KitchenAid Stand Mixer - 5 or 6 Quart Professional?

Simple,...as you are planning to make more doughs than batters then just get the more powerful machine with bigger bowl.

Simple..... as you are making more doughs than batters get the more powerful machine.

Simple.... as you plan to make more doughs and less batters...get the more powerful machine with the bigger bowl.

I'd look at the recommended maximum capacity of the mixers and see which can handle 3 loaves at a time. My old 4 1/2 quart KA can handle 2 without any real problems.

However, it's time to bring up the old KitchenAid reliability question. Lots of people have complained that KA's just aren't what they used to be. I don't know, since I bought mine in the 1970's and it's still going strong.

However, I do have a few observations. The KA manual warns you to make only a certain amount of dough at a time, and to rest the machine for a certain length of time after you have mixed the dough. (If memory serves, a 45 minute rest to cool off after making two batches of bread in my ancient KA 45.) If you don't follow that advice, you risk your machine's health. Why? Pretty simple really. My old Hobart 30 quart mixer had a less powerful motor than either of the mixers you are looking at. We ran it for hours on end. It's older than I am, and I don't like talking about how old I am.

Why did it last, when so many more powerful, smaller, mixers have died?

The commercial Hobart mixers have a single speed motor that always runs at its optimum speed. The speed of the mixing head is changed by using a transmission, much like a car has. You have to stop the mixer to change gears, and then start it again.

The home KitchenAid has a variable speed motor. And, unfortunately, you have to knead dough at low speeds. Where the work demands high torque. And the motor has trouble delivering it. It's not KA being bad... it's the laws of physics.

You might look at eBay for a used Hobart N-50 or 20 quart mixer, or for a knock-off of these product at professional supply houses. Or you might look at some of the other mixers on the retail market, such as the Bosch (which I'm not crazy about) or Electrolux Assistent (which I've heard good things about).

Mike

(snip)

No mention of the Magic Mill, the Swedish mixer? I swear by mine, handles 10 cups of flour and barely gets warm, and the dough that comes out is window pane wonderful. (I started out with the KitchenAid 5-quart and gave up on it, because the only thing it had in common with Hobart was the name.)

I'd be interested in seeing the Electrolux manual. This mixer is advertised online as being capable of handling 15 pounds of dough, but i wonder what the manual really says.

I'm curious because i routinely make about 10 pounds of bread dough at a time in a 30 year old Bosch Universal, and I was thinking about the 7 quart Kenwood which is advertised as being capable of handling 11 pounds of dough.

The achilles heel of the Bosch is it's lack of a proper dasher for medium consistency doughs - you're either making cakes or breads - cookies will invariably, eventually, break your beaters. They have some new plastic cookie mixer things that i haven't yet tried, but i don't have particularly high hopes.

Yes, I know the butter is supposed to be soft before it goes in, but the manual says to switch to the dough hook after creaming the eggs and butter with the sugar, which doesn't really work. I suspect that the teeth on the cookie attachment will break just like they do on the beaters, when the beaters themselves don't break.

For what it's worth, I found the oldschool heavy duty stainless steel bowl for my bosch at a thrift store - the type where the sole attachment is the dough hook, and it connects at the bottom of the bowl instead of at the top of a post. I find that this actually does a half decent job of everything - cakes, cookies, whathaveyou. These bowls have been discontinued for quite some time and distributors have long since run out of old stock. If you want one, you'll have to look for one in some sort of flea market, be it online or local.

Anyway, I found a pdf of the Kenwood manual at some point, and the fine print is that you can make up to 11 pounds of *batter but only 7 pounds of bread dough. This revelation was a real letdown.

So, for my future mixing needs, I'm back to considering the possibility of finding a beat up old N-50, and having a shop overhaul the works, bead blast the exterior, and give it a new baked enamel paint job - or maybe have it powder coated. My Bosch is gonna die eventually, I can feel it.

The Magic Mill is no being sold as the Electrolux Assistent (I may have their odd spelling wrong).

Mike

I'm not sure about all the differences between the two mixers but one thing to look at is how the bowl is held by the mixer. In my mixer which is a KA smaller one, the bown is held by a sort of screw in fixture on the bottom. My mom's KA which is larger and circa 1975 has two arms that come out around the bowl and hold it in. I think the older model is superior as with tough dough sometimes my KA bowl pops out of the fixture.

