Modern KA mixers

[mixfinder]

All Metal vs the Queen

Several years ago I did a series of head to head mixing challenges with the new all metal (roar and grate) Kitchenaid Pro600 and the venerable Kenwood Chef. 

The Kitchenaid incorporated all the flour sooner and with no assitance in the bread dough kneading.  The bread from the Kitchenaid was a touch smoother, more Wonderbread like.

 

[mixfinder]

Don't Touch It

The Pro 600 has a wider, flatter 6 quart bowl which is ideal for adding ingredients without babtizing the mixer head, less splattering and this design requires NO MANUAL ASSIST i.e. bowl scraping.  The very first Kitchenaid I ever embraced because it didn't leave behind the unmixed dab at the bottom of the bowl.  Huge difference in cake mixing and cake texture with the Kitchenaid a clear winner.  A bowl scraping mixer operator would have leveled the playing field but this entire test was a no manual assist, period.  The Kenwood left flour around the outer edge of the bowl.

 

[mixfinder]

Pay the Toll

A double batch of chocolate chip cookies with 6 cups of flour and 4 cups of chips.  This surprised me.  Although moth machines mixed well the Kenwood shook, stopped a few times and tossed batter and chips out the bowl when it would start up again.  The wider bowl wins every test by a land slide.  The same results would not result using a 4.5 or 5 quart bowl.  The flatter bowl is clearly cutting edge technology but the motor was so shrill I seldom turned it above number 4.  Kenwood dough tuned out on the counter shows treaks of unmixed creamed mixture which resulted in some cookies too flat and unusable.

 

[mixfinder]

The best kitchen aid I've ever used.

And so goes the urban legend of how the mixer was named.  Prior to the Pro6 and wider bowl I was an avowed Kitchenaid hater because at some point you always had to  stop the mixer and bring the bottom of the bowl to the top and then remix.  The 6 quart made a convert out of me.

 

[mixfinder]

Screaming Meemie

After a few weeks of the "all metal" Kitchenaid gravel crusher, I sold it on craigs and bought the Copper Williams Sonoma Pro620 with a fiber gear case and drive, loving it's quieter voice to say nothing of the counter top wow factor.

 

[mixfinder]

Are you left?

Kenwood bread on the left and Kitchenaid on the right.

 

[mixfinder]

Yummy Cake

Cake is far and away my favorite dessert, tender, moist and buttery but not too sweet.  I also compared glass, shiny aluminum and anondized or darkened pans for the nuance of each product's performance.

1st, the Kenwood.....

 

[mixfinder]

Aluminum Winner

Of all the pans the shiny aluminum from Magic Pan worked best.  Both recipes were baked in the same pans and oven by themselves for 22 minutes for mixing comparisons.

2nd the Kitchenaid.........

 

[mixfinder]

English Chocolate Chips

In the bake off of the cookies from the Kenwood there was more oven spread and inconsistencies.  Without bowl scraping I would have expected a similar result from a K-5 because of the inherent bowl design.

 

[mixfinder]

Uptight

Cookies from the 6 quart bowl fared better and produce a consistent and usable batch of cookies from beginning to end.

 

[thomasortega]

KA is KA. nothing can beat them. (even the modern ones)

I love using the KA for small (regular) batches and the Electrolux Assistent (Electrolux DLX in the U.S.) for huge loads of bread and other heavy dough.

As said above, they are two completelly different machines, each one with its vantages (lots of them on both) and limitations.
As I don't have other KA accessories than the pasta roller and the ice cream maker, and I've never seen the other accessories in real life, I can't talk about them.

My DLX has all the accessories, but some of them are useless, like the blender (too small), the citrus press (that's a joke, useful only if I decide to squeeze the oranges from my bonsai orange tree) and the slicer. The slicer/shredder is very good, but too slow and boring). For mousses (white plastic bowl) the DLX is horrible too (my old Philips food processor has the same horrible system) and the KA is much better.
Other thing I HATE about my Electrolux assistent is the amazing number of parts (two huge plastic containers to store them) and tons of parts to wash after a simple task.

KA is great. My choice was the tilt head artisan and I never had any issues with it.

 

[sudsmaster]

Close enough for two cigars

First, the name is Rich, not Ralph.

Second, when I got my Epicurean with all metal gears, I got two. I tested both and selected the quieter of the two, and returned the other (Costco is good that way).

Third, it is NOT a gravel grinder. It is quiet and efficient. Way more than I need, by the way.

Fourth, planetary gearsets are inherently very strong. That's because the ring gear contains the loads on the sun and planet gears, sparing the bearings or bushings. There's a good reason why these gearsets are the heart of most automatic transmissions. The gear case does not carry the bulk of the burden of the load.

Fifth, if the reset switch pops, it has thereby protected the gearing, metal or otherwise. But it's been my observation that of modern machines, there is generally no reset switch on plastic geared KA mixers. The plastic gears act as sacrificial components to protect the motor. Unfortunate for the owner because replacing those gears is a costly and potentially time consuming repair. Versus a simple reset of the circuit breaker.

