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I've been using a stiff wooden spoon, a bowl and the countertop to handle all of my doughs, and left my frostings to a cheap handheld mixer. I'm trying to find something that will be able to mix multiple batches of bread or cookie dough a week, and still be able to incorporate butter into a shokopan dough when called on.
I used my parents old kitcheaid when I lived with them. I don't recall the model, but I believe it was the equivalent of the professional 600, back around '07-'08. It was from the end of the era of plastic gears so not sure what gearing it had, but it was never an issue. However the planetary gear system came loose on multiple occasions, it was like a slip fit that slipped right out on multiple occasions and rendered the mixer non-operational. My dad managed to reassemble it each time, so it wasn't the end of the world but after it happened the first time he stopped feeding it bread dough and got a Zojirushi Home Bakery Supreme as a dedicated bread mixer.
I'm trying to find a machine that can handle whatever I want to throw at it, and more importantly will last for at least 5-10 years. The idea of buying a new mixer or having to send it out for expensive repairs every year due to the fact that I bake large amounts of bread has zero interest for me. I've considered also picking up a zojirushi as a bread mixer, but it lacks the speed and attachments to deal with frostings, meringues or anything that needs beating. However it's been a reliable tank for bread, pumping out hundreds of recipes at this point with no issues.
Has anyone found the holy grail of consumer stand mixers? One that doesn't require you to demolish counterspace to fit a commercial mixer and doesn't cost multiple thousands? Or am I just a delusional baker, who's consumed so much bread his vision of the future is blurrily optimistic due to the impending diabetic coma and cumulative effects of copious consumption of trace amounts of alcohol from each baked good?
I am considering buying a commercial grade KitchenAid. I don't think there's anything else out there that will fit in a normal consumer kitchen and be able to handle big loads of tough work.
I get using a spoon but my arm can't handle that anymore!!! :)
Oh I am so done with a spoon too, I would bake significantly more then I do now with a good mixer. I used to pump out 4-5 batches of stuff a week and now I might bake every few weeks.
My goto for bread dough is to dump it on the counter then proceed to alternate massaging it like I'm a chair in sharper image and beating it like it owes me money for a purchase it made in sharper image. While it gets the job done and can be relaxing to do, it doesn't work for anything that contains butter since it overwarms it and since I've been thinking about trying my hand at selling in farmers markets I need to upgrade!
To be perfectly honest, I don't fully trust ATK anymore. They've made many dubious claims before, among them pushing the victorinox 8" chefs over literally everything else. I don't have any issue with the fact that it won as it's quite a good knife for the price, but I do have an issue with how religious they got about the knife and basically claimed it'll beat several hundred dollar knives which is quite frankly rediculous. This mixer is another case of that, at this point everyone is aware of the major issues KA suffers in terms of build quality and product longetivity if you want to do more then bake a single batch of cookies. The fact that ATK is willing to push the company, even though they bake dozens of batches in order to test a recipe and have no doubtedly had significant issues with KA (Based on how often consumers have issues with these mixers, there's a snowballs chance in hell that ATK using them at the professional/semi-professional level hasn't run into the same problems) raises some major red flags for the validity of ATK as a non-biased organization.
To add insult to the injury, they didn't a number of mixers, instead picking up multiple from KA. The Ankarsum mentioned above is a prime example. Given that ATK was testing the Waring and Volrath, both of which are at the same price point or higher and both of whom have far, far more negative reviews speaks to this. Granted, there are a ludicrous number of mixers on the market, however I would have liked to see a greater diversity in companies represented given how many mixers they tested.
I still get ATK/CC, but primarily for the recipes and how beautiful the magazines are. Even then, my goto for non-baking recipes is Seriouseats; it doesn't require a paywall or login to access, and the site is easy to navigate with an active community reviewing recipes. That isn't to say everything is perfect, SA also recemmended the KA mixer, which I was again quite disappointed by.
I will say that no mixer seems to be perfect, everyone I've looked at with a significant number of reviews has at this point displayed some form of issue, whether it's the Ankarsum or the KA or anything else, they all seem to have major design failings in either the worm gear or planetary gear, chiefly either grease leaking or the planetary gears stripping/snapping due to them being made of plastic. The main thing that puts my mind at ease about the thought of trying the Ankarsum is the warranty, 7 years versus the 2 years of KA. To me that puts my mind at ease as the company clearly stands behind their product to a much more significant degree
Like your father, I’ve also repaired our KA mixers. From a mechanical perspective, they are ... ok. The slippages you mentioned are often as simple as a retaining ring popping out of a slot on a shaft when trying to process a heavy load. Such loads can really torque the drive train and the casting. Parts move, slip, crack, and jam. KA’s also tend to fry their gearbox grease under those conditions, too (typical symptom is is a dark oil seeping out, usually right into your bowl, which means the grease has broken down). In a place where a KA uses that stamped retaining ring, a commercial model might use a heavy shaft collar, a thrust bearing, and a beefier casting. And it will have a much more robust motor besides.
KitchenAids really are decent mixers for most uses, but simply aren’t heavy-duty enough for heavy doughs beyond small batches and they are NOT designed to be used to their nominal capacities. No mixer is, in fact, even the heaviest commercial models, and it’s disturbing that KA makes it appear that they are. E.g., “24 cups of flour.” 5 or 6 cups, at least in a heavier dough, is more like it. If a mixer is walking and shaking, it’s being abused.
If we did a lot of bread making or pizza doughs at home, I’d look for a used Hobart C100 (10 quarts) and use the KA for everything else. We’ve had 4 KitchenAids. We’ve killed 2, still have a 6-quart that I’ve rebuilt and is on its last legs and a 5 quart that’s 20 years old and is still fine. I even dropped that one down a flight of stairs once ... didn’t hurt it at all.
So, you might get the longevity you want. Or not ... Sorry, no grail! The Ankarsrum is worth the look, though.
I couldn't agree more on the blatant lies about the capacity issues. It's pretty sad considering how short KAs warranty is when they push the idea that you can basically empty a full 5 pound bag of flour and change into the bowl and turn it into dough without making it explode.
I would say that as Calabryne and ATK pointed out, it is a solid buy given the pricing for most stand mixers. At 500W it'll be likely be plenty for most people who're using it on single batches of cookie dough or frostings once or twice a week and last as long as they want it to. For my purposes with how much I make from sturdier dough I'll be sticking to using my hands or a spatula and keep looking. The Hobart's a beautiful machine, definitely on my radar for when I eventually have more kitchen space!