Got my new Kenwood Chef Titanium.
After 40+ years and two rebuilds my old Kenwood Chef Major A707 is just about to give up the ghost again. Spare parts are now almost impossible to find and my only other option was to have it completely refurbished by a company that completely strips, re-enammels and rebuilds old Kenwoods completely. However they always seem to be fully booked when I visit their site and can't take on new work.
So I ordered a new Kenwood Chef Titanium KMM020 from John Lewis, and they price matched an offer I had found elsewhere - saved £200!
It arrived yeaterday and today I've baked 12 loaves - it worked perfectly, much quieter and no faint smell of electrical overheating.
One of my daughters is into retro gear, so I may try the refurbishers again sometime and give the old one to her.
I have been using a KM020 for about 4 years now and I am very pleased with it. Yes, the dough will climb the hook, particularly for lower hydration recipes but it generally does a good job. I even use it as a liquidizer (I got the glass one with it) and also use it for grinding meat and stuffing sausages. All in all, a very good all-purpose mixer - but not as good as a spiral for bread dough.
I have used this mixer for about two years, to make bread at home, and think it is really good. The larger (Than my old Kenwood) size bowl allows me to make 2Kg batch size dough in the 60-75% hydration range - This fits my plans to make 500g or 1Kg loaves perfectly without putting undue strain on the motor.
Whilst the user manual says to use lowest speed and speed 1, for most breads, I have found that if I scrape the dough down then turn it up to speed 2 or 3 for the final couple of minutes of mixing, then the dough will come down and away from the dough hook a little, and I both see and hear the dough slapping against the side of the bowl - This gives me great gluten development and, I think, approximates to the "Improved" mix method advocated by many of the well known bread experts on TFL and elsewhere.
Of course, I will feel pretty silly (Not to mention having to buy a replacement) if my mixer seriously overloads as a result of my ignoring the manual - But "So far, so good"
Brian
Yes, I too found that speed 2 was necessary to get good kneeding.
I have a cheap watt meter that plugs into the 13A socket between the mains and the machine. It can also measure Volts, Amps, VA, Power factor and frequency. It's showing less than 300W at this speed. A very brief burst at full speed and it clock nearly 700W, so it's hardly overloaded at setting 2. Stramge that Kenwood claim a 1500W motor. I wonder what you have to be mixing to get it to draw that much power? For the technically minded amongst us I also noted that the power factor was less than 0.5 and the VA drawn was about twice the wattage. Maybe someone at Kenwood doesn't know the difference between Watts and VA?!
But then KA have similar confusing claims about their mixers, at different points in their description of the 6.9L model you can find 1.3HP (roughly 1,000 watts) but in the fine print it says 0.44HP motor (about 330 watts) in one place and 575 watts in another.
Why did you chose the titanium over the other modern models of kenwood?
Two main reasons
1) It was the most powerful and largest available at the time and I wanted to be sure that I could mix a 1.5kg of flour bread dough batch without overloading it.
2) I was very familiar and happy with the previous model Chef Major which I'd owned for about 40 years and saw no reason to change.
Joke reason - it matched my Ford Focus Titanium!
Do you know the difference between the chef XL and the old majors? Is chef XL just the new name? I have a 30 yr old major that I have lived and need to replace and I want to be sure I’m not getting less power. I can’t quite afford the titanium though so thinking of a sense or elite (still XL) which are about 1400-1500 Watts.
Kenwood now make a large range of mixers. I haven't been following it since I bought my one nearly 5 years ago. However I assume you are looking for one as close to your old Chef Major at a price you can afford.
If you go to Kenwwod's web site for food mixers they appear to have 6 basic ranges
http://www.kenwoodworld.com/uk/products/food-mixers
The most powerful ones seem to be the Chef and Chef XL (if you discount the Cooking Chef).
My next assumption is that you want the large bowl (6.7L) that you had with your old Major. This cuts your choice down to 4 models, including the Titanium.
http://www.kenwoodworld.com/uk/products/food-mixers/chef-major?sf=1426&sort=6#results
None of them are as powerful as the Titanium (1700 W), the closest being the Elite at 1400W.
You can do a compare with up to 3 mixers at any one time.
From here on it's down to your preferences and your budget.
I can't remember the details of the old Major's specification, but I believe the Titanium is more powerful. This is born out by their performance when kneading 1.5Kg of flower at 60% hydration (about 2.4Kg in all). The old Chef Major would slow down at times and was obviously on the limit of its capabilities. The new Titanium just takes it in its stride with no signs of struggling.
I have had a Cuisinart SM 70 for about 7 yrs and love it! I has 1000 watts, 12 speeds and a 7 qt bowl. Can find for about $325.