Best Blender

On 2017-07-05 08:42, AceExplorer wrote:
Just noticed in the Oster world --- aftermarket replacement parts. They seem to work fine, but in my case the plastic lid is just a bit less spiffy as I'm used to seeing with original Oster. So I found a great vintage square-top Oster glass jar at a thrift store. It needed the "kit" with the lid, filler cap, and the base/blade/gasket. I did a Google search, selected a vendor, ordered the kit for $9 with shipping. It arrived just fine, works just fine too, but you can tell the lid is an inferior quality lid made with molded black vinyl.

For me, this is a "secondary" jar which only cost me $2 plus the parts. I plan on using it to fine-grind ice for making my ice cones, so I'm not really worried about it. But it is the first time I've received stuff which doesn't look as spiffy as the normal Oster stuff. For all I know this could have come directly from the same people who make this stuff for Oster in China, but there's no way to tell except to use the hell out of it and see how it goes. (I'm sure it will be fine, and I saved a few bucks.) I did go for the lowest price online, and I'm fine with that, but wanted to share with others just as an FYI and to bump this thread since Oster rocks the basic at-home blender world.

I'm still in love with my Oster jar blenders. Oster has kept the same parts configuration and design for what, 40 or 50 years without any changes? But I'm also still loving and using my stand mixer. I posted pics of both in an earlier message.

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If you can't blend it, SHAKE IT!

When I'm looking for Oster replacement parts, I'll be especially vigilant not to get anything not genuine Oster. A few years ago I stripped the drive pin, and the "fits Oster" one wasn't nearly the quality. One thing I also love about them is how mason jars fit the blade base perfectly.

On 2017-08-19 05:45, jokeiii wrote:
One thing I also love about them is how mason jars fit the blade base perfectly.

That's GREAT! I'll do some testing with my Mason jars. I'm about 15 years into my home bar now, and have been using Oster stuff much longer. Not one regret. My top-down blender is a Waring Pro - no regrets their either, but it's a much more simple device.

On a side note, I have a dozen small/medium Mason jars which I bought for $3.00 at a thrift. I've made two home-made "test" tiki torches which run on kerosene. They work great.

I finally bought a milkshake blade and metal pitcher for my Oster blender, and it's the best tiki-related purchase I've made. The Oster combo is head and shoulders better than the Hamilton Beach Drinkmaster with its flimsy plastic blade. the stock Oster blade will pulverize your ice and turn your drink into a smoothy. Not so with the milkshake blade. Makes one heck of a Navy Grog.

On 2017-08-20 18:31, CincyTikiCraig wrote:
I finally bought a milkshake blade and metal pitcher for my Oster blender, and it's the best tiki-related purchase I've made. The Oster combo is head and shoulders better than the Hamilton Beach Drinkmaster with its flimsy plastic blade. the stock Oster blade will pulverize your ice and turn your drink into a smoothy. Not so with the milkshake blade. Makes one heck of a Navy Grog.

That's pretty much the rig I have. I use the glass jar and sharp blade for frozen drinks, and the metal jar with the milkshake blade for flash blended Tiki drinks. Now I just have to upgrade my blender base to the one you have...

@AceExplorer & @CincyTikiCraig and any other tikiphiles whose bars require appliances with a minimal footprint, check THIS out.
50¢ at a rainy day garage sale. I need to clean it up, but a test drive shows it both crushes and cracks ice without any problems. I may experiment with running the ice through twice to see if it gets close to shaved ice (i.e. for a Navy Grog ice cone) but even if not, I'm pretty happy.

Jokeiiii, great find! I have three of those, lol. They work VERY WELL but tend to be a bit leaky and make a bit of a mess. You can make very fine ice usable in ice cones, as I recall. So why don't I use it? Because the Oster ice crushing blade in a self-contained blender jar works just as well without the leakage from the melting ice fragments inside the device. But if you can manage your work area, no problems. Another advantage of using a blender jar is that you could more easily crush ice and then scoop it out and into your ice molds. Please keep testing and share your results here. The device is fairly easy to find on eBay, but much harder to find in thrifts.

I tested my mason jars with the Oster blender base. Pint size jars work perfectly. Half pint jars which were previously filled with pesto sauce were too small. I took some photos, but they're still in my phone. I'll try to post over the next few days and share the photos.

On 2017-08-28 19:18, AceExplorer wrote:
Jokeiiii, great find! I have three of those, lol. They work VERY WELL but tend to be a bit leaky and make a bit of a mess. You can make very fine ice usable in ice cones, as I recall. So why don't I use it? Because the Oster ice crushing blade in a self-contained blender jar works just as well without the leakage from the melting ice fragments inside the device. But if you can manage your work area, no problems. Another advantage of using a blender jar is that you could more easily crush ice and then scoop it out and into your ice molds. Please keep testing and share your results here. The device is fairly easy to find on eBay, but much harder to find in thrifts.

This is as far as I've gotten. I rigged a "canning funnel" to keep the ice crusher trapdoor open (otherwise it's one measly cube at a time) which allows for much faster crushing of more cubes, and faster = less melt/leaks. It shoots the crushed ice down into a tray salvaged from an ancient fridge that fits PERFECTLY under the chute. In sum, no appreciable mess thus far.

