Kitchenaid Mixer Question

I have a small Kitchenaid mixer (250 watts) and have used it for preparing many one and two loaf bread/flour dough batches. The recipe I would like to try calls for 5 lbs of flour and it seem that cutting it in half would be the easiest way to handle the amount of dough with my small mixer.

Will a mixer this small even handle 2.5 lbs of flour for bread? I am guessing that is about 10 cups of flour which will fit into the bowl. Thanks for your input.

Reply to
jay
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I wouldn't go more than 8 cups with a 250 watt motor, less for wheat/whole wheat and rye bread doughs. The most I've done in our old K45 is 6 cups of mixed white and wheat, and I felt bad for the mixer, it was straining so much. (It's an old friend that's served us well, so I hate to stress it too much.)

I'm assum> I have a small Kitchenaid mixer (250 watts) and have used it for preparing

Reply to
yetanotherBob

I agree. We have a 250 W 4.5 qt KA. Bread dough containing about 6-8 cups of flour is about as much as I like to mix at one time. And even then the mixer does tend to thump on the counter a little. For five pounds of flour I'd split the batch into three parts, not just two parts.

Best -- Terry

yetanotherBob wrote:

Reply to
prfesser

How about kneaking it with your hands?

Reply to
JoeSpareBedroom

Reply to
Frank103

From the bread making tips section of the manual:

NEVER use moe than 6 cups whole wheat flower or 8 cups all purpose flour when making dough in a 4.5 qt. mixer.

NEVER use moe than 6 cups whole wheat flower or 10 cups all purpose flour when making dough in a 5 qt. mixer.

NEVER exceed Speed 2 when using the dough hook.

ALWAYS use the dough hook to mix and knead yeast doughs.

Andy

Reply to
Andy

I'd like to have a dollar for every time I've posted this same information.

With these type of electrical appliances wattage has very little to do with shaft horsepower (usable power available), wattage is a measurement of electrical energy *consumed*, NOT power produced... wattage is the basis for how your electric utility company computes your bill, has no bearing whatsoever on how efficiently you used that electrical energy. Think of a 100w light bulb, if you place an opaque shade over it then the lighting benefit is substantially reduced even though it still consumes and you pay for 100 watts. The KA mixers have no transmission, they have fixed gearing, therefore depending on the gearing of the particular unit the greater the load applied the greater the heat produced... what an inefficient method for heating your home, with a KA mixer.

Often the KA mixers with the lowest wattage ratings also have the lowest gearing to wattage ratios, therefore produce the greatest shaft horsepower... they just aren't capable of running at the highest rpm. The KA mixers with the highest wattage ratings generally will be geared at higher ratios so as to be capable of running at the highest speeds but produce the least shaft horsepower.... under load they slow way down and produce tremendous heat, until the heat sensitive overlaod cuts electrical power, before the motor becomes damaged from overheating.

What you really need to concern yourself with is that your KA bowl is large enough to contain all the ingredients you want to mix.... odds are your 250w mixer runs best at lower rpm, and has a smaller diameter dough hook, therefore is capable of greater torque over longer periods without overheating, and is more energy efficient. Your machine is more energy efficient for dough kneading than the higher wattage machines, which are more energy efficient for producing whipped cream.

I think it's a sin that the gubermint permits small appliance companies to advertize wattage ratings as though that meant power produced when what it really means is power consumed... it's absolutely false advertising. KA gets away with it because theirs is not a commercial machine. Commercial machines must list Horsepower. KA definitely does not produce a commercial mixer, in fact if you read their warranty it specifically states that using their mixer for commercial purposes voids their warranty. Essentially KA produces toys r us stand mixers.

However many restaurants and other smaller commercial establishments, and even large commercial culinary installations use KA mixers because they are relatively inexpensive compared to true commercial machines. (do you have any idea how many KA mixers one can buy before spending more than for one Hobart... the service contract alone on a Hobart costs more each year than the price of a KA mixer)... and they are small so they occupy very little space, perfect for small jobs. A restaurant can afford to have one KA mixer per cook, so no one needs to wait their turn, and if a KA mixer burns out it's really no biggie, it's written off as a capital expence and replaced with a new one, same as folks replace low end TVs.

Sheldon

Reply to
Sheldon

These problems come up all the time with KA mixers. They should have added to the above list:

IF YOU MAKE BREAD use a Kenwood, Bosch or Magicmill.

Graham

Reply to
graham

In addition to the above tips, be sure that you know exactly how much you are putting in the mixer. If you scoop the cup into the bag you could be getting a 6-7 ounce cup of flour. Generally speaking, your cup of flour should weigh between 4-4.5 ounces. You can see that if your flour weighs considerably more, the alloted water for the recipe will not be enough and the dough will be very dry. Kneading dry dough is very hard on the machine. Janet

Reply to
Janet B.

Hey - you read the manual - no fair, man! (I'm not even sure we could find ours anymore...)

All good points, though.

But, c>

Reply to
yetanotherBob

Heh heh heh.

All my small kitchen appliance manuals and warranty cards reside in the lazy susan neatly tucked away behind the spices, measuring cups and spoons and "stuff." ;)

Andy

Reply to
Andy

Cross posting to more than one newsgroup at a time is generally accepted to be a no no. It clutters up each of the cross posted NGs with replies not relevant to each newsgroup receiving the cross posted message.

Kent

Reply to
Kent

That's not always true, Kent. In this case, the message DOES belong in both newsgroups. If the original message is addressed to both groups, you will see the same responses here that are in the other one, so there will end up being LESS repetitious responses.

Reply to
JoeSpareBedroom

So then why are you cross posting to both rec.food.cooking,rec.food.baking. duh

Reply to
Sheldon

Thanks for all the help! There is some great information here and I should have gotten the book..Kitchenaid Mixers For Dummies.

Reply to
jay

You are incorrect and this may be helpful to you.

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Reply to
jay

{drum crash} Is this an audience, or an oil painting?

-Henny Youngman

Reply to
JoeSpareBedroom

Do it by hand. It'll turn out better.

Reply to
JoeSpareBedroom

That's what my ex wife used to tell me.. Chuck (in SC)

Reply to
Chuck (in SC)

So is a coffee machine -- all it does is pour hot water over coffee grounds.

But we, along with millions of others, use both for convenience -- to have coffee and, say, english muffin loaf ready when we arise in the mornings.

It's a matter of time efficiency in our busy modern lives -- as are cars in many cases, and stand mixers, and dishwashers, et ad infinitum.

-- Larry

Reply to
pltrgyst

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