Looks like I killed it.

Oh, well ...

(How many could kill a news group
with a single click of a mouse?)

--
Dicky

Dick Adams wrote:
Looks like I killed it.

Oh, well ...

(How many could kill a news group
with a single click of a mouse?)

--
Dicky
I don't know, but I recall killing the power to an entire (large)
manufacturing building, by resetting a 5 Amp circuit breaker...

Sam wrote:
Barry Harmon wrote:

6. I continue to believe that the "problem" with KA mixers is the
operators, not the machine. Too much flour, too little water, etc.

Nope, IMO that's not the underlying main reason - but you sure are
entitled to your opinion.

The main issue with the KA 650 is the wrong tool to knead decent (3000 -
4000 g) amounts of bread dough and the manufacturer promoting an image
of quality and reliability suggesting this may be possible.

It is a planetary mixer where the mixing tool - dough hook, needs to cut
through the dough and slam it around - requires a lot of power.

The KA 650 is not strong enough to turn the motor at low speed for the
duration of mixing time of around 10-20 minutes for those amounts of
dough nor dough amounts anywhere close to the manufacturer suggested
numbers of 14 cups.

The problems I encountered with the KA was not stripping the gear but
overheating of the electric motor . The mixer turns very slow under a
load within the manufacture recommended load amounts, the cooling air
through the motor is diminished and the motor block gets hot. There is
an overheat switch which disables the unit until it cools down which is
a major pain in the rear. One has to interrupt the mixing process and
wait...
I found the unit to get so hot to start smoking when kneading even small
dough amounts, 625 g - as shown on a short video clip.

Due to this lack of performance, the KA 650 mixer left the house and I
am using a Magic Mill mixer for over 5 years now mixing bread doughs of
typically 3500 g.

The Bosch and Magic Mill have a different mixing mechanism where the
bowl turns and the mixing tool - dough hook - is stationary which does
not require so much power to mix dough. This principle is also used on
large industrial bread dough mixers (spiral mixers).

A planetary mixer able to mix 3000 - 4000 g bread dough would cost
significantly more - probably around $ 2000.

Next time I make dough, I will make a video clip to show the amount
mixed, post it on youtube and I challenge every KA mixer user to show a
similar result.

Sam



Update on this with the video promised - on Picasa since there is more
context possible:

http://picasaweb.google.com/samartha...7_12_223kgLoaf



Sam

Sam wrote:
Sam wrote:

Barry Harmon wrote:


6. I continue to believe that the "problem" with KA mixers is the
operators, not the machine. Too much flour, too little water, etc.


Nope, IMO that's not the underlying main reason - but you sure are
entitled to your opinion.

The main issue with the KA 650 is the wrong tool to knead decent (3000 -
4000 g) amounts of bread dough and the manufacturer promoting an image
of quality and reliability suggesting this may be possible.


No, wait, you're BOTH right! If you want to mix 3,000 to 4,000 grams of
dough with a KA, you're in much the same position as someone with a
little 4-banger Japanese pickup truck who needs to move 20 tons of
bricks. It really IS the wrong tool for the job.

On the other hand, most of the stories I've heard about dead KA mixers
can be summarized, "I was making my 4th double batch of whole wheat
bread in a row when, BLAM!, without warning, it died!" When you use
whole grains - wheat or rye, you have to reduce the already meaningless
"flour power" rating by half. And with double batches on top of that.
Not all of the stories fall into that category. There are reasons to
believe that the newer mixers are not as well made as the older ones.

So, with whole grain flours, you are looking at 7 cups of flour. Call
it 840 grams of flour, or around 1,400 grams of dough. And after 2 back
to back batches, you are supposed to let the mixer cool.

If that is OK with your workloads, then it's an OK machine. If not,
then you need a bigger machine. Like the Electrolux.