On 2017-08-29 11:22, jokeiii wrote:
It shoots the crushed ice down into a tray salvaged from an ancient fridge that fits PERFECTLY under the chute. In sum, no appreciable mess thus far.

Cool "actual-use" feedback, and a good innovation to use a salvaged tray... And I know what you mean about the spring-loaded door being a pain. I guess it's designed to prevent ice from potentially flying up and out of the machine, or to make it less likely you'll put fingers in there.

I ran mine A LOT - crushed a whole ice tub from the fridge all at once. The inside of the machine got so cold that powdered ice started building up in the nooks and crannies. That's actually what melted and made a mess. So - to modify what I described earlier - it's only messy if you use it and let it sit on the blender. But it's NOT messy if you use it and then set it down in a sink or something. But it works great!

Of the three that I have, one is an early model and looks quite different from the streamlined ones which are most common. Someday I'll have to pull mine out and take pics just for grins.

Great tip, thx!

On 2017-08-28 19:21, AceExplorer wrote:
I tested my mason jars with the Oster blender base. Pint size jars work perfectly. Half pint jars which were previously filled with pesto sauce were too small. I took some photos, but they're still in my phone. I'll try to post over the next few days and share the photos.

Below is a photo of my Oster blender base being used on a Mason jar.

Don't worry, that's not a cocktail in progress, the "sludge" is the beginning of a very tasty smoothie. I can't even begin to describe how happy I am with the Oster design. The whole Mason jar interchangeability makes a number of kitchen and bar tasks so much easier when you're batching things. For today's "smoothie project" we will be using a number of mason jars for various things, and this would not be possible if we had to rely on just one or two full-size blender jars.

Oster blenders really rock!

A new test this morning revealed that "Classico" brand sauce jars are still thread-compatible with Oster blender bases.

A new base with a blade and gasket currently costs between $5 and $10 depending on which store or web site you're looking at.

Here are a couple of other blender tips:

-- Sometimes I run out of simple syrup and simply use a jar to make more on-the-spot.

-- All manufacturer-supplied blender gaskets shrink and lose their flexibility over time, so I've been buying 5-packs of SILICONE gaskets online. Now I use only silicone gaskets with my blenders. They are inexpensive and superior to the factory gaskets.

MORE INFO (and two photos) on using Mason jars with Oster blender bases:

-- There are at least three sizes of Mason jar mouths - Regular, Wide Mouth, and what I call small mouth. The "regular" mouth is the one which works with Oster blender bases. This jar is used for the 24-oz size of Classico sauces, not the 16-oz size jars.

Out shopping for jars? Bring your ruler and carefully look for these measurements:

Regular mouth (yes Oster!) jars:
Jar opening (outside diameter) is 2-5/8 inches.
Jar opening (inside diameter) opening is 2-3/8 inches.
Metal lid diameter is 2-3/4 inches and is shown in the 2nd photo below.

Small mall mouth (non-Oster!) jars:
Jar opening (outside diameter) is 2-3/8 inches.
Jar opening (inside diameter) is 2-1/8 inches.

These photos may be helpful:

Now go make a cocktail! :)

[Edited to add more photos and the measurements.]

[ Edited by: AceExplorer 2020-01-23 07:08 ]

I have one of those promo blenders from Waring for Bacardi Tropical Fruit Mixers from sometime in the 80s:

It makes one hell of a racket and looks a bit flimsy but it's an absolute beast. I love making a Daiquiri #3 with it, it just piles up like snow.

On 2020-01-21 10:34, HopeChest wrote:

It makes one hell of a racket and looks a bit flimsy but it's an absolute beast. I love making a Daiquiri #3 with it, it just piles up like snow.

Not typically a frozen daiquiri guy, but those look fantastic.

On 2020-01-21 10:34, HopeChest wrote:
I have one of those promo blenders from Waring for Bacardi Tropical Fruit Mixers from sometime in the 80s:

It makes one hell of a racket and looks a bit flimsy but it's an absolute beast. I love making a Daiquiri #3 with it, it just piles up like snow.

Nice "add" to this thread by HopeChest. I've never seen or heard of that device. Sure does look snowy! A number of years ago I used to make a lot of Derby Daiquiries in my Oster blenders, and they came out nice and snowy/slushy like that.

Mike made a good point - not everyone makes daiquiries slushy.

The promo branding makes it even funner.

PS @ace, do you have a link to the silicone gaskets?

[ Edited by: jokeiii 2020-01-26 03:35 ]

Yes, see the photos below. On eBay do a search for "Oster silicone" and you'll see 1-packs, 3-packs, and 5-packs. They're very inexpensive. Initially, I bought a couple of 3-packs, but recently decided I needed a couple of 5-packs because I have been an Oster user for years and have all sorts of accessories with the old dried-up factory seals. These silicone seals could last a lifetime.

[Edited to add the 5-pk photo]

[ Edited by: AceExplorer 2020-01-26 09:59 ]