The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Anyone have advice when buying a used mixer? Looking at a Hobart A-120.

motorbacon's picture
motorbacon

Anyone have advice when buying a used mixer? Looking at a Hobart A-120.

I'm looking at a used 12 quart Hobart at a good price. I'm buying (if all looks well) from a guy who's just a reseller, but he bought it from a bakery that shut down. Claimed that this was their smallest mixer, used mostly for making frosting.  Could be just telling me what I want to hear, though. Also, there's no telling what it was used for before the bakery.

Anyway, he says that it was tested and works well under load, but that I'm welcome to run a batch through and see for myself. I was just gonna take some flour and a jug of water to make a basic dough, see if it bogs down, skips gears, etc. Anyone got any suggestions on how much flour to feed it for a decent test? What all should I be looking for?

 

This is my first post here, thanks for any help.

gary.turner's picture
gary.turner

I'd look at two things; the declared capacity of the mixer and the size of your own large batches.  Take enough flour and water to make a large (by your needs) test batch. Test with the mixing paddle and the hook. You'll want to test with the stiffest dough you use to provide a load.

It wouldn't hurt anything to throw some salt and yeast in ;-) and carry the dough home to raise and bake.

gary

dough dog's picture
dough dog

 I would save some money and buy this mixer:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/50455/pristine-hobart-era-kitchenaid-k45ss-tilt-head-mixer

I do not recommend this lightly! This is a Kitchenaid made by the HOBART company before they were acquired by the Whirlpool Corporation in the early 1980's. HOBART Kitchenaids are a completely different species than the junk Kitchenaid mixers you can purchase today --the ones with plastic gears that frequently fail (just visit the Kitchenaid.com forums and read the countless comments posted by angry consumers who have been duped because they trusted the Kitchenaid name --that's all it is today, a "name" that is cashing in on its former glory).

I used to have a business where I converted the older Hobart machines to polarized (3-pronged) plugs. I would also open them up and re-grease the motor bearings and install new brushes. I can't tell you how many of those old Hobart Kitchenaid mixers were trashed on the outside but still ran strong and fierce. In other words, after taking 40 or 50 years of abuse, they were ready for 40 or 50 more.

I have a Hobart Kitchenaid K5-A from 1967, and I push it relentlessly. I feel real sad when I read about people having to baby and mollycoddle their shiny new Kitchenaid mixers to get through the kneading process of a typical batch of bread dough. My old mixer may not be shiny and in hot decorator colors but I would not trade it for 10 brand-new Kitchenaid mixers.

motorbacon's picture
motorbacon

On that K45SS, but we already have an old 5 quart that will probably do just fine for the time being.  We're looking at a larger unit, without going over the top, so that's why we've settled in on a 12 quart Hobart. The thing is ancient, has the old style brass serial tag, but the seller claims that it's been greased and is good to go. I just wanna verify with my own eyes and ears before I put my money down.

 

When you used to rework them, what part of the country were you in?

dough dog's picture
dough dog

Hi Motorbacon, I was in Minneapolis, though I worked on mixers from all over the USA and Canada, through my website, AtomicEraMachine.com (now defunct). I managed to tap into the vintage appliance enthusiast/collector crowd, and was surprised (at first) at how willing these people were to package up a 50 LB machine and ship it across the country just for a new cord and a little lubrication (maybe a little more... I'd usually do a quick paint detailing,  taking off the top microlayer of paint to reveal the original color, and I would usually recalibrate the governor (speed control) because after 50 years it can go slightly off.)

When I sold my home in Minneapolis a decade ago to move to CA, I had to scale down considerably, so I decided to say goodbye to the mixer sideline. You need a workshop/garage space to do that kind of thing in, and I was not going to have that anymore.

dough dog's picture
dough dog

A universal motor armature "burns out" when it is driven too hard and temperatures are allowed to rise beyond the thermal limits of the insulation; the wires to break down and short together, or short to the armature stack. If windings are shorted together, the electro-magnetic fields cannot be created for that coil, causing the motor to run very erratically. You will definitely know if the motor is burned out!