34 replies to this topic

[patrickamory]

Thanks to Blether's recommendation in this thread, I was able to obtain an Iwatani Millser directly from Japan. This is a versatile small mixer/blender, perfect for a small apartment like mine. I was seeking something to help prep roughly chopped ingredients for Thai curry pastes, and I didn't want to spend the money or sacrifice the space necessary for a full-size Indian mixie. The Millser actually can do a ton of things, from mincing garlic to making smoothies, and is exceptionally well-made.

The 800DG model that I bought has a footprint smaller than a regular US blender - almost as small as a coffee grinder. It comes with three different containers. The blade unit screws on to the bottom of each container. You fill the container with whatever you need to blend, screw on the blade unit, and invert it on top of the Millser. The smallest container is very small indeed - it will mince 3 bird chiles or 2 cloves of garlic with ease. The motor is extremely powerful - the torque feels similar to my 14-cup Cuisinart. The pieces come apart easily and are easy to clean. I'm not clear on whether they're dishwasher-safe because all the instructions are in Japanese.

Note: I ended up buying this through a Japanese auction proxy site with great difficulty and extra expense because I didn't realize that that Japanese transliteration of the Japanglish "Millser" actually equates to "Mirusa". If you google "Iwatani Mirusa," you will find export sites that specialize in selling overseas such as Rakuten. Note 2: I'm not worrying about the slight voltage difference (100V compared to 110/120V in US), but you can easily buy a step-up transformer if it bothers you.

I'm attaching some photos below.

The complete setup: the three containers with tops (the large and medium ones are glass, the smallest one is thick plastic):



The Millser with the medium container attached:



A section of the instructions - can anyone translate?



Another section - I'm assuming that the "O" means it's OK, compared to "X" for not OK - I like that!



Enjoyed the illustration of the small fish ready to go in:



This shows how the blade mechanism comes out:



Close up of the blade mechanism from beneath:



Medium container loaded with roughly chopped lemongrass:



Container full of lemongrass, screwed into the mechanism and ready to blend:



About three seconds later, minced lemongrass, perfect to go into the curry paste:



In case you can't tell, I'm crazy about this thing. Thanks Blether!

[Blether]

Nice

That part of the instructions shows the reset button - a wee circuit breaker that pops out if you ever overload it. Press back in to re-enter the fray.

[prasantrin]

Have you tried/seen the Magic Bullet? They appear to be the same type of "blender", so I'm wondering if the premium price (comparatively speaking) of the Millser gives a better quality product. I have the Magic Bullet, and I haven't found it works anywhere near as well it does in the commercials.

[ojisan]

Great review. I hope Iwatani imports this into the U.S.

[Anna N]

Great review. I hope Iwatani imports this into the U.S.

I hope so too!

[peterm2]

That could be great for grinding smaller quantities! I hadn't found a good way to deal with lemongrass.

[patrickamory]

I've never used the Magic Bullet, though I've heard mixed reviews. The Millser is extremely well-made, down the thickness of the glass used in the containers and the power of the motor. It feels indestructible in fact. It's such a pleasure to use I'm searching for excuses to grind things!

Edited by patrickamory, 10 November 2011 - 07:51 PM.

[Anna N]

I've never used the Magic Bullet, though I've heard mixed reviews. The Millser is extremely well-made, down the thickness of the glass used in the containers and the power of the motor. It feels indestructible in fact. It's such a pleasure to use I'm searching for excuses to grind things!

I have a Magic Bullet which does some jobs very well but it could never reduce lemon grass to something so fine as you demonstrate. This is an impertinent question so feel free to ignore if you wish but I would love to know the full cost including postage and customs duties and the method the vendor used to ship it (UPS gouges we Canadians on brokerage fees something dreadful!) Thanks.

[patrickamory]

I paid way too much. Had I searched under the transliterated name, I could have bought the whole thing for $79.05 plus shipping.

It would have been even cheaper a few months ago... the yen has skyrocketed against the dollar recently. It should be about $50-60 plus shipping.

Air shipping from Japan is reasonable... I'd budget USD $20. All of the above prices are in USD obviously.

I ended up paying closer to $130 all in, with all the auction site fees and domestic shipping plus international shipping :(

I don't regret it, except that I could have paid less, had I known a bit more. Benefit from what I learned!

P.S. I've never been charged customs duties on anything I've imported to the US... I know Canada is much stricter in this regard... but perhaps you can offset this with a better exchange rate, since the CAD is so strong at the moment.

Edited by patrickamory, 11 November 2011 - 09:51 PM.

[Anna N]

I paid way too much. Had I searched under the transliterated name, I could have bought the whole thing for $79.05 plus shipping.

....

Thank you so much. I rarely pay customs duties either and don't really resent them but the brokerage fees charged by UPS are a form of usury and often exceed the value of the item. My son is after my Magic Bullet so I will be looking to acquire a Millser perhaps as a Christmas gift to myself.

[patrickamory]

Let me know how it goes with that Christmas gift! Also once you get it, the various uses to which you put the Millser. I have a feeling I've barely scratched the surface.

[Anna N]

Let me know how it goes with that Christmas gift! Also once you get it, the various uses to which you put the Millser. I have a feeling I've barely scratched the surface.

So my Christmas gift to myself arrived today. I have not yet used it as I am definitely a RTFM-type and the manual is, of course, all in Japanese. Much of it is illustrated and much is intuitive but I'm curious if you have figured out the purpose of this piece:


which seems according to this page in the manual:


to be used in conjunction with the mid-size glass jar.

