A lever citrus juicer, also called an arm juicer, vertical citrus juicer, or a bar juicer, is a tool for squeezing citrus fruits and therefore extracting the juice using a lever system.
The pressure, in fact, comes directly on the peel of the fruit, typically orange or a lemon, and, through a filter, the juice is extracted and falls directly into the container, usually a glass for which the drink is ready to drink.
It is a method of over-the-counter squeezing fruits and citrus fruits. Therefore, completely natural and can ensure maximum extraction in terms of the percentage of juice extracted with minimum effort.
Due to their traction movement, lever citrus juicers are almost always made of steel, often stainless, and see a sort of plunger with a cone-shaped end that embraces a large part of the outer skin of the fruit, naturally cut in half.
If there is a household appliance whose importance is often and erroneously underestimated, that is without a doubt the lever juicer.
When you realize you absolutely need it, because manually squeezing lemons and oranges or, even worse, the lime and pomegranate, known for their hard skin, is a rather long and tiring operation, it is committed in most cases the mistake of bringing home any model.
Maybe the first one that happened to us at the supermarket and of which we have not bothered to deepen its features and functionality.
The moment we put him to the test for the first time, we will realize that we have made a serious error of assessment and that haste, as always, is a very bad adviser. The classic juicers require a considerable physical effort, which is why we will not have completely solved our problem.
What we need, especially if you are a fan of juices and fruit juices, is a small but not bulky appliance that does everything by itself, allowing us to save precious minutes and invest our energy in something else.
The best on the market, in this sense, is the lever citrus juicer, a small but very precious ally in the kitchen that is worth buying, if only to reduce the timing of the various preparations we usually dedicate ourselves to during the day. It is basically a column-mounted appliance, compact and with an essential design, equipped with a lever that will allow us to obtain juices of all kinds without any physical effort.
Advantages of lever citrus juicers
But what advantages does a lever citrus juicer offer in practical terms? What makes it so different from a common squeezer? Simple: functionality. Squeezing is activated by rotating the special lever integrated into the machine body, an operation that requires almost no effort.
What is most surprising, however, is the speed of squeezing: it takes a few seconds to completely empty the fruit and see the container filled with juice full of vitamins and substances that are a cure-all for the body.
How powerful this it is can be seen firsthand, especially when dealing with fruits that are difficult to squeeze, such as, for example, pomegranate. Its consistency is such as to considerably complicate the squeezing and make it almost impossible to do by hand.
If you have a lever citrus juicer, on the other hand, you can take advantage of the vitamins B and C, the polyphenols, and the mineral salts it contains without tiring even a little.
Lever juicers are often used in bars because of their intrinsic resistance to traction and, therefore, for the fact that they can resist for years and years even with multiple daily uses.
Furthermore, the lever juicer is easy to clean (practically only the lower part of the plunger and the filter will be cleaned from the residues of the extraction).
Therefore, despite the passing of the decades and the evolution, in particular, of the juice extractors that are becoming more and more complex, these manual lemon juicer squeezers have managed to keep their place in the particular category of citrus juicers thanks to a simple but powerful mechanism, between the other can be used for every type of citrus fruit, from oranges to lemons to finish with grapefruits and pomegranates.
Furthermore, by not using electric motors that turn and therefore generate heat, lever juicers can be considered real manual cold juice extractors.
Disadvantages of lever juicers
They are not all roses, of course. There is more to say than other homemade manual juicers, and the lever ones are more expensive precisely because they are physically larger. They are also bulkier and are not particularly suitable for those who do not have space in the kitchen to store them (in particular, they extend much more in height than normal juicers).
And again, a lever citrus juicer, compared to extractors and electric centrifuges, will still require a manual effort for which not everyone is prepared (even if the lever system itself is one of the best, as far as manual methods are concerned, for achieve maximum results with minimum effort).
We recommend reading: How to choose a manual citrus juicer.
How is it made, and how do you use a lever juicer?
The lever juicer is a small kitchen appliance, essential despite its great utility.
To get success or on the fly, all we have to do is place the glass under the nozzle with which it is provided, insert the fruit we intend to squeeze and then taste and, finally, operate the lever so that the machine can bring out all the precious liquid that it is enclosed within that.
The components involved in this operation can naturally be removed from the machine body and washed under running water so as to eliminate any fruit residue.
As for the composition of the appliance, it is fair to point out that the best lever juicers currently on the market are almost entirely made of stainless steel, a hygienic and robust material that can easily come into contact with fruit without this involving the slightest risk or danger. One more reason, therefore, to buy one to always keep at hand.