Vitamix vs Bio Chef Blender Comparison Review - what's the best blender for you?
UPDATE
Please note, we are no longer doing any business with the Bio Chef brand. The review below may or may not be an indication of the current quality of the product. We urge you not to use the information below when making a buying decision as we have no idea of its current accuracy. After we did these reviews, the motor in future batches was not of the same quality and we had many complaints and withdrew them for sale. We have no idea if they fixed the issue.
For those looking for a Vitamix, we recommend you contact Raw Blend in Australia. Kitchenware discounters have made it impossible for us to be able to afford to sell them. Vitamix blenders are still an amazing blender and well worth the investment. We stand by all the statements below about the Vitamix blender.
I love my Vitamix, I really do, but they are a kitchen investment and not everyone has the funds to purchase one. We have found an excellent alternative in the Bio Chef Blender. After repeated requests for us to source a more budget friendly alternative, we certainly weren't going to do it without running the 'new kid on the block' through his paces. While the Tribest Blender is great for smoothies, it has a 30 second run time limit and is not suitable for larger quantities or for making nut butters. So, sit back and enjoy reading our informative comparison review of the Vitamix Blender and the Bio Chef Blender.
Almond Meal - Vitamix wins
Each blender had 30 activated almonds put in, skin on. I used organic nuts, but honestly, it won't make a scrap of difference. Both machines were put on at full speed for 10
, and no more. As you can see from the photo below, both machines produced a very even meal. The Vitamix almond meal was a finer grade after 10 seconds. A longer blend time in the Bio Chef did produce a finer meal than the original 10 second burst. Vitamix is the winner purely by a time factor.
Banana Ice Cream - Bio Chef Blender & Vitamix Tie
Throwing frozen fruit in to a blender is always a pretty good test of what they're made of. For this test, I had 3 frozen large bananas and they were split evenly between the two blenders. Both got turned on high speed, at the same time. I needed the tamper for the first 20-30 seconds, then it blends just fine without. Both were done in under a minute and there is absolutely NO DIFFERENCE in the finished product at all. The only thing I would have done differently here was to stop the Vitamix blend a few seconds earlier as you can see it's a little bit melty. This is what happens when you run both at the same time and you're not paying attention.
Blended Hot Soup - Vitamix wins
I'm going to say something really unpopular here, I don't like making blended hot soup in any blender, Vitamix or otherwise. Unless it's a really thin liquid, you end up with a bowl of hot foam. It is a selling feature, that you can use the friction from the blades to heat up the liquid, and boy, does it work. You could use it as a kettle if you had to. So, in the interest of being thorough, I threw some carrots and an equal amount of water in to each blender and let them go, on the highest speed. There were no lumps in either liquid when we were done.
AFTER 7 minutes on high = Vitamix 76°C | Bio Chef 66°C
AFTER 12 minutes on high = Vitamix 96°C | Bio Chef 86°C
So you can see, the sheer power of the Vitamix motor is the winner. They spin faster and create more friction. That said, this is not something I uses my Vitamix for, so my care factor for this statistic is zero. The great result from this was running the blenders for 12 minutes virtually non-stop (I had a 30 second gap where I used a digital thermometer to take the temperature of both.
Peanut Butter - Vitamix wins ... just
Making nut butter is a really good test of how well a high end blender performs, so we weren't running our comparison without doing one. We threw a bag of salted peanuts in to each blender and turned it up high. You will need the tamper for around 30-40 seconds until you notice that awesome swirling pattern when they get in to their stride. Note: you must use the blenders on high for this, on a lower speed they struggle and you can flip the safety switch on the Vitamix if you don't put the full power of the machine behind a tough blend like this.
Both blenders made a very silky smooth nut butter. The Vitamix is just a teeny bit smoother, but you'd never know unless you had a jar of each in front of you. They're both smoother than what comes from the supermarket, and honestly, you'll never buy peanut butter again if you own either of these blenders.
Coconut Butter - Bio Chef Blender & Vitamix tie
Making your own coconut butter is really easy, and both blenders performed this task just fine. The Vitamix is just a little quicker but it's not a huge difference. We have put this homemade coconut butter recipe up on another post if you want to make it. Simply, we put a 250g bag of organic coconut (dessicated) in to each blender and turned on high. Each 250g bag made 250ml of liquid coconut goodness. One blender had a heaped teaspoon of vanilla bean powder in it, the other, cacao powder. The blend time was 2 minutes each and when we were done, we actually mixed the two together to give us a choc vanilla coconut butter.
