Breville BFP820BAL Sous Chef Peel and Dice 16 Cup Food Processor, Large, Brushed Stainless Steel

OK, I worked in mostly high-end restaurants for around 30 years or so. I know a lot about food processors. What they can and can't do as what they do well and what they don't do well. For a home food processor at the price I paid, I am completely satisfied with my purchase. Breville's customer service had been outstanding even during COVID. I do plan on getting the other two dicers, as well as the one that came with it, which is beyond compare. I worked both the front and back of the house and performed every job that there is to do in a restaurant. I have been a Chef, a Bartender, a Waiter, a manager a sommelier, and so on. I can sharpen and use knives and have a set of Dick Steel knives that are as good as you can buy. I can dice onions much faster than a food processor, as long as there is only a small number, this is where people seem to have a disconnect with exactly what a food processor is for. Getting out a food processor to dice one onion is like using a bulldozer to clear a 5 ft sidewalk of snow. It is absurd. I can probably have the onion diced and the board and knife cleaned before you could get your food processor out and set up. Food processors also can not do what a good, especially a good vacuum blender, can do. My point is that a food processor, no matter how expensive or what kind will do what a food processor is meant to do and nothing else. It is best if you have used one before buying what is in my opinion the best home food-processor available today. No, they don't cut french fries... Remember the old Vegamatic? They cut fries, or a good mandolin, even better a wall-mounted, lever-actuated french fry cutter, with a big industrial potato peeler next to it and the water hose for the peeler and a big worktable. You can cut 100 Lbs. of raw fries in 15 minutes or less if you know what you are doing, then you need a deep frier to blanch the fries and a deep frier to cook them, you can use the same one, but have to use different temps. I hope I have made my point.What is a food processor good for? Making a small amount (1 loaf) of bread or pizza dough in about 3 or 4 minutes. Many other things as well. One thing the Breville excels at is dicing small Spanish onions, you know, the strong ones that are 2 maybe 3 inches across and make you cry. They fit in the shoot and are diced in no time and will dice 5 lbs in a matter of a few minutes with no tears. Nothing on earth is better at making mayonnaise than a food processor. They also will puree things quite well as long as you don't need them super fine, like a food mill would render, and you don't need connective tissues removed like a food mill does when making things like forcemeat or very fine sausage stuffing, or don't need the cells of what your pureeing crushed like a 40,000 RPM flat-bladed Vacuum blender(i.e. - smoothies). They slice, dice, puree, make emulsion sauces, and much more. If you are cooking for 2 people, get a tiny food processor if you have to have one. This one is best used when you are cooking for 4 to maybe 30 people or processing a lot of things as in canning. Shredding cheese! Another strong point of a food processor, remember you want to shred cheese that is very cold and fairly hard, or partially freeze it first, otherwise, you end up with a mess. The cheese MUSt be cut to fit in the shute I would like Breville to come out with a cheese grating plate, you know, the side of your stand up shredder that has little star-shaped things punched in it, the side that grates lemon, lime, and orange rinds into powdery stuff, are very hard cheese into powder. Food processors shred, not grate for the most part. I tested the peeler and it works on small potatoes quite well, but I usually leave the skins on those as they are tender, and the carrot peeler is, well, interesting, but takes longer than a good ceramic peeler or a coarse brass or stainless steel vegetable brush to get the skins off, I keep mine for stock anyway. It excels at mincing garlic or anything for that matter. The motor is the best I have used other than a 240-volt Industrial Robocoupe ($they can cost $10,000) and Hobart makes a buffalo-chopper that will chop 500 lbs of onions in no time, but who does that kind of thing at home. All I am saying is know what a food processor is actually capable of and also what it will save you time at. If you know those 2 things, then your way beyond most people, and there is no better 16 cup food processor anywhere near the price than a Breville.Lastly, a comment on the motor. A 1200-watt induction motor is a very powerful, high torque motor. no brushes! Just a control unit that turns Ac to DC and uses MOSFETS to make it a spin. Just think of the Tesla car, same thing. A tesla has 4 motors, not sure of the wattage, but it can go from 0-60 mph faster than almost ANY supercar and it's a 4-door sedan. That is because it uses a variable speed DC-induction motor like the Breville Food Processor. No, they are not the SAME motors, just the same type. There are no gears needed, it all depends on the power supply and the motor driver. That is why a Breville can run at the same speed whether it is empty or has food in it, as long as there isn't too much food in it, lol. It is beyond the scope of this review, suffice it to say, it has an outstanding motor. There is gear driven RPM reducer for certain set-ups. I am not sure why Breville chose to do it with gears and not electronically, probably due to the cost of using a high amperage, low voltage power supply, but hay, it works like a charm.I thought of one last comment, I haven't tried the Cream Whipper, but don't try to whip egg whites for meringue in it, won't work. You cant whip egg whites in plastic or anything that has a trace of oil in it. Copper bowl, inside and out is best, like when cooking sugar for jams or Real Buttercream Frosting where softball cooked sugar is needed. Same for caramel. I am not sure why egg whites don't whip in plastic, or if there is any fat in the bowl, including egg yolk in your whites.I HIGHLY recommend this machine for any cook who had experience with food processors.Happy cooking,Brian Burke Jr.P.S. - That's My Fredrick Dick honing steel hanging to the left, they also make the best steel knives you can buy, in my humble opinion. (I didn't rate "Thickness" ??? Don't have a clue why it is part of the rating. If your blades ever get dull, get new ones, they are not the kind you can sharpen really. New they are razor sharp, so be carefull.

