The Vitamix Settings and Presets: Explained Simply

You’ve done it—you invested in a Vitamix blender, and you’ve done a fantastic job in selecting the right model for your needs.

The problem is… the Vitamix presets are a bit confusing.

Even when you read the manual, some of the information isn’t quite clear.

They’ve developed a fantastic machine, but it requires some mastery before it’s fully viable.

That’s where we come in. It’s time to simplify the entire process of using a Vitamix.

Going over every single one of their models would take ages, so instead, we’re going to go over settings that you can find in numerous models that should cover everything.

What Are the Main Settings on a Vitamix?

You’ll usually run into five settings on the Vitamix, and they have different speeds that they incorporate at different times to produce similar effects.

The presets here are commonly on the Pro 750, Pro 500, and the S55 models of Vitamix blenders.

Smoothie

If you set the speed button to 10, it has to ramp up to that.

Most smoothie settings, regardless of what speed you’ve put them on, begin on a 3 and then escalate to a 5 for about 10 seconds.

From there, 5 seconds pass while it climbs to the preset speed.

This is to prevent immediate motor damage, and so that it doesn’t throw the contents all around the pitcher without blending it all up.

For the smoothie option, you’ll be using a mixture of frozen components (ice or frozen yogurt, depending on the recipe), as well as fresh ingredients.

You should have about one part frozen, two parts room temperature or cold ingredients to use the smoothie preset.

When your fruit or additives have too much of a frozen content, it’s going to be difficult to blend.

A Vitamix can do it, but it might take longer than sixty seconds.

Speaking of which, sixty seconds is how long the smoothie setting lasts on most models, with certain ones like the Pro 750 only taking about forty seconds.

No Vitamix model takes longer than sixty seconds, so even if you have a lesser grade model, you’ll still get fast results in a perfect consistency.

Frozen

With a similar ramp-up time to the smoothie function, the frozen preset has a lot more power drawn from the motor to get the job done.

The sharpness of the blades don’t really matter as much here, because it’s all about motor speed and the RPM.

The blades are crushing frozen items more than they’re trying to chop or slice them, which is what department store blenders get wrong: those ones rely on sharp blades to deal with frozen food, but it’s not going to do the trick.

If you put this on the max speed, you’ll get three different bursts in about 5 second increments where it ramps up, so that it’s not just flinging ice everywhere.

This helps to crush a good portion of ice and frozen ingredients without starting too strong, so that everything immerses extremely well.

Some units are specifically designed for frozen goods, so you might be at an advantage if you have the S55 model, for instance.

Units like those will only take about 30 seconds to fully puree frozen ingredients into a creamy consistency, but even the Pro 750 can take longer than that.

Both end results are fantastic and delicious, but they’re achieved through different speeds, and admittedly the S55 is louder since it’s specifically designed to crush ice and frozen food.

Soup

Now this is one of the fun ones to explain. Soup settings in a Vitamix are completely unique, and similar modes aren’t featured in their competitors blenders.

The reason behind that is that they’re simply able to make a better soup mode that takes less time.

This ramp-up time kicks off at about a 3 speed, and then escalates to 10 over the course of 10 seconds. It creates a vortex in the center so that your ingredients aren’t sprayed all over the inside of the pitcher.

The runtime is about five to seven minutes, depending on the volume.

Your Vitamix can detect the weight of the contents, and blend accordingly to create a perfectly pureed soup, but that’s not the exciting part.

Blender motors get hot, especially when they run for seven minutes without stopping, so instead of wasting all of that energy it ends up being transferred into the steel blades, which then uses friction to heat up your soup.

You can go from room temperature ingredients to a steaming hot soup in seven minutes, and that’s amazing.

Puree

The puree mode doesn’t mess around—in a short amount of time, it kicks off from about 3 to 10, and starts at maximum power for around 60 seconds.

This is where you’re going to hear the motor whir like a beast, and the blender will kick on to full power. Regardless of the different models out there, they all have a similar puree settings.

It’s one of the most classic presets of any blender.

