Mixers

[Ken524]

Re: Mixers

RT,

I did the research on the KA (read hundreds of the bad reviews), threw the dice and bought a refurb for a bargain basement price. It appears (at least to me) they have their gearbox issue ironed out. Before I bought it, I was told by a KA rep that as of early '08, all new and refurb machines have the redesigned gearbox.

So far, I haven't had any issues with my machine. No smells, no funny noises, etc. I use it exclusively for dough. If you want to save a few dollars, I think KA is a reasonable bet now.

That being said... I would feel terrible if you bought one on my advice and it turned out to be a lemon .

I'm with you on the Bosch. I have a few of their tools and never had any problem. That should be a very safe purchase.

I guess more then anything I want to let guys on a tight budget know that a refurb KA can again be an option in their decision making. I'm very happy with mine.

Happy mixing and let us know how you like the Bosch!

[BRIFRO]

Re: Mixers

I also have a KA Professional HD. The speed control on this one malfunctioned. When I turn it on it launches into ultral high speed for about 5 seconds and then shuts off. Doesn't matter what speed it is set on. I called KA and told them about the issue and even thought the mixer was only out of the warranty period by 1 month they would not honor it because I admitted using an attatchment on the mixer which was not KA brand. I would not recomend KA mixers to anyone.

[jmhepworth]

Re: Mixers

We have both the Kitchen Aid Professional (6 qt) and the Bosch. We had a 4 1/2 qt KA for a couple of decades that I would not recommend for bread -- not because of the burn up issue, but because it just bounces around too much. The 4 1/2 qt KA works well to mix things that don't get off balance, but bread dough isn't one of them.

I got a KA Professional for Christmas a few years ago, but not really for bread. My wife bakes all of our bread (not in a WFO because I'm not done with it yet), and she uses the Bosch exclusively to mix and knead bread dough because she can set the timer and it quits when the dough is ready. When she has needed to prepare more bread than the Bosch will do in a single batch, she has used the KA Professional with good results, but I can't vouch for whether it will last with sustained use mixing bread. By the way, Bosch has recently improved its design to make it a lot easier to clean after preparing bread dough. Bottom line -- even though I like my KA Professional a lot, I would go with the Bosch to knead bread dough (and pizza dough).

We also grind wheat to make bread and have made whole wheat pizza dough. More fiber, better taste, but it's a bit tough. We're curious to see what it does in a WFO.

Joe

[ERASMO]

Re: Mixers

Here is a great video comparison between KA and Bosch. This may have been posted before.
Bosch vs. Kitchenaid

[RTflorida]

Re: Mixers

O.K., I've done it.....I Just purchased the Bosch Universal Plus, should be here in a few days. In true American fashion - I over bought, I think the only items I didn't buy were the grain mill and its attachments.
I will keep all posted in the coming weeks as to the results of my "performance tests".

RT

[Archena]

Re: Mixers

Good man! Anything worth buying is worth over buying!

I notice, however, that you didn't tell us what attachments you ordered...

[ERASMO]

Re: Mixers

RT

Was that video helpful in making the decision?

It pushed me over the edge. I put a request in to Santa and hopefully their will be one under the tree.

Keep us posted on the performance!

[Wiley]

Re: Mixers

Interesting video but I have some questions. First off I'm very new to the bread making thing and my style is to read as much as I can and see what makes sense from what I read. Regarding mechanically mixing dough one thing I have taken away from the books is to minimize heating the dough while mixing. Bertinet, for example, won't even use a mechanical mixer; at least in the quanities he offers in his book "Crust", preferring to mix totally by hand in a (to me) curious manner. What he does in his bakery I do not know.

Now the engineer in me says it takes some given amount of work to mix the dough. And one product of work is heat. So it would seem to follow the faster one does the work the more heat is produced per unit of time, resulting in a higher temperature of the dough. On that thought it would be interesting to see a test run with the two machines with ingredients starting at the same temperature and both mixed to the same consistancy and the temperature measured at time of reaching that desired consistancy. Obviously the KA would take longer to achieve that desired consistancy.

Who knows there may be no significant difference in the final temperatures between the two machines, but if the temprature of the dough during mixing is important to the final product (bread) then would be nice to know before saying one machine is "better" because it more quickly mixes the dough.

Now I realize that time has different values to different people but isn't the whole WFO more of enjoying the process and quality of the final product rather than seeing how fast something can be done? Thoughts?