When first blended, it's liquid, and as it cools, it turns solid. You can get some of the coconut oil rising to the top. If this happens, simply put the jar in some warm water and it turns in to liquid (aka, organic chocolate sauce) and you can stir it back in.
Buckwheat flour - Bio Chef Blender & Vitamix tie
I wanted to test out the dry jug in the Vitamix for milling flour as opposed to the wet jug when I made the almond meal, so the next comparison is the vs the standard jug in the Bio Chef. I placed 1 cup of Loving Earth Activated Buckinis in each jug and blended on 10 seconds on high. To be fair, it probably took 3 seconds to get the Vitamix all the way up to full speed, so it had a little less blending for this comparison.
In the photo above, I put a row of unblended buckinis down the middle so the camera would have something to focus on. As you can see, there's really no difference. It's still a fairly gritty flour after 10 seconds, and to be honest, I think buckwheat flour needs 20-30 seconds. I did blend again after this shot, and both turned out to be a really fine powder despite me throwing fresh whole buckinis in with the first blended batch. For the purpose of milling flour, no real difference in the blenders here.
Crush Ice - Bio Chef Blender & Vitamix tie
I knew both blenders would do this just fine because when we did our Vitamix vs Tribest Blender review, even the smaller Tribest Personal Blender crushed ice ok. If you're looking to just have small chunks of ice, this will work nicely on a slower speed. However, for a bit of fun, I revved up the engines on these babies and let 'em fly. In a matter of a few seconds, with the tamper, I pretty much made snow! Leave it long enough, they'll turn to liquid and then boil, such is the power of both blenders. The blades on both machines made really short work of ice.
Self Cleaning - Vitamix wins
One of the things I love about the Vitamix is the sheer power of the motor. There really is no other blender on the market that can match it, but many come close. It even blends better than the Thermomix which retails for $1,939.
For this test, I placed an equal amount of water and a squirt of natural dishwashing liquid in both of them to test how far the contents of the jug get flicked up the side. As you can see in this photograph, the Vitamix kicks up considerably higher. It foams up to the point where it starts coming out the top. The Vitamix is a clear winner here, but seriously, just wash the jug in the sink. This shouldn't be a reason to buy or not to buy either machine, I was just really interested in the visual.
I did learn something really interesting here, both jugs and machines run on the same sized cogs, so you can switch the jugs on these machines. I was curious to know whether the power followed the base or the jug in this instance, so I switched to find out. The results? Neither had the ability to flick the foam all the way to the top. The Bio Chef base and Vitamix jug did perform better than the Bio Chef base and Bio Chef jug, so there is some power in the formation of the Vitamix blades, but the bulk of the additional power does, indeed, come from the Vitamix base.
Price
At the time of writing this post, the prices were as follows (and are subject to change without this post being updated - so please click through to the products):-
Both prices are the BEST DEAL available in Australia at the time of publication (and are subject to change). By purchasing the silver Vitamix from us, you may also purchase a gift certificate up to $200 in value at 50% off, effectively giving you the Vitamix for $695.
Our opinion after testing both machines
If there's one thing I pride myself on while running this store, it's full disclosure and honesty. With this in mind, I want to clarify the 'business' side of this before I give my personal opinion. We do sell both of these. I have no specific deal or affiliation with either of the manufacturers or distributors of either machine. It makes absolutely no difference to us financially which machine you purchase. We would hope that if this review helps you make your purchasing decision, that you'll buy through us to help us continue to providing free information through our blogs and to keep supporting our favourite charities each month.
SO, HERE'S MY OPINION.
If money is no object, buy the Vitamix blender. There are subtle differences in the end results, but not a lot. If you like to buy the best of everything, this is YOUR blender. It has a slightly faster motor, the BPA Free Tritan plastic jug is a little thicker, it has a comfortable handle, a lid that clips down, a more solid tamper and it's super easy for us to order spares for the whole machine.
If you're watching what you spend, don't hesitate for a moment to buy the Bio Chef blender. It's an amazing blender when compared with the Vitamix at less than half the price. By the time you get the food in your mouth, any difference will be so subtle you honestly won't know unless you had a Vitamix to compare it to. The Bio Chef is still around $100 cheaper than a Froothie, which we decided wasn't in the running for us.
We're proud fans of both of these machines. There's a Vitamix in my kitchen and it's not going anywhere. I have a Thermomix too, and the Bio Chef blends better than the Thermomix does. In all fairness, these blenders and the Thermomix are completely different and it's very unfair to compare them.
