Omega NC900 Review: The Juicer That Also Wants to Be Your Pasta Machine

Ask five Omega NC900 owners why they bought it and you'll get five different answers, and juice is only the headline reason for maybe three of them. This is a masticating juicer first, but it's also become something of a cult object among people who make their own pasta, grind their own nut butter, or just like a kitchen tool that does more than one job. That split personality is the whole story of this machine.

Where it sits

Omega has been building masticating juicers since the 1980s, and the NC900 (along with its near-identical sibling, the NC800) is the long-running flagship of that line — not the newest tech in the juicer world, but one of the most established. At $299, it sits squarely in the mid-tier of masticating juicers: pricier than any centrifugal machine, but well under boutique twin-gear presses that can run $400-600. What you're buying at this price is a proven single-auger design with an unusually long warranty, not the latest engineering.

Who it's for

Buy this if you juice regularly enough that low oxidation and real yield matter, and you don't mind trading speed for both. It's also a strong pick if you already like the idea of a multi-purpose kitchen appliance — the attachment ecosystem for mincing, pasta, and nut butter is real, not a marketing footnote, and turns an otherwise single-purpose $300 machine into something you reach for a few times a week beyond juice.

Skip it if you juice occasionally and want speed above all else — a centrifugal juicer will get you a glass in under a minute, where the NC900 asks for patience. It's also not the right call if you're juicing whole apples and carrots without pre-cutting; the 1.5-inch chute is genuinely narrow, and you'll be chopping produce into chunks every single time. And if you already own a pasta machine and a food processor, the versatility angle matters less — you're just buying a juicer.

Borderline case: if you're mainly juicing leafy greens and wheatgrass and don't care about attachments, the Hurom H200 (reviewed separately) does that job with less oxidation and a bit more finesse. The NC900's edge is really the combination of decent green-juicing performance plus genuine flexibility elsewhere.

Build and materials

The body is mostly heavy-gauge plastic over a metal drive shaft and gear assembly, and it feels like Omega built it to be repaired rather than replaced — this is a company that still sells spare parts for juicers it made 20 years ago. The auger itself is a GE Ultem resin, the same high-heat-resistant plastic used in aerospace and medical equipment, chosen specifically because it can survive the torque of dual-stage pressing without cracking or wearing down the way cheaper plastics do over years of use.

The dual-stage design is the mechanical heart of the machine: produce gets crushed once as it moves through the first section of the auger, then pressed a second time through a tighter section before hitting the juicing screen. That second press is what separates the NC900 from basic single-stage masticating juicers — it's squeezing out juice the first pass left behind, which is a meaningful chunk of yield on dense produce like carrots and beets.

Motor and torque

The motor is rated at 150 watts, which sounds unimpressive next to an 850-watt centrifugal juicer until you understand what low-RPM masticating juicing is actually asking of a motor. At 80 RPM, the NC900 isn't spinning fast — it's applying steady, high torque through a gear-reduced drive, closer to how a stand mixer's dough hook works than how a blender blade works. That torque is what lets it push through fibrous produce like celery and kale without stalling, something underpowered masticating juicers struggle with.

Core performance

Juice yield

This is where the dual-stage auger earns its keep. On dense produce — carrots, beets, apples — owners consistently report noticeably drier pulp coming out of the NC900 than from single-stage masticating juicers at a similar price, which is the practical signal of higher yield: less juice left behind in what gets thrown away. On leafy greens and wheatgrass, yield is good but not category-leading; the Hurom H200's vertical squeeze geometry tends to edge it out specifically on greens, while the NC900 holds its own or wins on everything else.

Oxidation and juice longevity

At 80 RPM, there's minimal air incorporation compared to a centrifugal blade spinning at 6,000-13,000 RPM. Juice from the NC900 typically keeps well for two to three days refrigerated in a sealed container before flavor and nutrient quality noticeably drop off — a real practical advantage if you like to batch-juice on Sunday for the week rather than juicing fresh every morning.