Good luck.

The Electrolux Assistent, DLX 2000, is one powerful machine, ideal for big and small amounts of breads and heavy dough's, plus it has an extra bowl for things like light batters and egg whites. Kenwood good for cakes and sponges etc, KA I wouldn't even attempt bread in mine, but it was a gift about 1 year ago. I have all three, just my 2 cents worth............. qahtan

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Perhaps you might look at my recent pictures of the KitchenAid problem

I have not heard anything good about the newer Kitchen Aids. I have 2 Kenwood Chefs and I love them!

Helen

Dee I am glad that your brought that matter out accompanied with graphic pictures ! Its about time that folks here realize how flimsy is the construction of that mixer Several years back, I did have score of bad experience with Kitchen Aide mixers, It was common for gear oil to bleed while the machine was running while mixing a dough; either a bread or a noodle dough. .In another related experience my sponge batter being mixed failed to aerate even after a quarter of an hour of high speed beating, I found out that there were traces of gear oil that destroyed the foam. Another experience was that the mixing speed change by itself for no reason. I set it a medium, it goes to low and then to medium again .There are other peculiarities that particular machine had ( I noticed) as if it has a mind of its own. There are countless other bad experience that made me wary of such mixers for continuous use in the kitchen. If I had to use a kitchen aide even for cakes, After a series of 5 mixings I let it rest for an hour before I will use it again. If I mix a bread dough I let it rest for a few hours before I do another batch. I never had that problem with the Hobart Mixers That is why I preferred the heavy duty HobartN-50 and C-100 for my small scale baking experiments (which satisfy my experiments that require continuous repetitive trials). Even if it cost heaps compared to the Kitchen Aide toy the Hobart machine is a an equipment to die for. .=2EBased on that experience and a number of such mixers that conked down in my baking trials over the years (which is contrary to the experience of others in this newsgroup) made me reluctant to open heartedly recommend such mixer for dough mixing unless you will use it rarely for such purpose I was wondering if the higher capacity Kitchen aide mixer have that problem that is common with their smaller sized models. Besides those mixers are made in (Korea and never in the USA. I never liked Korean made machines. Including their cars like Hyundai,Daewoo and KIA are just like toy cars that won't last for years like the Japanese made cars. I won't even touch with 10 foot pole their Samsumg and LG brands of home appliances nd electronic goods either. Roy

Samsung in particular has noticeably cleaned up their act in recent years. LG is better than they used to be.=20

I think the bigger issue with Kitchen Aide is the fact that they're a division of a company that makes crappy dishwashers. When they were part of Hobart they were a-ok. That was a long time ago.=20

Even with such claim that those Korean companies are improving their reputation I am still not open in using thier equipments but I still love their cuisine .

Regarding kitchen aide mixers whatever changes the do with their equipments I will never think of buying their toys again. They should sell those stuff in the Toy 'R' Us shops along with Lego blocks. Kids who want to be bakers and pasty chefs someday may ask their parents (legitimately) for such educational playthings.

I'll have to let you know what I think of my new Samsung Frig.

I have always felt the same way about the cars and electronics but i have to admit, Samsung has been making some very fine HDTV sets lately. They are actually highly coveted compared to sony as of late.

Those Korean companies are trying to compensate the inferiority of their product by riding the high technology band wagon, but that will not remove the stigma from users who had bad experience with their products previously. I tell you, recently someone offered me a good price for latest Samsung made Notebook computer and mobile phone but I bought the higher priced HP Compaq and the Nokia respectively as these brands had been my reliable workhorse for those devices . People who are easily by good sales pitch from the aggressive marketing technique of this companies ( like Samsung)are IMO not wise buyers:)

I wouldn't buy anything from Carly Fiorina's incarnation of HP. My guess is that laptop was actually manufactured by Acer - at least the one that i inspected had nearly all Acer components. fwiw i wouldn't buy a Samsung notebook either.

I'll give HP another shot in 4-5 years, the new guy may pull things together.

As for Nokia, I've had three of their phones, and each successively newer phone had fewer useful features and was harder to use. They had to take out the calculator feature to let me personalize the ring tones, and somewhere along the line they necessitated another button press and one more tier in the menu . . . . Still beats the crap out of Qualcomm though, I'll give 'em that.