My Vitamix Leaves Chunks

[Pailani]

My old Krups blender didn't do this, but my new Vitamix 4500 does. If I leave everything in long enough to fully blend, the food inside it heats up. I end up with banana chunks or apple chunks in my smoothies, and I tried a Mudslide, and there was no way those almonds were going to get any smaller. The Mudslide was warm, and it still had a few big almond chunks in it. Next time I'll use almond meal that I've made in my food processer - but I never hear of anyone else having to run their almonds through a food processer first to make a Mudslide.

Is there a trick to the order you add things in? Should I be dicing everything up small first? Should I make thicker mixtures? Maybe everything's just getting twirled around because there's too much water.

My old blender had four blades; two were bent up, one was bent down and one wasn't bent at all. My Vitamix blade has two bent up and two not bent at all, and I'm wondering if one was bent down, if that might help.

[Sharon in Colorado]

The Vitamix makes a 'dry' jar with flat blades for blending dry things like grains, coffee etc. You might need to place the nuts in first, blend them, and then add the rest of the ingredients.

I know that my Magic Bullet has a special blade attachemet for whipping cream and grinding hard dry things like coffee, nuts, seeds, etc. It also has the flat blades and that is what I generally use.

You also might have too much liquid in the blender which causes the hard bits to fly around too fast and not get down into the blades to chop.

[mrsalf97]

I was going to ask if there was enough liquid in it, but I see you mentioned water. Maybe try adding the water first?

I almost killed my vitamix the other day trying to make a pudding. It was smoking and not in a good way. ;)

[Pailani]

The Vitamix makes a 'dry' jar with flat blades for blending dry things like grains, coffee etc. You might need to place the nuts in first, blend them, and then add the rest of the ingredients.

I rarely use nuts - this was the first time.

Usually I'm making green smoothies - a cut-up apple, a banana and some lettuce. And it often leaves marble-sized chunks of apple and banana unless I let it run long enough for the smoothie to get warm, which isn't very appetizing. I've even started adding water to my green smoothies, which I never had to do with my old blender (but my old blender didn't blend the smoothie as fine, it was more like an applesauce consistency, so maybe blending it finer somehow makes it require water??)

[Tirza]

I was going to ask if there was enough liquid in it, but I see you mentioned water. Maybe try adding the water first?

I almost killed my vitamix the other day trying to make a pudding. It was smoking and not in a good way. ;)

Doesn't the Vitamix have an automatic shutoff when it gets overheated?
My KTec has shut off on me a couple of times. Never gets to the smoking stage.

[Lay-Lay]

hmmm. I have not had a chunk problem with mine. What speed r you running it on?

[Tirza]

I was going to ask if there was enough liquid in it, but I see you mentioned water. Maybe try adding the water first?

I almost killed my vitamix the other day trying to make a pudding. It was smoking and not in a good way. ;)

Doesn't the Vitamix have an automatic shutoff when it gets overheated?
My KTec has only shut off on me a couple of times. It certainly has never gotten to the smoking stage.

[Pailani]

hmmm. I have not had a chunk problem with mine. What speed r you running it on?

I've tried both speeds. Is one better than the other? When should I use high, and when should I use low?

[Sheryl]

I pretty much always start on low, then move to max speed. It's easier on the motor, and I think works better too. I do smoothies all the time and never have them heat up, although some do add an ice cube or two to keep them chilled.

If you're blending liquid it's often better not to leave the tamper in when blending unless you are using it. It can interfer with the contents of the blender moving properly and going against the blades. That could be it...

Cheers,
Sheryl

[ambiguous]

Unless there's really almost no liquid in your VitaMix, it should not be acting the way it is. I have one, and use it all the time--twice a day or more. And when I grind difficult stuff (like when I pulverize raw cocoa beans and agave syrup into gooey chocolate), it will turn off before the motor overheats. I think you should probably call the VitaMix people, and they may tell you to return it. And personally I think the dry container is just a way to get you to spend more money; I use my regular container for everything and it grinds nuts and other dry items just fine.

[Pailani]

I use my regular container for everything and it grinds nuts and other dry items just fine.

I just tried a cup of almonds and it worked! It turned them into almond meal in 30 seconds! So then I tried flax seeds, and then sesame seeds, and it worked great with them, too! Soooo much faster than the coffee grinder, and without the over-heating smell!

I wonder if it'll work for banana ice cream? I stopped having my nightly banana ice cream because I got so tired of the chore of cleaning all the parts to my food processer every night.

So, then, I can pulverize the almonds first and then make the shake.

And I can add a couple of ice cubes (or frozen strawberries!) to keep smoothies from overheating. Can it really handle ice cubes? Do you need to crush them first or something? Hard ice cubes in my beautiful new blender is a scary thought . . .

[Sheryl]

Yahh!! So glad you figured it out.

The Vitamix turn ice cubes into sorbet texture in seconds. They do recommend you have it on high speed though when you add them. I do banana ice cream in mine all the time... it's so much faster than using my juicer.

Cheers,
Sheryl

[Pailani]

The Vitamix turn ice cubes into sorbet texture in seconds. They do recommend you have it on high speed though when you add them.

Oh my! I did a test, I threw in some ice cubes (we have trays that make small-ish cubes) and it turned it into snow in seconds! My kids are freezing some juice right now so I can make them snow cones tomorrow!

And this won't chip the blades? When I was looking up blenders a month ago when I bought mine, I found out that my Krups had been recalled because the blade would chip when it crushed ice, leaving pieces of blade in the food. I had never used my Krups to blend ice.

[Sheryl]

I've been blending ice in my Vitamix for more than 10 years! And many recipes in their own manual involve blending ice. It's designed for it!!!

Don't blend metal spoons though... I learned the hard way! *grin*

Time to celebrate!!
Sheryl

[Sharon in Colorado]

Both the Vitamix and K Tec are very high tech blenders with lots of horse power. It would be very hard to burn them out, although I had with my K tec and they replaced my motor for me.

You don't have to worry about ice. The one problem I had when I used the Vitamix was making sprouted hummus. It really labored and had a burning smell when it was pulverizing the sprouted chickpeas.