Ultra Fastgrind Wet Grinder Review

Ultra Fastgrind wet grinder

In this post I will be reviewing my latest Kitchen Gadget, namely a wet grinder. During my recent trip to India I purchased the latest from Elgi Ultra “Ultra Fastgrind Wet grinder”. My old table top Ultra wet grinder was slowly showing signs of wear and tear after servicing my kitchen for 18 years hence it was time to replace.

Above all,  I don’t have access to service here in Switzerland therefore it seemed to be the right choice to buy a new one. I had been casually browsing on the internet since some time to see what would be the best option in terms of durability, quality and flexibility and was inconclusive which model to get. Finally, we decided to opt for their latest technology and model called “Fastgrind”.

Where you can buy Ultra Fastgrind wet grinder

You can buy this product here:

Benefits of wet grinder for healthy eating

Wet grinding of food is very common in the Indian cuisine, especially in South India. Their main staple being rice and lentils, South Indians make a variety of healthy recipes with wet grinding.  South Indian cuisine is predominantly gluten and diary free and it suits our palates for healthy, steamed and fermented food.

What is wet grinder?

An electric wet grinder is a kitchen appliance common to South Indian kitchen. The appliance is used extensively for grinding soaked food grains to produce a batter or paste. The amount of dishes made from this paste is very popular especially in India. Some of them are idly, dosa, vadas, chutneys and appam to name a few. You can also grind masala pastes with a wet grinder.

I have not yet seen wet grinding in western cuisine so far.

Idlys and dosas are world famous breakfast dishes since there is big population of South Indians all over the world.  Idlis are made by soaking rice and dhals for about 8 hours and grinding them wet using a wet grinder. Traditionally all this was all manually done. With technology and mechanization innovators mechanized this laborious process a few decades back. 

These tasty preps were part of my growing up. I was craving for them ever since I moved to the west. I had no way to grind grains into a fine paste without affecting the food quality and the bacteria necessary for food fermentation with a blender.

Ultra Fastgrind Wet grinder

The older wet grinders were very bulky and I couldn’t transport them here. So I used a good blender with a stronger motor which I purchased on one of my trips to India. The Idlys and dosas were a 50-50 success. This was because the grains got very hot during the grinding process thereby killing all those beneficial bacteria and it destroyed the fermentation of the batter. In 2001 we saw this new sleek and light Ultra Wet grinder. Elgi Ultra have been pioneers in manufacturing Wet grinders since decades. They brought out the most sleek and innovative table top wet grinder models decades back. They had the smallest size too with 2 Liter capacity bowls. This was just perfect for me and we bought one immediately. We used this machine on a regular basis probably once a month for the past 18 years.

Ultra Fastgrind Wet grinder features

” The new Ultra fastgrind wet grinder is designed with improved conical stones for better grinding, unique counter rotating mechanism for faster grinding and a compact shape that saves 33% space.  Ultra Fastgrind wet grinder had the same 2 liter capacity as my old one. This was what interested me. There were a lot of other features which I will list below.

Full Manual in PDF Format

Fastgrind Manual

Positives:

One of Amazon’s dealers fulfilled my order on time and the Ultra grinder arrived in a excellent condition. The packaging was also great. We just had to cling wrap at the airport and despite a small dent to the carton the machine arrived undamaged here in Switzerland.

I tried it once in India already and was completely satisfied with the way the batter turned out. All the rice and dhals were ground in less than the time the manufacturer claimed. Probably because we used lesser quantity of the grains than the tested values used by the manufacturer.

We were amazed at the quality and consistency of the batter and we also got much more volume in contrast to the older Ultra models and everything was ground within 10 minutes.

I have also used the Chutney and Masala feature in this model and the consistency was very satisfactory.

The timers is an additional bonus. I just have to set the grinder and can do some other chore and the grinder switches off by itself once the program is done.

Negatives:

Despite the lesser counter space Ultra Fastgrind occupies it compensates for with the height.  It looks very bulky and difficult to handle. For one thing the grinding bowl is big in circumference and very bulky to handle.

This machine is heavier than my present older model. I will have to first dismantle the upper body of the stones, bowl etc to be able to lift it easily.

You cannot store this Fastgrind machine in the kitchen cabinets. Where as with the older model I could easily store in one of the cabinets.

The conical stones are a little difficult to clean.

The chutney Chutney function works well, but not suitable for my small family.  I would have to grind a large quantity. 

Conclusion

Would I still buy Ultra Fastgrind wet grinder?

Certainly despite this one small disadvantage regarding its bulky size.

Above all, Ultra Fastgrind is a really efficient and energy saving machine hence its worth its weight in terms of cash and its functionality. Ultra fastgrind wet grinder ground the soaked rice and dhal to a butter like consistency in less than 15 minutes due to the fact that I had soaked them longer than the recommended time. The timer function and the special features make it attractive. With my previous Ultra Pride, I used to grind the same quantity for more than 30 min despite the usual soaking time of 24 hours.

The only negative is the size and bulkiness of the wet grinder.