10 Best Manual Juicers Reviewed – A 2023 Expert Buyer’s Guide

Quieter, cheaper, and a lot easier to clean manual juicers are a must-have in any kitchen and ideal if you don’t want to take out your electric juicer and have to deal with it.

But with so many different types to choose from it can be hard to know what one to go for. That’s where I come in.

I’ve written up this buyer’s guide so you know exactly what to look for when you’re buying the best manual juicer and I’ve reviewed all my favorite models that are available online.

Check out the table below for a quick rundown of the best manual juicers before I get to the reviews and my top 5 choices. And click the links to head over to Amazon so you can order yours!

The Best Manual Juicers Reviewed

• Top Choice – Zulay Manual Citrus Press
• Best Manual Citrus Juicer – Oxo Good Grips Manual Juicer Jug
• Best Portable Manual Juicer – Hand Citrus Squeezer
• Best Commercial Manual Choice – Vnyifan Hand Press Juicer
• Best Manual Masticating Wheatgrass Juicer – Happy Buy Crank Handle Juicer

1. Top Choice – Zulay Manual Citrus Press

This has got to be the easiest manual juicer around, it’s my top choice for the best manual citrus press because it’s lightweight, fits in a drawer, you can put it in the dishwasher and it’s lightweight to use.

Plus it’s made of metal which I love and it’s got two sizes built into it for different sizes of fruit so you can use it for lemons or limes. And it is well priced for how practical and useful it is.

An easy choice of the best manual juicer.

2. Best Manual Citrus Juicer – Oxo Good Grips 2-in-1 Citrus Juicer

This is a nifty little juicer that works nicely in collecting all the juice into the jug below which has measurement markings on it so you know how much you’ve got. It’s also got two sides so you can juice big or small fruit.

It’s not perfect and some pulp does get through but it works well enough and is great for taking out the cupboard for small jobs. It’s nice for making orange juice as well.

It doesn’t say on the packaging but I had a snoop around the website and found that it is BPA-free plastic that’s used which is good, and the metal shows no sign of rusting after extensive use.

A nice jug juicer.

3. Best Portable Manual Juicer – Hand Citrus Squeezer

This is a nifty little piece of kit, you place the orange on the juicing cone and press down and twist the lid to squeeze the juice into the container below.

I like the efficient overall design but my only gripe is it’s not very big, so if your fruit doesn’t fit into the lid you can’t use it, which means it works fine for small oranges but big oranges are a no go.

Still, it’s a fun little juicer that can be good for kids to use in the morning before school, the strainer does a good job of catching the pulp so you get a nice clean glass of orange juice.

A fun little hand juicer for those who like gadgets.

4. Best Commercial Manual Choice – Vnyifan Hand Press Juicer

This is a great choice for a bar setting, able to quickly and completely juice fresh oranges, grapefruits and lemons for cocktails. It’s a juice press so you put the orange in pace and pull the hand down to juice the orange in one swift motion.

It fits on the countertop and does a superb job as a commercial citrus juicer at home or your business.

It gets a really good yield of juice out of each piece of citrus fruit you put on it while doing a great job of catching the pulp.

The body is metal with a heavy base to keep it balanced and a plastic handle for comfortable use. You should also know it stands 41cm/16inch tall so you can measure to see if it’s going to fit in your kitchen.

5. Best Manual Masticating Wheatgrass Juicer – Happy Buy Crank Handle Juicer

This is pretty heavy duty but if you’re looking to manually make wheatgrass shots then it’s the way to go. It clamps to the side of your counter so you can turn the handle comfortably and crank out juice shots in no time.

You can see my post on wheatgrass juicers for more like this.

Not good for citrus but excellent for wheatgrass and other leafy greens that are softer, you can technically juice anything in it but you’ll need a lot of strength to squeeze a carrot through it!

Manual Juicer Advantages

What better place to start than with all the great advantages manual juicers have over electric ones.