A lot of people make a big deal about the mixer motor power. My old
KA45SS uses about 300 watts. The 40+ year old 30 quart Hobart used
about 250. And the Hobart could handle 27 pound batches of dough with
no problems. Watts tell you how much power a motor consumes, not how
much it applies to the job at hand. The ancient Hobart, like most
commercial mixers, has a geared transmission so the motor is always
running at an optimum speed. The KA's use a variable speed motor and it
is being asked to produce maximum torque at low speeds to knead dough.
It's not a good idea. Viking, Kenwood and Delonghi have the same
inherent problem. The real issue gets back to design and build
quality. The Bosch and Electrolux mixers apply the force differently.
Anyway, the 750 watt newer motors don't seem to be more reliable than
the older 275 to 300 watt motors. Looking at the power drawn from the
wall doesn't tell you how reliable a device is.

I bought an Electrolux a while back and really like it. I still have my
KA45SS and it's OK too. I was curious as to which made the better
dough. So,. I made two batches of dough at the same time. One in the
KA one in the Electrolux. I put them next to each other and filmed both
making dough at the same time. A mixer throw down, as it were. I
normally mix/knead dough for 5 minutes, let it rest for 5 so the dough
can absorb water, and then knead for another 5 minutes. So far, it's
worked well for every mixer I've used and every dough I've made, except
bagel dough. Works by hand too.

At the end of the 15 minutes, I really couldn't tell the differences
between the doughs. Nor could I tell a difference after baking. I did
another test, same results. One with white flour, one with rye. Good
breads all the way around.

The Electrolux is a workhorse. But within their load limits, both do
very well.

All that said, would I buy another KA today? No, sorry, but no.

Mike

--
Mike Avery mavery at mail dot otherwhen dot com
part time baker ICQ 16241692
networking guru AIM, yahoo and skype mavery81230
wordsmith

A Randomly Selected Thought For The Day:
"If televison's a babysitter, the Internet is a drunk librarian who
won't shut up."
- Dorothy Gambrel

"Mike Avery" wrote in message
news:mailman.10.1198457179.87773.rec.food.sourdoug ...


So, with whole grain flours, you are looking at 7 cups of flour. Call it
840 grams of flour, or around 1,400 grams of dough. And after 2 back to
back batches, you are supposed to let the mixer cool.

I used to mix 1200 g of whole wheat and rye flour in one batch using
KA Pro 600. However I was never able to finish the dough before the
mixer shut down due to overheating.

A lot of people make a big deal about the mixer motor power. My old
KA45SS uses about 300 watts. The 40+ year old 30 quart Hobart used about
250. And the Hobart could handle 27 pound batches of dough with no
problems. Watts tell you how much power a motor consumes, not how much it
applies to the job at hand. The ancient Hobart, like most commercial
mixers, has a geared transmission so the motor is always running at an
optimum speed. The KA's use a variable speed motor and it is being asked
to produce maximum torque at low speeds to knead dough. It's not a good
idea. Viking, Kenwood and Delonghi have the same inherent problem. The
real issue gets back to design and build quality. The Bosch and
Electrolux mixers apply the force differently. Anyway, the 750 watt newer
motors don't seem to be more reliable than the older 275 to 300 watt
motors. Looking at the power drawn from the wall doesn't tell you how
reliable a device is.

I second that. It seems that KA wastes lots of wattage in form of
unnecessary
heat generated by the motor and the gearbox. The actual heat sensor in this
mixer
is located on the shaft between the motor and the gearbox. As I mentioned
above
my KA could never finish mixing of 1200g of whole wheat and rye flour due to
overheating. That is until I have removed the top cover and run the mixer
with the
motor and the gearbox housing exposed. Due to increased flow of cooling air
the
sensor does not act as before therefore kneading can be done properly.
However
this can create a situation where overheating of the gearbox is not detected
and can
cause damage to the plastic housing and exposes live wires to touch. Because
of all
these problems I have decided to return KA back to the store and I am
waiting for
Bosch Concept to arrive soon.

Mike

Arek Niski wrote:
"Mike Avery" wrote in message
news:mailman.10.1198457179.87773.rec.food.sourdoug ...



So, with whole grain flours, you are looking at 7 cups of flour. Call it
840 grams of flour, or around 1,400 grams of dough. And after 2 back to
back batches, you are supposed to let the mixer cool.


I used to mix 1200 g of whole wheat and rye flour in one batch using
KA Pro 600. However I was never able to finish the dough before the
mixer shut down due to overheating.

