Food processors are a great solution to kitchen problems: they do a lot and take up little space. We are testing a fairly compact 4 in 1 device Kitfort KT-1386, which will help you prepare a salad, pate or smoothie, grind coffee and spices. We will check how good the harvester is in each of its four incarnations: chopper, blender, grater and shredder, and coffee grinder.

Characteristics

Manufacturer	kitfort
Model	KT-1386
Type	food processor
Country of Origin	China
Warranty	1 year
Service life *	2 years
Power	400 W
Maximum blender blade speed	18000—21000 rpm ±15%
Maximum chopper blade rotation speed	3000—3500 rpm ±15%
Bottle capacity	0.6 l
Chopper bowl capacity	0.5 l
Coffee grinder bowl capacity	0.2 l
Protection class against electric shock	II
The weight	2.1 kg
Dimensions (W×H×D)	135×150×365 mm
Network cable length	1.2 m
Retail offers

^* If it’s quite simple: this is the period during which parts for repairing the device are delivered to official service centers. After this period, any repair in the official SC (both warranty and paid) is unlikely to be possible.

Equipment

Traditionally, Kitfort has a black and purple box – and this time nothing has changed. On the wide sides, we saw a schematic representation of the assembled combine and, separately, a tall bottle for a blender. The slogan that the company’s marketers came up with for the device this time is: “Let’s grind?”. On the same sides, as well as on the lid, there is an indispensable name of the company and household appliance (it is especially emphasized that it is not just a combine, but “4 in 1”), as well as the model number.

On one of the sides, under the common slogan for the company “Always something new”, the technical specifications of the combine are listed: voltage, power, capacity of the vessels included in the kit, maximum rotation speed of the knives, cord length, weight and dimensions of the device itself and its packaging .

On the second side, information about the features of the operation of the combine itself and the decoding of the concept of “4 in 1”: Shake & Take blender (and a bottle with a lid), coffee grinder, chopper, grater / shredder. Also, the advantages of the model include manual control, 2 speeds and pulse mode, stainless steel knives, anti-slip feet and protection against switching on with the bowl removed.

At the bottom of the box there is information about the manufacturer and importer, on one of the valves of the lid there is a hotline telephone number, which should be contacted for any questions related to the device.

Opening the box, inside we found:

• combine motor block;
• a bowl of a chopper and a grater / shredder;
• chopper bowl lid;
• grater / shredder cover;
• axle with disc for grater/shredder;
• the grater / shredder itself;
• coffee grinder bowl;
• block of coffee grinder knives with a sealing ring;
• a cap with a handle for carrying a bottle;
• plastic bottle;
• blender knife block with sealing ring;
• pusher;
• manual;
• warranty card;
• collection magnet.

Everything is packed very compactly and securely. For safe movement, all parts are tightly packed in a “cradle” of molded foam.

At first sight

The Kitfort KT-1386 food processor combines the functions of a blender, chopper, grater/shredder and coffee grinder. All nozzles of the device are driven by one motor unit. Its cylindrical body is made of brushed silver metal with black plastic elements.

On the front side of the motor unit there is a round silver control knob that switches the speed of the device (it has two of them). Also, the device has the ability to turn on in a pulsed mode. The side edges of the handle have comfortable notches that prevent slippage when operating the device with wet or greasy hands.

On the top side of the motor block, we see the nozzle drive socket and the latches for fixing them. The attachments are fixed with a bayonet mount rotated by approximately 20° and are driven by a hard plastic figured gear. All nozzles have protection against improper installation – if not turned, the device will not turn on.

On the underside of the motor block there are three groups of ventilation holes and a nameplate with the manufacturer’s logo, the main technical characteristics of the device, serial number, conformity marks (the device complies with CE and EAC regulations) and information about the country of origin. On smooth surfaces, the body of the device is securely fixed with four rubber suction cups.