Wiley

[rlf5]

Re: Mixers

I agree that his comparison was pretty poor scientifically. About the only thing you can take from that video is that the Bosch mixes a given quantity of ingredients more efficiently than the kitchen aid. Now the Bosch will heat the dough up more since there is a lot more friction resulting from the both the higher speeds and the three mixing arms, but you'll just end up using colder water to begin with, so it shouldn't be an issue. In regards to your experiment, the dough mixed with the bosch would still yield a higher temperature dough b/c of the higher friction factor.

[RTflorida]

Re: Mixers

Regardless of your kneading method (hand, KA, Bosch, or the cheap piece of crap $69 Hamilton Beach I am replacing), heat can be a potential problem...a $12 instant read thermometer will let you know.
In my case, not a factor...the only dough I will be making will be pizza. Due to dietary issues, I have to limit carb intake so I eat very little bread (unfortunately), seems my body does not process ANY carbs very well. My one splurge is pizza. Don't see how it can overheat, it just isn't mixed for a long enough period of time. Even with the junk mixer I burned up (it hopped across the counter, groaned, locked up) the dough temp was never more than room temp (about 72 degrees).
So in my case this video, as well as the other general mixing video, were helpful.....A VERY efficient machine. To me it was really the "glowing" reviews and my experience with other Bosch products. Although there are not nearly as many total reviews (probably 1000-1, KA vs. Bosch), I have yet to read a negative review involving poor performance or product failure on the Bosch. To steal a much used phrase from another forum (used to describe commercial Hobart mixers), I think the Bosch is "bomb proof" (at least for home use). I guess I will find out soon enough.

For Archena:
Universal Plus with free blender
Slicer/shredder (plus the 2 exra blades)
Food Processor
Meat Grinder (plus 3 additional size discs and knifes)
Whisk assembly for slicer/shredder
grating attachment for meat grinder
Thick batter whisks
Cookie dough paddles
Pastry press
Additional Stainless Steel bowl
Sausage stuffer set for meat grinder

I think that is it.....my invoice lists 18 items

RT

[jmhepworth]

Re: Mixers

I'm not sure I understand the concern about heat. Most of the bread we make uses fairly warm water (if not very hot water) to begin with. Yeast needs warmth to grow. Our experience is that the temperature goes down during mixing, not up. And that applies to both the KA and the Bosch.

I watched the video and wouldn't recommend buying the Bosch based on that alone. It was so biased in approach that the Bosch people should be embarassed. Comparing the slowest KA speed (a slow crawl) to the slowest Bosch speed (a pretty good sprint) is ridiculously misleading. If I recall right, KA recommends mixing bread at level 4, which is a lot more comparable to the Bosch speed. And my wife tells me that one of the down sides to the Bosch is that there is no slow speed.

I would still get the Bosch for bread, but it makes me pause when a company uses such obviously misleading advertising to sell its product.

Joe

[RTflorida]

Re: Mixers

I'm pretty sure the video was done by the big online Bosch distributor - Pleasant Hill Grain. They don't sell KA, so they are most certainly a bit (maybe alot) biased.

RT

[rlf5]

Re: Mixers

I thought it was done by Everything Kitchens. They actually sell all the consumer and prosumer models.

[RTflorida]

Re: Mixers

You may be right....I may be confused, I spent as much time reading about these mixers as I did reading this forum before my oven build.

RT

[Archena]

Re: Mixers

Regardless of your kneading method (hand, KA, Bosch, or the cheap piece of crap $69 Hamilton Beach I am replacing), heat can be a potential problem...a $12 instant read thermometer will let you know.
In my case, not a factor...the only dough I will be making will be pizza. Due to dietary issues, I have to limit carb intake so I eat very little bread (unfortunately), seems my body does not process ANY carbs very well. My one splurge is pizza.

I do low-carb for weight control. It works well for me, but the one big drawback is the lack of bread. There's nothing really out there that's both low-carb and has enough gluten to make a decent bread.

But I lost 74 pounds so I'm not really crying here...

For Archena:
Universal Plus with free blender
Slicer/shredder (plus the 2 exra blades)
Food Processor
Meat Grinder (plus 3 additional size discs and knifes)
Whisk assembly for slicer/shredder
grating attachment for meat grinder
Thick batter whisks
Cookie dough paddles
Pastry press
Additional Stainless Steel bowl
Sausage stuffer set for meat grinder

I think that is it.....my invoice lists 18 items

RT

I am so seriously jealous....