There are a lot of factors there. KitchenAid rates their mixers by
"Flour Power" which is how many cups of flour you can mix in the mixer.
FLOUR, not dough. A big difference. However, the measure is
essentially meaningless for two reasons. First. what's a cup? A cup of
flour varies from under 100 to over 200 grams of flour depending on who
is filling it. Most flour companies tell you a cup of flour should
weigh about 120 grams. To get there, you need to sift the flour to
eliminate any settling in the flour bag, then spoon the flour into a
cup, and then use a straight edge to scrape off the excess flour. Many
people feel this is more trouble than they want to deal with, so they
just scoop flour out of the sack and have cups of flour that weigh
around 200 grams. An thus overload their mixers without intending to.

Next, there IS a difference based on the sort of dough you are making,
and the flour power rating doesn't take this into consideration.
Kitchen Aid does warn you that if you use whole grain flours you need to
reduce the maximum load by half. But that is still a bit too
simplistic. If you look at the manual for a commercial mixer you'll
find a load limit chart. The load limits vary based on how hard it is
to mix the ingredients. You can beat as many egg whites as you can fit
into the mixer. Same with cake batter. And light batter like doughs,
such as ciabatta, poolish, and 100% hydration sourdough starter feeds.
As you move into whole grain doughs, the load limits drop, as it does
when you make low hydration doughs such as pizza dough or bagels. How
much difference? With 70% or so hydration white breads, my old 30 quart
Hobart was rated at around 25 pounds of dough. With 55% hydration pizza
or bagel dough, we were looking at something around 10 to 12 pounds.
(It's been a while, I no longer have the manual or the mixer.... so this
is from memory. The details may be off, but the trend is correct.)

So, your 1200 grams of mixed whole wheat and rye flour is about 12
cups. The Pro 600 is rated at 14 cups, or around 1,680 grams, of WHITE
flour. It is rated at 7 cups, or around 840 grams, of whole wheat or
rye flour. So, your 1,200 gram batch is about half again the load your
mixer is rated for. If you overload the mixer, you can't blame the
mixer for failing. Whether or not the mixer is able to meet your needs
is another question. My Subaru wagon is a nice car. It gets me where I
want to do, and back again. It runs well, and is very fuel efficient.
It is comfortable, and has a decent sound system. And the price was
pretty good. Now, if I need to carry 12 people it is the wrong
vehicle. It has seats for 5.

On the Bosch front, I had one and sold it on eBay. I bought it from a
friend who hated it. She knew many people love the mixer, but she was
never able to really work up any affection for the machine. It
overworked the dough and heated it up too much. It's beaters are far
too fragile. I played with a friend's Electrolux DLX and bought one. I
strongly prefer the Electrolux. Another friend bought a Bosch, despite
my recommendations. After a day she asked me to sell it on eBay.

I hope your experiences with the Bosch are better than mine.

Best wishes,
Mike

--
Mike Avery mavery at mail dot otherwhen dot com
part time baker ICQ 16241692
networking guru AIM, yahoo and skype mavery81230
wordsmith

Once seen on road signs all over the United States:
A silky cheek
Shaved smooth
And clean
Is not obtained
With a mowing machine
Burma-Shave

On Dec 26, 7:54 am, Mike Avery wrote:


There are a lot of factors there. KitchenAid rates their mixers by
"Flour Power" which is how many cups of flour you can mix in the mixer.
FLOUR, not dough.


Newby here...
Used to sell Kitchenaid appliances between years of 1975 and 1978.
Purchased a Kitchenaid K-45 a few years later before it was sold to
Whirlpool. Nice workhorse, never a burp...but she's getting old.
Purchased a Pro 600... It died the first time I tried dough. Hubbie
put it back together. It's pretty. And nothing more than an expensive
paper weight I use for lighter batters. Luckily I never gave my older
machine away.

Two weeks ago I bought a DLX.
Am thinking of trading away the attachments for the Kitchenaid for the
same ones for the DLX, thats how disappointed I am in the current line
of Kitchenaids.
It's a bloody shame the way they have gone.
Just got Killbuck and Iditarod starters in the mail...
whoohooo
smokin'...

peg