The blender attachment in its working position consists of two parts: a blender knife block and a 600 ml plastic bottle, which is also the blender body. This design allows you to prepare a protein blend or fitness drink right in the bottle, close it with the supplied cap and take the drink bottle with you on a run or to the gym. The bottle cap has a drinking hole and a carrying handle.

The coffee grinder nozzle has a similar design: a transparent plastic body that is screwed onto a block of knives. The coating of the lower part of the case is matte, its upper border serves as a mark of the maximum level of the product – coffee beans, spices and nuts.

The knife blocks of the blender and coffee grinder are compatible with each other and differ only in the design of the knives. This will allow you to grind a large portion of coffee at once if necessary, or make half or a third of a regular portion of a smoothie.

The chopper and grater-shredder have a common transparent bowl, but different lids and, of course, different working bodies. The grinder is designed to process meat, hard cheese, vegetables, herbs, garlic and similar products. Its knife is double: its lower part is fixed on the shaft of the motor block, and its upper part is fixed in a special socket on the chopper cover. This knife comes with a protective sheath that keeps its blades sharp during storage and protects the user from accidental cuts.

The grater / shredder is designed for processing vegetables and fruits. The loading opening of a cover is supplied with a pusher for simplification of supply of products on a disk. On the side of the lid there is a socket for the finished product. The double-sided steel disk of the grater/shredder is driven by an axle with a plastic disk, which facilitates the feeding of sliced products into the socket.

Instruction

Lilac and white cover, the model’s slogan in a block that looks like a quotation mark – yes, there is no doubt, this is Kitfort. The cover of the A5 brochure has a schematic of the combine and the bottle, just like the box. And the slogan is the same: “Let’s grind.”

The structure of the operating manual is also standard for the company and contains diagrams with signatures, clear and simple explanations for them, general information about the device and its configuration, how to work with all components of the combine, information on how to properly wash and clean the device, how to repair it , if something has happened, and where to go if the malfunction is too serious to fix it yourself.

Separately, I would like to note the paragraph about the chopper and coffee grinder knives: the manual explains why they must be blunt for a blender and coffee grinder and how products are ground in them, as well as what sharpness and shape the cutting edges of the chopper, shredder and grater should be. Very clear and illustrative.

But it is impossible not to point out minor flaws in the presentation of information about the operation: in some cases, what was written using the copy-paste method was not completely subtracted, and, for example, sentences from the same description of the blender got into the description of the coffee grinder (the coffee grinder instead of the bowl has a bottle, from which content).

Control

The KT-1386 model has a single motor block and, accordingly, a single control center: a round handle, which must be set the first and second rotation speeds by turning it clockwise, and the pulse mode – counterclockwise.

The speed of the knives in the pulse mode is equal to the second speed of the normal mode, and the pulse operates only while the user holds the handle.

Exploitation

Before the first use, the manufacturer recommends washing all components of the combine, except for the motor unit, and dry them. The motor unit should be wiped first with a damp cloth and then with a dry cloth.

Assembling the combine in all four configurations did not cause us any difficulties and was intuitive. I had to look at the instructions only once, so as not to make a mistake in choosing between the knife blocks of a blender and a coffee grinder: at first glance, they are very similar, but it is enough to look at the shape of the blades once to understand the difference.

The blender blades (pictured right), designed for chopping the product, have straighter and sharper blades, while the coffee grinder blades (left) have blunter and hook-shaped blades.

We liked the coffee grinder of the combine. The lid turned out to be very convenient: its upper transparent part allows you to visually control the degree of grinding, and the protrusions on the inner surface effectively mix the grains, contributing to the uniformity of grinding. We processed black pepper grains, dried red pepper pods and, of course, coffee with a coffee grinder – and in all cases we got a uniform grinding with fractions of the desired size. The coffee grinder coped even with such a difficult task as hard fenugreek seeds.

The combine blender did not disappoint us either: in just a few seconds, it allows you to prepare an excellent smoothie, cocktail or vegetable puree with a completely uniform, but not grated consistency (if you need a completely homogeneous mixture, just let it work longer).

