Table of Contents
KRUPS KB790 Motor Technik Blender
Pros
- Quite
- Simple to operate
- Easy to clean
Cons
- A little fussy to reassemble after cleaning
KRUPS KB790 Motor Tecnik Blender: The Quietest Blender
Ahh, simplistic German engineering. No fluff. No bells-n-whistles. Function over form. Takes me back to the days driving my 1990 VW Golf Diesel back in the “day”. The interior was anything BUT flashy. No fancy cup holders or state of the art radio. Sparse would be a good description. But everything just worked… and worked well.
I was taken back there when I first opened the box of the Krups KB790 Blender smoothie maker. My first impression was “eh”. Seriously. Thought I possibly made a mistake even considering it to be a top performing smoothie maker in it’s class.
But slowly, it grew on me. Nice heft and solid feel to the glass jar. The base was nothing to write home about as far as looks (or size). Seemed kinda too small to me. But I began to appreciate the simplistic approach – sans countdown/up timers, fancy preset buttons (except for an Ice Crush One) and only 8 buttons total. Not an LCD display to be found anywhere.
Well, this turned out to be a surprisingly solid performer during my tests. Smoothies came out smooth – not silky, but smooth to the taste of feel in my mouth. Cleanup was easy. And nothing felt awkward to use or caught me by surprise. I ended up appreciating the minimalist, “90’s approach” to this appliance (at least on the outside) and got a good reminder of German, “simple but solid” engineering – just like my Golf…. it was one of the best car’s I’ve ever owned.
Features
- 1000 Watt, 1 1/3 HP motor
- 6 powerful stainless steel blades
- 5 level manual speed control plus ice crushing button
- Pulse option on each speed setting
- Krups motor technik for low noise level
- 60-ounce borosilicate glass jar
- 2 year warranty
- Motor/ Controls/ Speeds
The Krups KB790 features a 1000 Watt, 1 1/3 HP motor. The company says it’s a “motor technik” which produces a quite yet powerful motor. Beyond that, I have no idea what the phrase is supposed to mean. Couldn’t find an answer anywhere.
This isn’t the quietest blender of the bunch I’ve tested – the Breville BBL600XL takes those honors – but it’s top 2 or 3 for sure. The glass jar is always a plus in this area but I thought with the very minimalist base of this blender, that the noise would’ve been MUCH louder. That wasn’t the case.
The control panel features a total of only 8 buttons – 5 of those being manual speed controls. All buttons become backlit when pressed, except for the off button. They are a rubberized material and feel very good to the touch.
To use either press the Ice Crush preset cycle button or one of the 5 speed buttons labeled slow and then 1-4. You can also press the Vari Pulse button and then use any of the 5 speed buttons to pulse at that speed. A nice feature.
One feature I really like is when using any of the manual speed buttons, the blender doesn’t immediately start at that speed. It starts slower and builds up over a couple seconds. This prevents the ingredients from being splashed into the lid if the contents are mostly liquid.
This is wasteful because many times the chunky contents will stay in the lid or top of the jar and never get blended up. I haven’t seen this on any other blender I’ve tested and like I said, I really like it.
I like the fact there aren’t a lot of preset buttons on the control panel. I rarely use them for what I do with a blender and most times the “Smoothie” preset is geared more towards all fruit smoothies and not green smoothies with a variety of vegetables and leafy greens, stems, etc.
With the Krups, I plug it in, load up the jar and press #5 til everything looks blended sufficiently. Don’t really need a computer to tell me when. Simple but solid….
Container & Base Info
The container is listed at 60 ounces but will hold those extra 4 Oz to give you a full 8 cup capacity. the glass is borosilicate glass which resists pitting and fogging. It’s nice and thick without being overly heavy. This adds to the sound dampening when using.
There are graduated markings on the glass but they are simply etched and therefore, a tad hard to see when there isn’t any colored liquid in the jar. The handle is square so it should help with handling should your hands be wet and the jar full but I still like some type of non-slip help on these glass jars.