I have to admit that this is absolutely a must review. This Breville Sous Chef peel and dice 16 cup is, in my opinion, all you will ever need when it comes down to chopping, shredding and preparing all kinds of different vegetable’s and foods in your kitchen. Even for your restaurant. It prepares everything, and at lightning speed. My wife was absolutely amazed and taken back by how precise the cuts were for what she was doing with vegetables. All she has had to do is hit the pulse feature and boom she’s done.The blades are extremely sharp (be careful). Everything is precision made and beautifully designed for sure. And as advertised it comes with the medium dicer kit that sits below the blades and accessories. Did I mention this thing peels potatoes??? Wow!!Anyway, packaging was awesome and shipping was reasonably fast. No dents or problems with the delivery. The booklet/directions are very thorough and well laid out. I suggest watching some YouTube videos on this food processor. Not only will the videos help you learn about this setup, but also if you need this level of machine. They have other Breville models that are nice as well. I just figured with this model I could spoil my wife a little more.I need to mention that the base has a lot of weight to it. It's not cheaply made. And the size is pretty big as you can see in the pictures. I can’t tell you enough about the performance. My wife loves using it for food prep for the week.All in all, we are extremely satisfied and you will be too. Buy something nice for you and your kitchen.

This is my third dicing food processor, and it does really hit the spot. I had top of the line Kitchenaid, and a Cuisinart. Kitchenaid was great but dicing kit was too awkward to use and a serious bore to clean. Removing the dicing kit after use was really hard and my husband actually carved a tool for me to make it easier. Cuisinart's dicing was much better, but you had to cut your vegetables to fit through narrow chute which kind of annoying. So, Breville. It took the best parts from the previous dicing appliances and made sure to address their shortcomings. It has huge chute and you can drop a whole potato to dice it. Or french it. (Yes, by the magic of spinning the cutting disk, french fry cut makes curved pieces. I do not think it is a problem.)You do get the last slice of whatever vegetable you were dicing - undiced. But this is where Breville shines. You take the bowl off the processor, remove the cover and the slicing disk that sits on top of the dicing blade. Then use the specially made dicing cleaner to push the last slice of the vegetable through the dicing mesh, and here you go - no waste at all. You go with the cleaner all around the dicing blade to push down whatever got stuck in there. The other two food processors had similar cleaner tools, too, but breville added metal guides to the cleaner so you do not run the risk of slicing a bit of plastic off the cleaner into your food as it was happening with the other two food processors.Other functions do work very well, too. Even potato peeling works well, although it only does smaller round potatoes and only in small batches,s o I do not bother with it.Many of the parts of the food processor are not dishwasher safe, unfortunately - they have empty spaces inside and I guess water would collect in there and it would be too hard to remove it. Besides, washing all the parts in the dishwasher would take half of dishwasher space - it is all very large.Slicing works great, grating works great.The storage box is huge and you need a bunch of space on top and behind it in order to open the top. The dicing kit sits in a tray under the storage box, so you have to lift the box to get to it. It is not the best design, but I am not sure how I would have made it better. The food processor is big, although it is not as big as 16 cup kitchenaid, and the accessories are large, too. I put the box on a kitchen cart so I can open the lid freely and get to everything. I would not like storing it in the cupboards.There might still be room for improvement, but It is pretty much near perfect for me.