Kneading dough in KA

[mattl]

Was hungry for some cinnamon rolls tonight so i whipped some up with my KA mixer.  I have a standard sweet dough recipe I use for these and my poppyseed  or nut rolls, been using the recipe for decades.  I always knead the dough in the mixer, it tends to climb up on the disk above the dough hook most of the time.  Tonight I did not lock the motor head down as I normally do and found it bobbed up and down but the kneading action seemed better.

 

So, how do you knead in the KA?  Locked or unlocked?  Wish Kelly was around for his input...

 

[mixguy]

Motor locked

When kneading or mixing, one should always lock the motor in place.

 

[petek]

Even on my Bosch I've had times where the dough will creep up the center post and I have to stop it and push it all back down. Certainly this always happened using the dough hooks on the Sunbeams as well. It happens more with a smaller amount of dough in the Bosch for me anyways.
I sometimes think as well that it's a case where the dough is too tacky and not enough flour was added initially. I can't speak for the KA but for the Bosch it does knead better with larger amounts than smaller batches. So it could be the same thing with the KA.

You could also try spraying the hook and disk part at the top with PAM.

 

[bajaespuma]

When the dough starts to creep up on the hook, or when it's sticky enough that the only part of the dough that's moving is stuck to the hook, I unlock it and lower the bowl. This tends to speed up the kneading and redistributes the dough.

Having used many different sizes of the basic Hobart mixer with dough hook I need to warn you that these machines, despite all advertisements to the contrary, aren't built to withstand the stresses of kneading a lot of tight yeast doughs. When a professional 30 quart Hobart breaks down, for example, the first question the technicians will ask is "how much dough were you making at a time"? Turns out, they can't handle much more than 1/3 of their rated capacities without creating serious wear on the gears and the governors.

This is why I'm looking for either an Electrolux Magic Mill, or an important household-sized spiral mixer. BTW, those electric Japanese "Bread Makers" that all of our Fathers received as gifts in the Eighties and Nineties do a great job of kneading heavy doughs. They can't handle things like Brioche or Bagel dough, but pretty much everything else. You just need to be able to interrupt the cycle before they go too far.

 

[iheartmaytag]

Your dough will climb up and wrap around the hood if it is slightly too wet. add a bit more flour to it when you pull it off the hook and it will form a nice ball, or as my daughter calls them bull horns as they knead. Careful not to get it too dry or it will also wrap, you can tell by touching the dough, it should be slightly tacky, but not sticky.

Let us know what happens with your next batch.

 

[norgeway]

I have used my old K-5

For every hard job imaginable, I have ground 40 pounds of chuck roast at a time into hamburger, pulled the ice cream freezer as well as making bread, ive never had a problem, but mine is a 1965 model so it has a real governor and metal gears.

 

[appnut]

Dough climbing up the dough hook

I saw a tip online that if you spray the hook with non-stick cooking spray, it helps. I did it and noticed no major issues.