You could use this to hot prepared food in here to make a sauce.

Since the Vitamix can handle soups, it can handle hot foods that just need a quick puree as well.

There’s nothing too cryptic behind this option.

Clean

The self-cleaning option is one of the best, because they found a way to manipulate the speeds and settings in order to pull everything off of the inside of the pitcher.

The pitcher starts off on a low hum, and within about ten seconds, it jumps right up to the highest speed.

Self-cleaning options do about the same thing in each Vitamix, but the duration is different.

If you’ve upgraded your blender pitcher from the original size to a larger pitcher, you might have to run it for a little longer, or on a second cycle.

There is a 30 and a 60 second option.

Depending on how harsh the food was that you made, you might want to opt for the longer setting.

You drop a little dollop of soap into the middle of the pitcher right on the blades, drop in your warm water, replace the cap, and hit the correct preset.

While this does a nearly perfect job, you might still have to hit it with warm water from the hose that’s attached to your sink, just to get any additional particles out after you’ve dumped the soapy mixture.

Are Vitamix Presets Worth It?

In short, yes, they are worth it, but they’re not the main reason to get a Vitamix.

Each preset can actually be done by hand when you select alternate speeds and variable strengths, though it can be difficult to control a steep ramp-up time instead of just hitting the highest speed.

The reason that the presets are so helpful is that they make you forget about how crummy your cheap blender was.

With that one, you would put that setting on, but frozen food would stick halfway up the blender pitcher and you’d just hear the blades spinning without making contact on any food.

That’s not going to happen with your vitamix.

Those presets help to create a vortex in the pitcher, and start the motion of the ingredients spinning around.

It’s definitely helpful, and that way you don’t have to just keep tapping on the pulse button until you get something that you want.

Self-cleaning and soup are both good modes, though you can imagine that the puree option could be achieved just by pressing the max speed and hitting start.

That being said, there are ways that you can get even more programmable modes, and that’s through the Vitamix app.

Vitamix App Settings

If you have wireless connectivity on your Vitamix, you can hook it up to the Vitamix app.

Not only do you get a wide array of recipes that are readily available to you (over five-hundred blender specific recipes), but you’ll get access to programmable modes.

Since the presets are just essentially computer programs telling the blender what to do, the app and additional programs can manipulate the hardware in the same way. Some of the additional modes include:

• Spreads: Perfect for a whipped butter or dips. This setting helps wonderfully when you’re just mixing ingredients into store bought butter to doctor it up a little.

• Dry Chopping: Vegetable dry chopping: no wet veggies, but this will do its best to chunk them.

• Spice Grinding: Whether it’s cloves or a cinnamon stick, you could turn it into a fine powder in a container in no time.

• Dressings: Without whipping it, this will make dressings perfectly mix together and keep that creamy, thick consistency.

• Nut Butters: Nuts are hard to grind, but this helps you whip them into a delicious paste in no time.

There are about a dozen other programmable modes you can mess with as well.

While it would be nice for it all to just come built into the interface, it’s not necessarily a bad thing that this expansive menu ends up being on your smartphone screen (think of how many buttons you would need).

Vitamix Accessories to Enhance Your Blending Performance

Your presets work wonders, and the power of the blender on a simple pulse setting is still fantastic, but you can augment your blender to use those programs better and create restaurant quality foods and drinks like it’s nobody’s business.

Blade Scraper

This is basically a food saver. It’s a long steel spike that has the perfect sized tool tip on the end to remove food that gets stuck underneath the blade.

This is especially helpful when you’re making high cost, low yield foods like guacamole where the ingredients aren’t watered down that much.

You’ll also be able to keep your blades free from debris at the same time.

After a single-use, you’ll be amazed at just how much was getting stuck under the blades, and revel in the fact that it doesn’t have to happen anymore.

Tamper Holder

Whether you have a full-sized or a mini tamper, this holder just clips right onto the outside to keep your tamper in place.

When you bulk up on Vitamix accessories, storage becomes a major problem, but this helps you store everything a bit more confidently.