The design of the blender bottle cap, as promised by the manufacturer, is quite convenient for transporting the finished cocktail, the cap closes securely and opens easily. Drinking from it is convenient if you turn the flap valve of the drinking hole to the cheek, and not rest against it with your nose.

The configuration of the harvester for working with a chopper turned out to be no less successful: the design of the chopper knives allows you to grind both soft and hard products equally well – from tomatoes to nuts.

The design of the grater / shredder turned out to be a little less convenient: although the plastic disc located under the steel grater effectively directs the products into the socket of the lid, leaving the bowl under it almost clean, some of the products get stuck in the socket itself due to its complex shape, and it is possible to remove them from there only under running water. Most of all, the percentage of waste when chopping soft boiled vegetables – beets, carrots, etc. Processing hard vegetables is also not very pleased: both the grater and the shredder do not chop the food very evenly, skipping large unprocessed pieces of food. Below, in practical tests, we will consider this issue in more detail.

The heating of the device during operation, which the manufacturer warns about, turned out to be insignificant. Even when the grinder was running for a long time, the motor unit and nozzle bodies remained slightly warmer than room temperature.

Care

All removable parts of the combine according to the instructions can be washed in a dishwasher at a temperature not exceeding 60 degrees. It is recommended to do this immediately after use so that food remains do not dry out. Be sure to wipe the knives dry after washing and do not use aggressive or abrasive agents on any part of the appliance.

The bottle can be washed by pouring some water and detergent into it and placing it on a blender. A few seconds of operation of the device – and the bottle only needs to be rinsed. The sealing ring from the block of knives can be removed by prying the handle of the spoon, and washed separately, then dried and put in place.

The manufacturer recommends wiping the engine block first with a damp cloth and then with a dry cloth. If on the plastic parts of the combine there are colored spots from products (carrots, beets), then they should be rubbed with a rag or napkin soaked in vegetable oil, and then washed in the usual way.

Our measurements

Useful (up to the maximum level mark) capacity of the chopper bowl with a knife installed, according to our measurements, is 455 ml. The usable capacity of the blender bottle is 590 ml and the capacity of the grinder bowl is 90 ml.

The noise emitted by the combine during operation does not depend on the installed nozzle and is on average 86 dBA when using the first speed and 91 dBA at the second.

The maximum power of the device, recorded by us during practical tests, is 222 watts. In standby mode, the device consumes 0.5 watts.

practice tests

We set ourselves the task of testing all the functions of the combine and putting the results of its work into practice.

fresh tomato

For our obligatory “tomato dough”, we took large, fleshy, but harsh “winter” tomatoes. The tall bottle and narrow blender bottle were too small for them, so we cut them into quarters and used the chopper bowl.

Twenty seconds on second speed was enough to turn the tomatoes into an almost smooth mousse with persistent foam.

Crushing of tomatoes turned out to be quite high-quality, seeds are found in the resulting mass, but small fragments of the peel are visible only at high magnification. An excellent base for gazpacho or tomato sauces.

Result: excellent.

Grater Test: Raw Carrot

We placed raw, peeled medium-sized carrots in the grater/shredder feed hopper and set the shredding disc with the grater side up. Vegetables were processed in a pulsed mode, with a uniform feed and a slight push of the pusher on the products. Approximately 500g of carrots were processed in less than five seconds.

We were pleased with the result: the carrots were grated into even, long straws, there were few broken fragments in the finished product. A small amount of unprocessed product remains under the lid and on the grater disc.

However, in fairness, it should be noted that pieces of the raw product that get stuck between the disc and the body are the eternal misfortune of any disk-type graters and shredders. We have not yet met any that would be completely devoid of this drawback, because it has a purely geometric explanation: there is always some kind of gap between the disk and the case – and as soon as the processed product is “erased” to the thickness of the gap, its disk rotation is inexorable pulls into this gap.

Carrots grated in this way can be used in salads and soup dressings, if you do not find fault with uneven cutting and manually remove large fragments of vegetables.

