kitchen aid pro line 7 qt stand mixer anyone?
Is anyone using this mixer? http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/kitchenaid-pro-line-stand-mixer-7-quart/?cm_src=AutoRel after reading all the sad reviews about the present day Kitchen aid stand mixers I was 99.99% decided to buy the Electrolux for bread making and other mixing needs. I have never owned or even used a stand mixer or the Electrolux so I have no personal experience to guide my purchase. But as I enjoy cooking/baking more and feeding an young family with a hefty appetite, I would like to get one (a heavy duty mixer) and get something that is useful and reliable for the long haul. I thought the Electrolux would fit my bill perfectly. The only reason I gave it a second thought is that so many recipes and cookbooks are written for the kitchen aid type stand mixer and I would have to adapt everything without even knowing how the recipe should feel. There are such glowing reviews about the pro line 7 qt on Williams-Sonoma, Amazon and King Arthur that this one is not chintzy as the earlier ones and the owners just love working with it. So friends here, who use a mixer for heavy work, have any of you used the new pro line 7 qt? What do you think of it? Would it work for me? And is it good to have both the kicthen aid and the Electrolux? or would that be just redundant? Or should I just stick with the Electrolux? Thank you so much!
I've had it for a couple of years. Use it for some bread dough recipes (pizza, pita) and for its pasta attachment. Seems very sturdily built.
It's quite big, so storing it and moving it on/off the counter are (small) annoyances.
No issues. It's a good small mixer. Only hitch is the annoying bowl lift mechanism. Sometimes hard to get big hands in there to scrape down. Big commercial mixers need lifts due to their weight. A home or small job mixer is better as a head tilt (IMHO), but then again, no one at KitchenAid asked me LOL
Cheers
thank you so much for the endorsement...it will help me with my final decision.
My travails with changing from a Pro 600 to a Bosch Universal Pro are detailed elsewhere on this forum ( I think I'm getting to the good part), but I have been tempted by the 5 year warranty on some of the new KA 700's.
The devil is in the details. What research I have done seems to indicate there are several 7 quart stand mixers available from KA. One has the 5 year warranty, the others have the one year then a % of what you paid.
Now that I know how to switch gears ( literally ) in my KA, I still think the Bosch is better for wheat.
But that KA, she's got some nice curves on her!
Hi!
AAAHHH! I just got myself a KA proline 7 qt for Christmas.
I do have to say the following, with the disclaimer that since I have never used a stand mixer before I have nothing to compare my present and little experience with:
its a great mixer, its quiet, moves through batters and cookie doughs very easily. Its quite well finished as far as appearance goes. I have it in medallion silver, sleek and low key.
I do have a lot of experience baking however, and it can simplify, time and energy wise, a lot of baking chores.
However I really bought it for kneading bread dough and I can see that it is not the 'pro' or as 'powerful' it is touted to be. There are explicit warnings not to use it higher than speed #2 yet I can see it going nowhere to a finished correctly kneaded dough at #2 even with 5-6 cups of flour. or maybe it would have taken 20-25mins? I didn't try that long. Rose Levy Beranbaum openly instructs in many of bread recipes to use a KA at #4 and even #6 for both paddle and dough hook for extended periods of time until the dough comes together. Well, why would she do that? I tried #4. At speed #4 there is a constant clicking, clacking sound. Its not the motor but some part hitting against another part at the higher speed. And it does begin to heat up after 10-12 mins of kneading. If it does this while brand new it is going to wear out sooner rather than later if I use it regularly for kneading (which I want to do!) I don't think I have a lemon. I think the mixer works very well but its not as powerful as I was led to believe. And upon reading the reviews more closely many people have heard the clicking which gives them pause. I think it will be inadequate for kneading whole wheat, whole grain doughs or big batches of dough. I think there are ways to work around these limitations in power, more autolysing, stopping the kneading periodically and resuming after 5-10mins of resting both machine and dough. But I don't want to, I just wanted a simple strong mixer for when I just wanted to get some kneading done quickly! Maybe my expectations are inappropriate for this type of mixer?
Just a question: do you all never use it above #2 for kneading? and still get proper kneading? On this forum, as an example other than RLB, people are making Jason's ciabatta at highest speed?
I will post this as a separate question but welcome any feedback please.
Plantaholic: I got a nice at Williamssonoma with a two year warranty.
Thank you so much for patiently reading about my discomfort with my new and fancy toy. I did really want to love and live with it forever, but I don't know now.
Friends I need to ask, please since I am so new to this stand mixer business:
1) Is using the above mixer every 2-3 days to knead between 1-3 pounds of dough considered average or heavy use?
2) Once I had some black lubricant come down the spindle that rotates with the hook or paddled hanging on it, while it was working. At this time the motor was not running warm or hot. Is this something that just happens once in a while, maybe its not a sealed motor? Or is this a sign of stress on the motor?
3) As I have been using this to knead bread dough, it will get warm and even bordering on hot. I have learned to stop the machine every few mins during kneading before it gets hot and then continuing. Is the motor getting quite warm considered abusing it and I should be very careful about this otherwise the machine will die soon?
I know these are probably very naïve questions, but I really don't know.
Thank you so much!
I don't know your mixer, but you might try contacting consumer information provided with the mixer instructions. Or try finding a discussion online. Have you emailed the manufacturer?
The black grease is not coming from the motor. It's coming from the gear box. sounds like a bad seal.
I have that mixer and one day is started to go tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick,tick, tick, tick,tick, tick, tick,tick, tick, tick,tick, tick, tick,tick, tick, tick,tick, tick, tick,tick, tick, tick,tick, tick, tick,tick, tick, tick,tick, tick, tick,tick, tick, tick,.
Now when I mix dough it has a hitch in the rotation. so during a rotation cycle it hesitates once every revolution,
I took the thing apart and cant find bad bearings or missing teeth on the gears. So I put it back together and will continue to use it until I break it good. I don't think it's a good bread mixer...good for cakes and lightweight cookies but breads are to much for its engineering and I think they should not provide a dough hook with the machine if it can't handle bread dough.
Gonna get a 12 quart Univex mixer and put the KA on the curb.
Thank you! I will contact the company and think about this
I have a new Kitchenaid 7 qt Pro mixer and just made a bread recipe with 4 cups of flour. Using the dough hook on speed 2, the mixer makes a ticking sound I believe is caused by poorly manufactured metal gears. I called Kitchenaid and to my surprise they consider the ticking sound to be normal. Does anyone have more information on this problem with Kitchenaid mixers? I am wondering if I should let Kitchenaid keep their ticking mixer?? I would buy a better brand, but I have found other mixers to be much more expensive or more purpose built for bread. I do not have budget or countertop space for several appliances. Any help is appreciated.
Thank Gondo for the excellent review. I found it very helpful.