Self-Detect Pitcher

The Self-Detect feature on any Vitamix is where the base will recognize the weight of the pitcher, and make adjustments accordingly.

If you want a smaller pitcher, you can buy a 48 oz model to use with a blender that originally had a 64 oz base. It will detect the 25% volume change, and blend a lot more carefully.

The times will change as well as the speed setting and ramp-up, so you won’t damage your blender or end up with overly pulverized or emulsified foods.

Filtration Bag

Making nut or rice milk?

There’s a long process ahead of you, and the filtration bag from Vitamix helps you out.

Filtering the solids out of non-dairy milk is challenging, but this reusable, washable bag helps you out to simplify the process and reduce mess.

With a large capacity, you’ll be able to handle bulk batches with ease.

Steel Smoothie Cup

Plastic starts to get tarnished over time, and that leaves slits and divots in the container that can house bacteria if not cleaned out properly.

Smoothies are the biggest culprit in this case because the ice scrapes and cuts along the edges to create those divots.

Instead, you can use a steel smoothie cup, which is not only resistant to ice-related and frozen food damage but stays colder so that your smoothies don’t start to melt.

You can even make a perfectly sized batch and just drink straight out of the cup as well.

Mini-Tamper

The mini-tamper allows you to press frozen foods further down into your Vitamix if it’s having a spot of trouble with blending, or if the food gets stuck to the side of the pitcher.

It’s possible that the power of the blades will push the contents upward a bit, and this is your perfect tool to get it right back into the vortex and continue blending.

It’s best to use this when the blender is turned off, so be careful near the controls in the meantime.

Flip-Top Beverage Bottle

Just trying to get out the door in the morning?

Don’t do something you’ll regret, like hit the drive-thru on the way to work. Instead, prepare everything you need in a flip-top beverage bottle the night before, and then just pop it in the blender base to whip it all into shape.

If you can’t find a flip-top with the blade base, you can simply get a Vitamix container to keep it in.

Don’t do something you’ll regret, like hit the drive-thru on the way to work.

Instead, prepare everything you need in a flip-top beverage bottle the night before, and then just pop it in the blender base to whip it all into shape.

If you can’t find a flip-top with the blade base, you can simply get a Vitamix container to keep it in.

This will be your on-the-go companion to keep you in the throws of drinking smoothies and blended beverages instead of modern convenience food.

Perfect Blend Smart Scale

Trying to get the perfect measurements for your blender or frozen dessert?

The smart scale works like most digital kitchen scales, but it also connects to your Vitamix app to tell you when you have the perfect weights and measurements for the food included in the recipes.

There’s a built-in timer feature, health tracking through Google Fit, and a way to get perfect portions every single time. It’s hands-down the best kitchen food scale you’ll ever have.

Blender Bowl Starter Kit

Just looking for some quickly chopped veggies or some crushed fruit?

These little blender bowls all connect just like your pitcher and includes self-detect technology so it doesn’t whip the ingredients into oblivion.

Great for chopping vegetables and storing them for later use, or simply keeping your ingredients in while you wait to make another smoothie.

Disc Container

It’s a better way to add ingredients, pour, and obliterate them to make smooth and consistently delicious beverages. Simple mojitos or crushed berries, whipped cream or thick smoothies, this can do a bit of everything.

It emulsifies the ingredients to make everything a little more firm, and a little more delicious at the same time.

The Aer Disc container is one of the most underrated attachments for your Vitamix.

There are so many different attachments, and this doesn’t even include everything that you can find from the Vitamix website.

There are cocktail and dessert cookbooks, specially designed spatulas for removing food, and a personal cup adapter to make your whole blending process a little more personal.

Vitamix is constantly coming out with new attachments to make their blenders better.

Vitamix is the King of Blenders

Between all the different modes, settings, and designated attachments, there’s an endless number of functions that your Vitamix blender can perform.

They’re one of the most versatile things you’ll ever put in your kitchen, and they’re backed with a history of durability and long warranties to prove that.

If you’re serious about blending.