coupster I hear you on the cleanup hassle—it's always a chore. I've been using the Chef'sChoice 615A, and while it's not a commercial beast, it does a pretty solid job for home use. The blade is 7 inches, which might not be much bigger than what you're dealing with, but I’ve found it to be a good balance between performance and ease of handling. Cleanup is manageable once you get the routine down, but like you said, there's no way around the PITA factor with slicers. If you're looking to upgrade without going too bulky, it might be worth checking out.
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Hello from NW Oregon.
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Check on FB Marketplace or Craiglist for a good commercial unit like a Hobart, Berkel, Globe, Bizerba, etc. These things are HEAVY but they will last forever and are much higher quality than most home units. If you pay attention and look regularly you will probably see one for less than $300 eventually. They are a pain to move around and if you just need to slice a couple pieces of turkey for a sandwich it is a PITA but if you are going to be slicing 20-30 pounds at a time it is definitely worth it.
And yeah, cleaning them is not fun.Comment
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Howdy folks, dredging this one back up because as we prepare to move to our new home next week, I will finally have space to use and store a slicer. There are some stout storage cabinets in the garage, about fifteen steps from there to the kitchen counter, so the luggage should be tolerable.
In reading the prior posts, seems like a consensus is to a) get the best slicer you think you can afford and b) it can be worth keeping an eye on resale sites for a used commercial grade unit.
Any new insights in the couple years since the last post here? Home Depot has a pretty broad range on their website, starting from a couple hundred bucks up to several thousand. I'm definitely a "you get what you pay for" kinda guy, and am happy to spend a little more if done judiciously to get a good product. So: help me spend some money y'all!
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DaveD when it comes to helping you spend your money I'm here for you, fear not:
(1) Berkel Slicer - Volano B114 - YouTube
Added bonus, you can even slice in a power outage.Comment
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DaveD you're in a good position here - absolutely keep an eye on your local FB marketplace ads. While most good slicers I've seen have been expensive, I do see the occasional one that is a smoking good deal. You may remember my recent search which I chronicled and I ended up with an old 12" Hobart AUTOMATIC slicer I picked up for $400. Delivered to me from 3 hours away!
What is more, I managed a week later (maybe 2 weeks) to pick up a slightly newer Hobart 12" slicer for my friend for $150! Although his is manual only, it was an even better deal.
And they both work fine. I had to do some cleaning and working on mine, but it freaking WORKS, and I am absolutely LOVING it!
Since then, I've seen a bunch of these in the $600-1000 range, but I've also see a couple of others in the $200-400 range - not many, not often, but I have seen them.
Since you're not in a hurry and can afford to hang on and wait for several months or a year or more, if you are religious about looking at these ads, you will likely find something. I am still SMDH over the 2 deals I got. I used my 12" Hobart the other days to slice up 18 pounds of bacon for my visiting friends to take home with them to Trinidad and it was actually a fun, relaxing and enjoyable experience. It's a beast. And I don't even use the automatic slicing feature, it really goes too fast and kinda makes things ragged anyways, so I prefer using the manual mode and having more control and making things nice and neat.
Don't settle man. 10" minimum, 12" if you can find it. You have time to wait - the deal will pop up sometime. Hobart or Berkel. You'll be glad one day and it'll be a piece you can keep and use practically forever.Comment
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I'm gonna agree with the 10-12 size recommendation. Mine's 10 inch, and works well, but slicing some larger pieces (bacon) results in smaller (lengthwise) slices of bacon than commercial. Also, a 12 Hobart has gotta weigh well over a hundred pounds, you're not gonna "carry" that thing anywhere. My KWS 10 weighs about 40lbs, and at is a beast to move from the garage to the kitchen counter. For a commercial slicer, you're gonna probably want to put it on a cart. Something to think about. -
McFlyfi More great input, thanks! I might well have enough space in the garage now to just leave a slicer on a rolling cart and simply do the slicing out there. Then roll it onto the driveway and hose that whole sucker down as the first step in the cleaning process... Hmmm!
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Hey slicers, been following up on this thought process, and have a candidate slicer in mind, this here Beswood model:
10 inch model, chromium steel blade with built-in sharpener, weighs 33lb/15kg, and has an average 4.6 out of 5 on Amazon from well over 3000 reviews. I've read good things about the Beswood slicers on other sites as well.
