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This Stirrer Is A Smooth Operator

There have been a few threads about blenders and smoothies recently.

How many horsepower do you need for your automobile to go in normal traffic? Not too long ago it was around 50 HP. Lately they are telling you that it is a good thing to have 500 HPs.

I think the same thing is happening with kitchen blenders. It's gone from 1/3 HP to now you can get some that's 3 HP.

Come on! My full-size fully loaded clothes washers use 1/2 HP motors. My 22" lawn mower has a 3/4 HP motor, and my rototiller to chop into rock laden hard soil only uses a one HP engine. Give me a break! 3 HP to chop a few carrots?

They will do what they can to sell you a blender that's close to $1,000. "My blender is more powerful than yours, and my blender can churn your cell phone into smoothie in 10 seconds". Yum! Me likie cell phone smoothie!!!

It seems to me, up to a point, the most important thing with a blender is R.P.M. and not HP. Unfortunately they don't normally provide you with that information. However, in general, most blenders do give you more than 20,000 RPM and that is good enough for most situations.

Just to prove a point; Here is what I have done with my 1/3 HP cheapie smoothie blender with a round jar, which can indeed churn out a creamy smoothie in no time.:

I got myself an extra blade assembly. You can get cheap extra blades on eBay for most blenders. I re-shaped the blades to conform to aerodynamic shape of an airplane's wing profile in cross section. This changes the force from the blade rotation to up lift or down-push of the liquid, and not sideways which causes the liquid to rotate at the same speed as the blades. This will also reduce the drag on the blades and allowing higher RPM. Grinding blades is very easy with a rotary (Dremel) tool.

I also sharpened the blades. When I make smoothies, I use the sharp blades, and when I have to crash ice cubes, I use the old dull blades. For smoothies, the blades' sharpness lasts a long long time. Changing blades is a very quick process with most blenders. Or you can get two jars.

Most blenders have very dull blades because it makes no sense to give you sharp blades if you use the blender for everything, especially to make cell phone smoothies.

Go for the blenders with monster motors if you don't mind spending the money and put up with the noise those machines make.

Many powerful blenders also give you a stirrer, because even they cost you a lot, it is still a problem to do a good blending. So another very useful tool for my blender that you can make in a few minutes. I highly recommend it if your blender does not come with one. If you are not handy, have someone else make it for you, or you will end up with a spatula smoothie.

Check out this video:

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Here is a link that might be useful: Stirrer

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