Result: excellent.

Shredder test: raw onion

We cut the peeled onions of medium size into halves and were going to cut them on the grater / shredder disc, setting the disc with the shredder side up. As in the previous test, the pulse mode was used, the product was fed evenly with a slight push on the pusher.

Despite the fact that the onion turned out to be cut into fairly uniform strips, several large fragments of unprocessed vegetables fell into the container for the finished product.

After the harvester stopped, quite a lot of large unprocessed onion fragments also remained under the lid of the bowl and on the shredding disc.

Result: good.

grinder test

The grinder bowl, filled to the maximum level, holds approximately 42 g of coffee beans – enough for two cups of coffee.

In 20 seconds at maximum speed, the coffee grinder ground the grains qualitatively, very finely and evenly, without visible large fragments. Such grinding is not very suitable for carob or drip coffee makers, but is ideal for making coffee in a cezve or in a French press.

Result: excellent.

strawberry smoothie

We filled the blender bottle halfway with frozen strawberries, topped it up to the maximum (800 g) mark with homemade yogurt, added a couple of spoons of sugar, closed the lid with a blender knife, turned it over, installed it on the motor unit and turned on the second speed.

For the first ten seconds of whipping, it seemed to us that the strawberries would remain in the upper part of the container, but the whipped yogurt allowed the frozen berries to gradually fall onto the working chopper knife, and in thirty seconds the bottle was evenly filled with the whipped mass.

Another fifteen seconds – and a wonderful, evenly crushed and whipped drink is ready.

Result: excellent.

Hummus

Twelve hours before cooking, we soaked chickpeas (chickpeas) and then boiled them until soft. To speed up soaking in water, it is recommended to add a teaspoon of baking soda – we did just that. Some people prefer to peel boiled chickpeas, but we consider this unnecessary: Turkish peas, well grated together with the peel, are, in our opinion, no worse than peeled ones.

We placed the sesame seeds lightly fried in a dry frying pan into the chopper bowl and turned it on at second speed.

Thirty seconds later, the sesame turned into a well-ground paste. To this paste, we added a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, a little salt and boiled chickpeas and grinded at high speed for about a minute more until smooth.

In a coffee grinder cup, in a few seconds, we ground a couple of teaspoons of cumin (zira) along with several pods of dried hot pepper. We added about four-fifths of the finished spicy mixture to the pea-sesame paste, squeezed the juice of one lemon into the blender bowl and brought the finished hummus to the desired consistency, gradually adding the decoction left over from boiling the chickpeas through the hole in the chopper lid.

The finished hummus was laid out on a plate, drizzled with olive oil, sprinkled with the remaining spice mixture and garnished with boiled chickpeas, ground paprika and herbs.

Result: excellent.

findings

The KT-1386 food processor will come in handy in the kitchen of a bachelor who takes care of his health and loves to cook, or in the apartment of a young family with an active lifestyle. Small in size, but powerful and multifunctional, the device combines the functions of a fitness blender, coffee grinder, spice grinder, chopper, grater and shredder. It will allow you to prepare a vegetable salad, aromatic coffee for brewing in a cezve or in a coffee maker, or a sports cocktail in a minimum time.

The ability to crush ice, which not every blender of this class can boast of, will come in handy in the hot summer when preparing frozen cocktails (both sports in the morning and alcoholic in the evening) or when processing frozen fruits or vegetables.

The design of the blender bottle allows you to quickly remove it from the combine and take it with you on the road or to the gym, conveniently and securely closing it with a cap. It is a pity that the device is equipped with only one such bottle – a family of even two people will have to argue because of it. We hope that the manufacturer will provide an opportunity to purchase additional bottles separately.

pros

• small dimensions and weight
• performance sufficient for domestic needs
• nice design
• the ability to wash in the dishwasher all parts of the device, except for the motor unit
• Convenient bottle design
• possibility of crushing ice

Minuses

• only one blender bottle included