There is a single pour spout opposite the handle. I didn’t have problems with drips post-pour either.
To secure the rubberized lid, you set it on the rim and twist to lock it. There’s no friction fit. It only twists on one way and then locks over a couple glass tabs.
The access hole, to add additional ingredients while blending is a little over 2.25” in diameter. The round stopper has graduations for 1 and 2 ounces so you margarita and daiquiri lovers won’t need to hunt a shot glass. The stopper is a friction fit instead of a twist-lock design.
The blade assembly comes off the jar with a 1/4 twist. I never had trouble removing or reseating it. To me the twist-lock is nice because you don’t have to fiddle with screwing the assembly on tight enough to seal the gasket to the jar only to find out you can’t remove it later for cleaning. This one works well – simple but solid…
The base is fairly small with only a 7” x 8” footprint. It’s die-cast aluminum on top and a poly plastic on the bottom. The top has a very nice brushed bronze look to it. It is a very solid feeling base and I did not observe any movement during my blending tests.
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Use & Cleanup
As I said in my opening paragraph, I really came to appreciate the straight forward design of this blender. Not flashy but very functional. Everything fit well and worked the way it was supposed to. The 1/4 turn required to remove the blade assembly was welcomed as was the easy to remove lid.
I didn’t have to think too much as to which button I was going to use to blend my green smoothies – uh, #5 thank you. And having most of the buttons backlit when used was nice. I tend to make my breakfast smoothie at a pretty early hour of the morning.
Though not the quietest blender, it wasn’t loud either. It’s a welcomed relief to use a glass jar when blending frozen fruit I gotta tell ya. Plastic is nice as far as weight but I do miss the sound dampening of glass when blending the amount of frozen fruit I do to make up the 72+ ounces of smoothies I drink a day. finished smoothie 300 web
During use, the Krups always created a high-speed vortex while blending. Food did not swirl around the top of the jar but a fraction of a second before being pulled down into the blades. Though I could see bits of the green ingredients moving around in the jar while blending, they always blended to my satisfaction.
And I’m a pretty bad smoothie snob as far as smoothness is concerned since my full-time, every day use blender is a Vitamix. Smooth as a babies behind smoothie I got to tell you.
The finished smoothie came out smooth – not silky but there wasn’t any noticeable chunks that I had to chew in my drinks (see photo at right). A very consistent blend no matter what ingredients I added – kale, collard greens, celery, frozen fruit. All blended.
For a mid-level smoothie maker, I thing you’d be pleased with the results. Simple but solid…
Cleanup is quick and easy. I normally rinse my blender jars with hot water and the every few days add water and a couple drops of soap and let the blender clean itself. No problems there either.
You can add everything but the blades to the dishwasher if you prefer. Since the jar is glass it can be stood upright on the bottom rack while everything else – lid and stopper goes on the top rack.
A damp washrag to the base is all that’s generally needed to keep it clean BUT, the buttons are not sealed on the control panel so it is possible to get a bit of smoothie-goop, spilled on the control panel to wedge into the tiny, tiny gap between the rubberized button and cast control panel.
This isn’t a show-stopper in my book because most blenders have nooks and crannies somewhere that are a pain to clean and smoothie-goo has a way of finding it. Smile
I would not hesitate to make this my daily go-to smoothie maker if this was the price range I needed to stay in.
Accessories
There are no accessories included with the Krups KB790. An owner’s manual and very small recipe book is included.
Pros
- Geen stoplight
- Powerful
- Blends to a very consistent smoothie
- Simple to operate
- Quite
- Big, glass jar
- Doesn’t jump around while using
- Easy to remove blade assembly
- Easy to clean
- Small footprint and only 14.5” tall
- Manual speed controls ramp up speed over a couple seconds – no splashing
- Backlit, rubberized buttons
- Internal cord storage
- yellow stoplight
Cons
- A little fussy to reassemble after cleaning
- Control panel buttons may attract gunk as they are not sealed.