Quieter – Hear that? No? Me neither, that’s because you’re using a manual powered juicer so don’t have any of the whirring or gear sounds that you get from an electric one. Meaning you can juice happily without disturbing your whole house and your neighbours.

Cheaper – Because less technology is used inside manual juicers are a lot cheaper. You can pick up a reasonable handheld one for less than $20 and even a heavy-duty crank-operated wheatgrass juicer won’t set you back more than $100. Though you’d be surprised at the quality of a cheap juicer.

Easier to clean – Less moving parts and far simpler designs make manual juicers much easier to clean up after. Fewer gears to get in and about to try and scrub clean and most are dishwasher safe so clean up is fast and easy.

You can travel with them – Not for everyone but they can be useful if you go camping a lot, or you travel for work because you can pack them away with ease and take them out ready to use wherever you end up.

Disadvantages

If only everything we used was as perfect as I am, ahem… OK so I’m not perfect and neither are manual juicers, they’ve got a couple of drawbacks that you’ll want to be aware of.

Requires more effort – They’re not powered so you, of course, have to do all the work to get any juice out from your fruit. I’m guessing you probably knew that but thought I should mention it anyway.

Takes longer – As well as being physically harder to use they also take a bit longer to get the juice out. So while it can be more convenient to take out a manual press it can end up being a bit more work overall. But if you want easy to use and fast enough a manual juicer is still a great choice.

Can’t Juice Vegetables – Manual crank juicers can handle wheatgrass but that’s about it, cranking hard enough to grind up a carrot is going to take a lot of work, but if you’re looking to mostly juice soft citrus fruits then you’re going to get on absolutely fine. Though you might want to have a look at all the lovely vegetables you can juice.

Types of Manual Juicer

We’ve gone through the good, we’ve gone through the bad, but what about the ugly? Well, there isn’t an ugly side to handheld juicing unless you count the fruit after it’s been juiced. But why don’t we skip that and take a look at the different types of manual juicer you can buy.

Handheld Manual Juicers

These are the ones where you hold half a lemon in one hand, the reamer in the other and you push the two together wriggling away to get the juice out. But you also get the ones where you place the half lemon on a little podium inside a handheld juicer and squeeze the handles together.

Of the two the second type is the only one worth talking about in my experience, they don’t cost much more and they produce a lot more juice than the other type. So if you see a wooden handle just back away slowly.

Jug Reamers

These are the type with a juicing cone that points up in the middle of a dish or a jug and you press the lemon down on top, twisting it and squeezing it to get all the juice out. I like this type when you’re making orange juice. This can work nicely especially if it catches in a jug that you can serve it from.

Table Top Press

These are heavy-duty, a big downward crank that you pull the handle of pushing the lemon onto a juicing cone squeezing all the juice out effectively. They can be a bit excessive for home use but you can’t deny that they work well, and it’s all levers so you don’t need to put in too much effort to get the juice out.

Crank Handle

These are best used for wheatgrass and leafy greens, they attach to the table you put your ingredient in the top and turn a big handle to get the juice out. These can manage other vegetables but like I said before it is hard going, far harder than any sane person is willing to go through for a glass of juice.

Materials

The last thing we’re going to look at is what material you want your juicer to be made of, do you want plastic, glass or metal? Plastic is, of course, the cheapest but metal is the longest-lasting meanwhile glass is a good mid-range but it’s hard to come by a juicer made entirely of glass that is, in fact, any good.

Plastic – Cheap, cheerful and good quality, the only thing you might want to look out for is that it uses BPA free plastic, BPA’s are a form of plastic that can end up getting in your food and then into your body so you want to avoid them as much as possible.

Glass – Practical, generally sturdy but all glass juicers tend to not be great. They were very popular in the 70s but today I think you’re better off going with a plastic model.