Damn should have taken Japanese instead of needlework!

[Blether]

You use that hard plastic 'lid' with all jar sizes. In its bottom rim is a little tang that activates the recessed micro-switch that runs the motor - all very failsafe-designed. In Japanese this is known as "sefutii faasuto".

[Blether]

Patrick, it may be that I was just cack-handed with my blender, but Marcella's prawn-cream pasta sauce was a revelation with the Millser, getting the prawn meat ground up properly.

[patrickamory]

It's amazing for those small tasks!

[peterm2]

I'm getting confused looking at all the miscellaneous Rakuten pages, but according to their US site (that actually ships directly) it's now about $100 plus the $50 ish shipping cost. I thought it was $30 less this morning but maybe I was looking at the Japan page. Does this thing come with a lead weight that lead to those kinds of shipping costs? Too bad I won't be going to Japan any time soon!

[peterm2]

As an update, it's apparently 6600 yen to ship to Connecticut. That is $85 on top of the machine cost.

[prasantrin]

I looked at the Rakuten site and it was about C$85 for the machine but shipping was calculated at $40. I also looked at the cost of shipping to the US, and it also came up as $40. The only Y6600 I saw was for the cost in Japanese yen. Are you using the shipping estimator for the shipping cost, or did you go all the way through to the end (as though you were ordering it), and then it quoted you Y6600 for the shipping?

[patrickamory]

I think the yen is particularly strong now against the dollar... it may have even risen since I made my post.

77.8 JPY to 1 USD today according to xe.com. When I visited the country it was 126 to the dollar.

[djyee100]

As an update, it's apparently 6600 yen to ship to Connecticut. That is $85 on top of the machine cost.

I've tried to order this grinder from two different stores on the Rakuten website.

The first one, eBest, required that I sign up for a Japanese forwarding address. I did. I ordered the grinder. After a flurry of communications from them, all in Japanese, they cancelled the order. Even with the Google translator, I could not figure out what the problem was. They did not respond to my inquiries in English.

The second store, Sanei Matsuno, accepted the order with my request for Rakuten international shipping. The estimated shipping cost, they told me, was 10,000 yen (about $128). The grinder itself cost about $102. When I inquired about the high shipping cost, it was "corrected" to 5400 yen, about $70. Still too expensive. I cancelled the order.

About this time I looked up Iwatani reps in the U.S. and emailed one of them re: purchase of this grinder from anyone in the U.S. I have not received any response.

[peterm2]

I'd be interested if you hear anything from the U.S. rep. The shipping quote I got was when I emailed the store on Rakuten directly.

[djyee100]

I received a message from Iwatani customer service: "Unfortunately, this item is not available for purchase in the United States, as it is not UL listed."

[ojisan]

I received a message from Iwatani customer service: "Unfortunately, this item is not available for purchase in the United States, as it is not UL listed."

Could you share the email address? I will also write, and if they receive enough inquiries, they may reconsider importing it.

[djyee100]

Could you share the email address? I will also write, and if they receive enough inquiries, they may reconsider importing it.

Here:
https://ssl.iwatani.co.jp/cgi-bin/inquiry/input.php?inquiry_id=eng

I know people from Thai cooking classes who are interested in this grinder also.

Edited by djyee100, 02 February 2012 - 11:45 AM.

[LindaK]

A question for those who already have one of these: has the voltage difference caused any problems for you?

I have a friend who travels to Japan periodically, and I've been thinking of asking her to bring one back when she visits again.

[jrshaul]

I'm not sure if this device has a 110v setting, but if not, you'll have very poor results on American voltage. Japan runs on roughly double the voltage of what I have in my home, resulting in roughly 1/4 the output power.


The good news is that step-up/step down transformers are very inexpensive - you can find one on eBay for $15, and I have one that can power an entire house in a storage bin. These should not be confused with cheaper switching adapters that boost voltage with sometimes curious results: a real step-up transformer will have a huge chunk of iron in it somewhere and will be very, very heavy. Industrial applications use the right sort almost exclusively, and with a useful lifespan measured in centuries, they often outlast the equipment to which they were attached.

Edited by jrshaul, 03 February 2012 - 12:47 AM.

[patrickamory]

I'm not sure if this device has a 110v setting, but if not, you'll have very poor results on American voltage. Japan runs on roughly double the voltage of what I have in my home, resulting in roughly 1/4 the output power.

Odd. I'm pretty sure you're mistaken. While Europe and other countries do run at 220v, Japan's standard is 100v. My Japanese appliances, from a Stax electrostatic headphone amp to the Iwatani Millser, run just fine at 110v.

Given +/- 10% voltage variations in many American homes anyway, the 10v is unlikely to make much difference. Very cheap converters are available from Japan if you want to be extra-careful and make sure not to overstress the machine (nowhere near as huge as the big step-down transformers needed to make American single-voltage appliances run in Europe). But I don't bother - just plug it right into the wall. Never had a problem.

[jrshaul]

My bad - I can never keep the voltages straight. That said, the same advice applies to going from 100v to 220v - without a big transformer, some very strange things happen.

[ojisan]

Still waiting for this thing to be imported it the U.S.

[patrickamory]

My bad - I can never keep the voltages straight. That said, the same advice applies to going from 100v to 220v - without a big transformer, some very strange things happen.

Right, but just to clarify, it's 100V in Japan and 110V in the US, so you can just plug it right in with no problems here.