it came out. I cut my beets and carrots into 1 inch pieces. When it was clamped down the Z-Star did not bounce around for me. I had it clamped to cutting board that pulls out from under my kitchen counter. I did try frozen grapes and that did not go well, but fresh grapes were great. I like the Z-Star because even though I can't spend $400 on a juicer I can still have fresh juice.
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