The one potential fly in the ointment is that it might be a tight fit in the tall cabs I have out in the garage, which are just under 20in/51cm deep - and the longest dimension of the unit is listed as 20". So that may be an issue and I'd have to come up with another place to put it. But I have lots of space in the garage, and a very convenient corner spot where I could plop down a simple table for it to sit on. Def don't have the space to leave it set up in the kitchen all the time, nor would we want it in there anyway.
There is a very detailed review on the Amazon page that gives the chapter & verse for how to clean the unit, and it's clear that one does not have to remove the blade itself to do so - that is a big plus for safety (of course I'll get the non-cut gloves). Routine cleaning time is about 15 minutes in that writeup.
Happy to get any input on this unit. Availability of suitable lunch meat locally is inconsistent at best, so I don't want to wait months to get back into home production. And now that we're here and starting to begin to maybe feel perhaps a LITTLE bit settled, I can see that a full sized commercial slicer is not the way, no matter the price, something that bulky is not going to work here.
Thanks!Comment
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I have that exact unit, going on 6 years now. Not a heavy user, but it is so handy when needed. Yes, you can clean it without removing the blade but commitment is necessary. The most difficult part is the C shaped blade guard on the exit side, but with judicious use of small brushes and sanitizing liquid it's doable. What swung me to this one is the Italian made blade. High end slicers are often Italian made so they know what they're doing. -
Very close if not a match for my Kitchenware Station model. The KWS is 320 watts for just a little bit more. Ran into your size limitations too. You will to need allow extra space to get it in and out of a tight space. I ended up purchasing one of the available 36” wide heavy duty storage (24” deep) wire racks and set the heights I needed for easy in and out. And the rack can be used for other storage.
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Welp, I went ahead and ordered that Beswood and it should be here in a couple of days. So I'm fixin to cook a bunch of lunch meats for slicing! Going to start a new thread in the Sandwich topic to document that journey
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Awesome, man! You're going to love having a massive slicer to do large amounts. It's not something you use every day, or maybe even every week. But combine this with a good vacuum sealer like the AA one on sale for $30 today on Amazon, and the possibilities are endless. I find myself wanting to do more and more and more lunchmeat, cheeses, BBQ, homemade bacon and sausage... it's just crazy.Originally posted by DaveD View PostWelp, I went ahead and ordered that Beswood and it should be here in a couple of days. So I'm fixin to cook a bunch of lunch meats for slicing! Going to start a new thread in the Sandwich topic to document that journey
I need a freaking walk-in cooler and freezer these days!Comment
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I have that Beswood..It works well, and cleans up easy peasy...Happy Slicing!Attached FilesComment
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I have the same Beswood. +1 to all the love for it. I don't use it often (enough), but it is excellent.
Do yourself a favor and get a couple pair of cutting gloves to protect your hands.Comment
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8-10 inch MINIMUM. Depends on what you’re looking to slice… And as with grills/smokers…bigger is almost always better. Nobody with a big cooker ever wished they had a smaller one.
I have an 8” that I’ve had for years. It works…but ONLY on smaller cuts. No bigger than something like a pork belly. (Read: no taller than a canned ham.)
I later purchased a large commercial style slicer at a restaurant supply store…that will handle pretty much everything. Both require disassembly for cleaning…so that part is a wash. I still have the small one because it’s small & relatively light…and does the trick for smaller things.
The 12-14” is a BEAST. (Sorry, not dragging it out to check.) It weighs somewhere around 14 thousand pounds. LOL It will cut through pretty much everything. Cleaning is still a PITA. Anti-cut gloves probably aren’t a bad thing when yanking that monster blade out for a clean.
Check your local restaurant supply. Sometimes they have true lightly used units at great prices. Others might require a little work… But even new, most are still offered at a better price than most “retailers.”
Well…looks like I’m late to the party…
Still, I’m going to leave this here to possibly help others in the future. ;-)Comment
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Heck yeah. 140+ lbs on my 12" Hobart. So I built a cart for it. Now the whole thing is prolly 250lbs. lol Overkill, ya know?Originally posted by surfdog View Post
I needa get me some of them cut proof gloves, too... Amazon Prime Day (week?) here I come. Again. lolComment
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Hell yeah! I'm glad I put 4 solid locking casters on it. It's an automatic, so if I want to set it and forget it, it'll slice forever. Not as cool in practice as in theory. It goes FAST, so it can get raggedy on stuff, and keeping it fed down into the bade is an issue. I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong or what, but it doesn't work so great on automatic.
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