Kitchen Mixer Help

I prefer my mom’s "cheapie"! - KitchenAid 250 Watts K45SS Classic Stand Mixer We received this mixer as a wedding gift and I was so excited to use it - I had heard so many rave reviews on it, ...

A True Classic! - KitchenAid 250 Watts K45SS Classic Stand Mixer I drooled over pictures of this mixer in the cooking catalogs I got every few months. Then finally I worked up the...

I have had four Kitchen-aid mixers over the last 15 years. The first one purchased in 1984 was made by Hobart and has been problem free. The other three have been in and out of the repair shop a total of at least 5 times with the general problem of stripped gears. The gears are nylon and are designed to fail in lieu of other more expensive parts. This may be fine for protecting the motor but at 45 bucks a pop or so to replace, the stripped gears are no picnic and the authorized repair shop is 100 miles away.

Like I said, for light batters and doughs, chances are you will have few problems with this mixer, if you get into making pasta or heavy whole wheat breads you probably will. I have also had the cap that covers the attachment port fall into the bowl and jam the beater, which stripped the gears. I have had two incidents where the dough became unbalanced and walked the mixer off the counter. So, make sure the cord is tied up short to pull out of the outlet before it reaches the edge of the counter.

Now I am going to reveal a second dirty little secret about Kitchen-aid that I discovered by talking to a Hobart dealer and also to an electrical engineer. Wattage means nothing on these mixers so if you have considering buying one of the bigger ones because of “more power” rather than the bigger bowl…don’t: You will be wasting your money and here is why. These mixers are way over powered to begin with, The gears will strip before you max the motor out (at least when you are using the beaters. I don’t know about when you are using attachments.) I have had both the smaller and the larger Kitchen-aids get VERY hot while using attachments for prolonged periods. If you go to the Hobart web site and look at the specs on commercial mixers you will find that a whopping 20 quart mixer that will mix 10 pounds of mashed potatoes or make several loaves of bread is only powered by a 1/3 horsepower motor. What is a horsepower you may ask? Well, it is about 745 watts, so a 1/3 horsepower motor uses approximately 250 watts. How can you mix up ten gallons of mashed potatoes or six or seven loaves of bread with only 250 watts? I have to assume it is because the motor is transferring that power efficiently to heavy duty commercial gears and beaters with more torque. The commerical mixer manufacturers are not engaged in marketing gimics like “high wattage” to fool the lay public into thinking wattage equals power.

I guess the moral of this story is that if you are a serious baker or pasta maker, consider getting a small commercial mixer. You will get sick of replacing the gears in a Kitchen-aid. If you only do cookies, pie crust or an occasional angel food cake, almost any Kitchen-aid will do just fine

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