Metal – Metal juicers are a good choice if you’re trying to minimize your plastic use through life but not easy to find. Some crank juicers are all metal but most manual citrus juicers may have metal elements but with some plastic involved. Still, if you can find a manual juicer partly made of metal it will do wonders for you.

Other Manual Juicers Reviewed

Lexen GP27 The Original Healthy Juicer

As it says in the title this is the original healthy juicer, it’s got a comfortable ergonomic handle and screws on to the countertop so you can comfortably squeeze every last drop out of anything you want to put in it.

It’s masticating so you get a good amount of juice out of it but more importantly, you can clean it in 30 seconds or less!

Again this is best suited for juice shots being able to juice leafy greens and wheatgrass, you can juice whole glasses of juice but at that point, you’ll be better off with an electric masticating juicer.

Still, this is a nice manual juicer, it’s just not as comfortable as the heavy-duty cast iron juicer I reviewed further up which is why it’s here.

Mueller Elite Masticating Slow Fruit, Vegetable & Wheatgrass Juicer

This is a great choice if you want to juice pomegranate, it’s got a nice big opening on top to put the seeds and some of the white flesh that’s inside a pomegranate. It does a reasonable job with most other fruits and veg you could put inside a manual juicer too.

The suction cup on the bottom isn’t the best so you’ll have to put a hand down on top to hold it in place while you turn the handle. But the plus side is that there’s no screwing to a countertop so you have a bigger range of places you can use it eliminating some of the hassle and your counter won’t get scratched.

A good choice of budget manual juicer, it’s not nearly as robust as some of the other manual masticating juicers but for the price, it does a pretty good job.

Prepworks by Progressive Dome Citrus Juicer

This won’t quite fit grapefruit but it’s a practical choice if you have a small amount of citrus juice you want to make (more great citrus juicers here).

You’ll like that it’s got two sides to the measuring cup, one measures small amounts, tablespoons and teaspoons and the other side measures in larger amounts of millilitres and cups up to 1 cup. The small size has a pouring spout which I like although the bigger jug doesn’t which is annoying but not the end of the world.

It isn’t a large citrus juicer and fits nicely inside a drawer because you can put the reamer inside the jug for storage.

I will say you can’t fit oranges on it, small oranges are fine but if you have a big juicy orange it will dwarf this juicer, it’s pretty small!

Easy to clean up, easy to store and quite nifty to look at, I like it and think you will too making it one of the best juicers.

Drizom Citrus Lemon, Lime & Orange Juicer

The reamer on this as a special 12 tooth design which works to extra the maximum juice possible out of your citrus. But I like the multifunctionality of it because it doubles as an egg yolk separator and triples as a small grater ideal for ginger and garlic.

If you need some fresh juice to add to a recipe then this lemon squeezer is the one for you. And the reamer flips upside down for easier storage inside a drawer, plus you can put it in a dishwasher for easier clean up saving you time.

An all-round kitchen juicer, you can make small glasses of juice in the morning, take it with you camping, make cocktails in the evening and juice for recipes all quickly and easily, a nice little citrus juicer.

HIC Citrus Juicer Reamer

Sometimes the old are the best when it comes to an orange juicer, you want to have little bits up pulp floating in it and you want to have to work hard for not much juice. But maybe I’m just nostalgic because I remember using one just like this with my parents.

Either way, you can’t deny it’s survivability, they’re still popular because they’re durable, completely simple to use and you wash it in the sink quickly and easily with warm soapy water.

If you like things simple then this the manual juicer for you.

Conclusion

And that does it, you now know more about the best manual juicers than you ever thought you would, are you surprised by how many types there are?

Regardless I hope you found this useful and managed to find a juicer you like and can use, click through any of the Price & Review buttons to head over to Amazon where you can order yours and get juicing as soon as possible. If there’s a different type of juicer I didn’t review here that you’d like me to look at then please leave a comment below.

It can be hard to know what people are looking for when they want a manual juicer so I went with a little bit of everything and reviewed all the different types of juice squeezers I could think of.