The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Decision Made: Electrolux N22 'Royal'

breadman_nz's picture
breadman_nz

Decision Made: Electrolux N22 'Royal'

After visiting my brother, who makes a 1-2 loaves of delicious sourdough daily, I decided to expand my fresh pasta and pizza dough making to include breads. Hand kneading a 6-cup pizza dough and pasta for 10-13 minutes, gets tiring (although I'm sure the exercise is good for me!). So in deciding to expand into breads, I also decided a machine was 'kneaded'.

 

My requirements were 1-2 loaves of dough per day, and, as noted above, the ability to do ~6 cup flour pizza, and 2-4 cup flour pasta doughs. Of course the odd cake cookie dough, and other mixing tasks would be a bonus.

 

So - what machine to buy? My brother's heavy duty KA (not sure the exact model) has done the job for him over several years, and looks stylish, but not sure I wanted to 'risk' it with regular large pizza doughs. I'm a fan of having over rated commercial gear at home as a 'buy once' type purchase. So I was considering 5-8L commercial planetary mixers, such as the Hobart N50, or Robot Coupe SPA500 or SP800S. I also considered a small spiral mixer (although know they're only good for dough).

 

I also saw good reviews for the Bosch Universal Mixer Plus, but it's not available in NZ (so much for globalisation!). A similar model people compare the Bosch to is the Electrolux DLX2000 (otherwise known variously as the 'Magic Mill', N24 and Assistent). This also doesn't seem to be readily available here in NZ- but then I found this on our version of e-bay:

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=320410931

 

Turns out to be an 'N22 Royal Assistent' - which is an older 400W, 240V version of the DLX2000 as far as I can make out. Looks in good condition (used by a church group), and the price is most definitely right (about $100USD).

 

It seems to check all of the boxes for my required usage, so now I just hope it's as good as people make out !!

 

Crider's picture
Crider

I hope you report back about the grain mill attachment.

Chuck's picture
Chuck

At that price, snap it up and you can decide later if you really want to use it or not. It's not unheard of to pay ten times that amount for a dough mixer.

That said, you may eventually wind up not using it at all. With my sore back revolting at the very idea of standing and kneading for a long while, I started out by purchasing an old bread machine (somewhat less flexible and convenient, but a whole lot cheaper) and using it just for mixing (especially of slack/wet doughs). But after a while I realized the "stretch-and-fold" did everything I needed (both mixing and "kneading"), and now I just do everything by hand.

My personal experience is that -especially for "artisan" breads with huge holes- I want the gluten in the dough to be "developed" but not "organized"  ...which means minimal kneading after mixing thoroughly. The 50's idea of kneading till you drop, and even the windowpane test (gasp, did he really say that?-) don't seem all that important to me (at least not with higher hydration doughs).

ronhol's picture
ronhol

I paid close to $1000 US for my DLX about 4-5 years ago.

Never used it, but I expect I will begin to this year.

Chuck, like yourself, I am baking bread with no kneading. I am using the ABI5 book, but I wondered what you were using?

Sounds like you may be using Rineharts book?

I'm trying to get larger holes and a dryer, chewier crumb.

Any suggestions?

breadman_nz's picture
breadman_nz

Perhaps needless to say, I did buy it, and await delivery soon!

I'm mainly wanting it to tackle this great pizza dough recipe by Tony Gemignani:

http://www.foodnetwork.ca/recipes/Main/Herbs/recipe.html?dishID=10040

 

...and then the bread world is my oyster :)

 

I guess these style of mixers essentially ARE countertop spiral mixers, which sound ideal for dough, as far as I can make out.

 

breadman_nz's picture
breadman_nz

Made my first couple of batches of bread - the first a simple 3 cup yeast, flour, salt, water arrangement - went OK.

 

It really came to life when I just did a 6-cup (AP flour) recipe - in fact the one from 'lesson 2' here on TFL. Beautiful! 

 

Takes a bit of getting used to, maneuvering the dough to get it all mixed and well kneaded. I can see where the experience using this mixer comes to the fore... but so far, so very, very delicious & thoroughly pleased with the purchase!!