 

[mixfinder]

Objectivity

Lest anyone think I had a horse in the race it wasn't the case.  For years I would spec Kenwood Major mixers in the kitchen equipment inventory because I felt they held more and mixed better than a K-5 Kitchenaid.  I bought a Pro because it was different and I wanted to see what Kitchenaid was up to.  The first was an Epecurion, then a Pro6, then the "all metal" Pro 600 and finally the Pro620.  All performed flawlessly, without any scraping or assist if the speeds were slowly increased preventing plastering the goods to the side of the bowl which is why I insisted there be no bowl assist what so ever in the test..  They all are loud with the Epecurion and the Pro600 "all metal" the worst.  The Copper Pro620 was far and away the quietest and I don't know if it was a fluke or if they make sure $900.00 mixers are put together right.  I have over 30 mixers.  I have used a Sunbeam exclusively since moving back to Ellensburg this past summer because it's quiet, mixes better and faster, makes finer textured cakes and bread and is versatile enough to mix 1 cup or 10 pounds.  Kitchenaid tainted my relationship with them which means nothing to the rest of the world but I didn't care for the reminder of how much time, money and I labor I gave them to be thrown under the bus at the end.  I like the Kenwood but I cannot find enough words to tell you how much I hate the service provided for Viking, Cuisinart, DeLonghi and Kenwood in the US.  I have a new, all plastic, sleek Kenwood Chef that needs a new speed controller dial installed and I haven't found a source yet to do it.  For a year it sits in the closet while a coffin sized box of attachments are in the garage.  No mixer is any good if it doesn't work.  At the end of the day its hard to hurt a Kitchenaid Classic because if you overload it it groans and slows down but doesn't strip gears.  If you have any Kitchenaid mixer without the brush caps showing on the motor sides it is a Swedish motor and will be louder.  They all feature soft start which sounds like the death rattle until it gets going.  Kitchenaid mixers prior to the 70's are quieter before solid state but the ones made after aren't objectionable.  The name Hobart was still on the strip for a few years after Whirlpool bought the company.  The dumbest thing anyone can say is "Whirlpool cheapened or ruined the Kitchenaid mixer" because it is exactly the same machine with the exception of fused connectors instead of wire nuts.  It is hot air rhetoric not supported with any fact to say it changed.  The larger machines cannot be compared because they do not share the same design.  The Classic is exactly that, still Classicly the same.  The real tragedy is that most of the competition for the home mixer market is not worthy of consideration so Kitchenaid continues to dominate the market.

 

[mixfinder]

Well Newman.............

There is no external reset on Kitchaid mixers made recently as they stop and then automatically restart after cooling.  If the mixer was an Epicurian or Pro6 it has a thermal overload which burns in two and requires disassembly to be replaced.  Gears can strip before the thermal link activates if the rpms are high enough and an obstruction or heavy load is dropped on the machine.  Gradual abuse of mixing loads too stiff or using the attachments, especially the grain mill and pasta extruder will cause gear failure regardless of a thermal overload.  You may have picked the quieter of two all metal mixers but they are still  louder than a Classic, Ultra or Artisan built on the original Kitchenaid design.  The all metal design has a throatier sound as well as the metal gearcase cover which amplifies the sound.  In a catastrophic obstruction of the planetary the sacrificial gear, metal or fiber is designed to give, minimizing the damage and subsequent repair.  Even your all metal Kitchenaid with a thermal overload can fail.  Simply repeating incorrect information does make it so.

 

[rp2813]

Thanks for the info about the Swedish motor.  I'm pretty sure our Professional doesn't have the brush caps, and it is very noisy.  When I use the slicer/shredder or juicer attachment, the thing will even squeak. 

 

I might keep my eye out for a 600 with six-quart bowl after reading about what a great job it does.

 

My partner put flame decals on the Professional right away.  I don't know if that will make it easier or more difficult to unload on CL or whatever, but the noise factor has always bothered me.

 

[mixfinder]

Another Flamer

The flame decals seem to be popular on ebay sales.  There is usually a ton of Pro mixers on craigslist because they are wedding or Christmas gifts and too big and intimidating for a casual cook.  I can keep my eyes out if you know what color want.  Thanks for your support.

 

[sudsmaster]

Well, Urkel,

Both my mixers, the Epicurean and the Pro 5 qt, have "Reset" positions on the speed control. It would seem to me that this setting would be un-necessary if there was a fusible link in there. The safe assumption is that the "Reset" position resets an internal circuit breaker.

I didn't mean to imply that the metal gears cannot ever be stripped even with a reset function. But it seems logical that they would be far more resistant to stripping than plastic gearing, as well as carrying on until the thermal overload reset trips.

I believe I did say that no machine should be overloaded beyond its design limits.

 

[petek]

Mike.. check out Pleasant Hill Grains website for the Bosch Universal Plus and tons of other fun and gadgety kitcheny things. But like Kelly says they do show up occasionally in classifieds, that's how I got mine for less.

http://www.pleasanthillgrain.com/Bosch_Universal_Plus_Mixer_MUM6N10UC.aspx

 

[lordkenmore]

"There is usually a ton of Pro mixers on craigslist because they are wedding or Christmas gifts and too big and intimidating for a casual cook."

I'm glad to learn that! While my KA is going strong, there is always the fear that it might blow up one day. I just checked the Seattle area Craigslist, and saw prices at low as $75. This was for a Classic, which is probably what I'd prefer. A Pro might be nice, but I don't think I really need the power/capacity.

I also have sometimes seen KA mixers turn up at yard sales. Summer 2009 I saw someone snag a KA Pro type mixer at a church yard sale. It looked like new--either someone who took really good care of it, or someone who quit using it after finding that it was overkill for Betty Crocker mixes!

 

[lordkenmore]

Something I'm wondering is whether any sort of maintenance is needed on KA mixers. My best understanding is that they lubed for life. Is this true?