September 25, 2012 - 4:12am
Bosch Problems
Hi. I recently acquired a Bosch Universal (not Plus) mixer. It is in almost pristine condition. I got it because I have recently been diagnosed with a disc herniation and can no longer make our bread and bagels by hand.
I have to say I am not impressed. The bowl doesn't seem to lock in place and the dough hook didn't even mix my bagel dough much less knead it. The whole unit (bowl and hook)seemed to just twirl around at the same speed and sort of push the ingredients around the bowl.
Has anyone else had this experience, and know what I may be doing wrong?
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I have the Universal, and the bowl should lock in place. IIRC, you put it on and make a quarter turn, and it locks down. As for mixing, there are two potential issues. If you have small amounts of dough, the dough hooks don't quite knead it, and it just gets stuck around the center column. Second, hydration makes a difference. If the dough is too dry when you put it in, the hooks will just push the dough around and around with no kneading - kind of like going down a slide on a mat. Once you add a little moisture, the dough gets some stickiness, and will get rolled and kneaded as it goes around.
...so I guess it a) cannot handle the low hydration of my bagel dough, and b) is broken anyway because it won't lock in no matter what I do.
Thanks for responding-good thing I also acquired a Kitchenaid Hobart, although I really thought the Bosch would be a better machine. Maybe not for my needs. In retrospect probably should have saved up for a Universal Plus. Oh well.
Don't give up hope yet. Can you post a photo of the underside of the bowl and the part where the bowl sits on the machine - it may be a missing part. As to hydration, I don't mean to suggest that it won't handle low hydration, just that if the outside of the ball is too dry, it just slides around. I think the manual suggests putting in the liquid first.
...of the bottom of the bowl and the place where the bowl attaches to the stand, but the upload keeps on failing. I could email them to you if you wanted to give me the address. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Here is what the bottom of my bowl looks like, and the part of the machine it sits in. I sent you a pm with my email address. It looks like there are little metal spurs on the machine, you can see one at around 6 oclock on the machine, and it is pointing to the left. It is hard to see, but inside the metal ring on the bowl there are slots - you can see one at about 1 oclock, and 1 nearer to 5 oclock, on the bowl to keep it from moving when they engage the spurs and turn slightly.
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Trying again with pics of mine - hmmm...your bowl mechanism is much different than mine, but mine doesn't look like anything's broken...still cannot upload pics...sigh...and your email address came thru encrypted on the pm. I can send you pics if you send me an email. I wonder if I was given the wrong bowl for this unit...sigh...