The versatility angle

This is the part that separates the NC900 from most of its juicing-only competitors. With the included or accessory attachments, it minces garlic and herbs into a fine paste, extrudes fresh pasta in a few shapes, grinds coffee beans or nuts into butter, and can process baby food. None of these are gimmicks — they use the same auger-and-screen mechanism that does the juicing, just with a different attachment swapped on, and owners who lean into this side of the machine report using it two or three times as often as juice-only buyers do. That said, the pasta and mincing attachments have their own learning curve, and if you never plan to touch them, you're paying for capability you won't use.

Feed chute reality

The 1.5-inch chute is the single most common complaint about this machine, and it's a fair one. Whole apples, oranges, or anything bigger than a large grape need to be cut down first — this isn't a "drop a whole apple in" juicer the way a wide-chute centrifugal machine is. Budget genuine prep time, especially if you're juicing for more than one person.

Daily use and ergonomics

Loading, pressing, and running the NC900 is a slower ritual than centrifugal juicing, and it asks you to feed produce steadily rather than dumping it in. The upside of that slowness is quiet: at 80 RPM, this is one of the least disruptive kitchen appliances you'll run, easy to use at 6am without waking anyone up, which is a real quality-of-life detail if you juice before the rest of the house is awake.

Cleanup and maintenance

Cleanup involves disassembling five main parts — auger, juicing screen, pulp cap, and housing pieces — and none of them are dishwasher-recommended for long-term care, even though some owners run them through anyway. The juicing screen has fine mesh that traps pulp fiber, and it clogs fast if you let it sit; rinsing immediately after juicing, before pulp dries, cuts cleanup time roughly in half versus letting it sit even twenty minutes. Budget 5-8 minutes for a full teardown-and-wash cycle. Long-term, the Ultem auger and stainless screen are built to handle years of this without cracking or dulling, which is part of what the 15-year warranty is implicitly betting on.

How it compares

Hurom H200 — similar price, similar masticating category, but the Hurom's vertical auger and even lower 43 RPM edge out the NC900 specifically on leafy greens and foam-free clarity. The NC900 wins on versatility (the Hurom doesn't do pasta or mincing) and on warranty length.

Kuvings B1700 — trades some of the NC900's dual-stage yield advantage for a 3-inch feed chute that dramatically cuts precutting time. If convenience matters more to you than squeezing the last drop out of every carrot, the Kuvings is the easier daily-use machine.

Breville Juice Fountain Cold (centrifugal) — a completely different format. The Breville juices in under a minute with minimal prep, at the cost of noise, more oxidation, and lower yield on greens. If you want juice fast and don't mind replacing it with a new batch the next day, centrifugal wins; if you want yield, quiet, and longevity, the NC900's format wins.

Value

At $299, the NC900 isn't cheap, but the 15-year warranty is doing real work here — no other juicer at this price commits to that kind of support, and it changes the math on cost-per-year dramatically if the machine lives up to it. Factor in the attachment ecosystem, and the effective value improves further for anyone who'll actually use the mincing or pasta features. If you only ever plan to juice, you're paying partly for capability you won't touch — that's the honest caveat.

Known issues

The most common owner complaint by far is the feed chute size — it's not a design flaw so much as a trade-off of the dual-stage mechanism, but it surprises new buyers who expect wide-chute convenience at this price. A smaller number of owners report the pulp cap requiring some fiddling to seat correctly, and very occasionally a jam on stringy produce like celery that needs backing the auger up (a reverse switch handles this, so it's not a serious issue, just an occasional annoyance).

Verdict

The Omega NC900 rewards patience and multi-tasking ambition more than it rewards someone who just wants fast juice. If you're willing to precut produce, wash a few extra parts, and maybe explore the pasta attachment on a weekend, this is a genuinely durable, high-yield machine backed by the best warranty in the category. If all you want is a glass of juice in under a minute, look at a centrifugal machine instead — this isn't that.