Kitchenaid problem

[Mrs D]

I’ve just had a kitchenaid mixer and my dough is wrapping around the hook. Anyone else have this problem?

 

[Norcalbaker59]

I’ve just had a kitchenaid mixer and my dough is wrapping around the hook. Anyone else have this problem?

Kitchenaid mixers are planetary mixers. No planetary mixers are designed to mix dough. It is just the nature of the beast. The mixer head rotates and the bowl is stationary, so the dough scraps against the stationary wall of the bowl. That causes the dough to wind around the dough hook.

It also causes friction. Friction causes heat. Heat kills yeast.

It is the reason by planetary mixers are not used in commercial bakeries for dough production.

Kitchenaids are not designed to handle heavy dough, so you will strip out the gear in short order if you regularly mix heavy dough in it. The dough is very heavy; the bowl is stationary; the dough sticks to the bottom and/or sides of the bowl; the resistance against the dough is force against the motor. The force is then placed on the gear. The gear is nylon. It wears out the gear.

The correct mixer for dough is a spiral mixer. They make for home use, but a good one is expensive. Some like the Famag is for dough only, it does not mix batters. Other like the Ankarsrum and Haussler mix both batters and doughs. Bosch and WonderMix are on the cheaper side, but buyer beware. You get what you pay for.

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[ppardee]

Kitchenaid says if you knead the dough for too long it will climb up the hook and that 2 minutes in the mixer is the same as 10 minutes by hand.

Making Bread in a KitchenAid Stand Mixer

Our mixer offers fast kneading due to its planetary action. Use Speed 2 for yeast dough. Kneading time depends on dough’s texture and feel, not set time. Flour type, water amount, and added …

producthelp.kitchenaid.com

 

[Norcalbaker59]

Kitchenaid says if you knead the dough for too long it will climb up the hook and that 2 minutes in the mixer is the same as 10 minutes by hand.

Making Bread in a KitchenAid Stand Mixer

Our mixer offers fast kneading due to its planetary action. Use Speed 2 for yeast dough. Kneading time depends on dough’s texture and feel, not set time. Flour type, water amount, and added …

producthelp.kitchenaid.com

KitchenAid is just making excuses for a machine that is not designed for the task. There’s a reason why planetary mixers are not used in bread bakeries— they simply don’t work. It’s the design, planetary mixers are simply are not designed for dough mixing.

Dough cannot be kneaded when wrapped and stuck on the hook. Worse, stuck on the hook and scraped against the inside of the bowl of the stationary bowl just causes friction. Friction causes heat. Heat kills the yeast.

A spiral mixer is designed for mixing dough. It has a rotating mixer head and a rotating bowl. A properly designed spiral mixer also has a center post.


Since both the bowl and mixer head rotate, the hook is able to move through the dough; the dough glides off the bowl surface instead of drags against the surface of the bowl. This actually kneads the dough while it significantly reduces any resistance between the dough and the bowl surface. Less friction means less friction heat in the dough.

When there is a center post it eliminates any possibility of the dough climbing up the dough hook; the hook rotates around the center post; the dough stays between the center post and bowl wall and hook moves through the dough as both the mixer head and bowl rotate.

With the KitchenAid the hook never moves through the dough at all; instead dough winds around the hook and just sits there getting dragged against the inside of the bowl. That is not kneading.



This is how a dough should be kneaded by a mixer. The dough hook actually moved through the dough. With the KitchenAid the dough is just stuck on the hook and dragged. The dough never gets needed at all. This is why planetary mixers are not used in bread bakeries.

 

[ppardee]

My KitchenAid mixer works just fine for bread for me. Many, many home bakers use one successfully.

There are a lot of home kitchen tools professional bakers don't use. That doesn't mean they aren't usable.

 

[Norcalbaker59]

My KitchenAid mixer works just fine for bread for me. Many, many home bakers use one successfully.

There are a lot of home kitchen tools professional bakers don't use. That doesn't mean they aren't usable.

No planetary mixer works for bread doughs. They don’t knead dough at all, they just spin the dough on the hook and scrapes it against the side of the bowl. It doesn’t matter if it is a kitchenaid or a hobart.

But the difference between the kitchenaid and the hobart is the kitchenaid gear is made of nylon, and the hobart is metal. So if you keep mixing dough in your kitchenaid, you will strip the gear because the nylon gear cannot handle that heavy resistance from the scraping of the dough against the bowl.
Google “kitchenaid stripped gear” to get an idea of the damage you are doing to your mixer. I own two kitchenaids. My old one has a metal gear. The newer one came with warning labels on the mixing bowl stating kitchenaid would void the warranty if the mixer was used for extended mixing times, which is what bread doughs require. Kitchenaid has replaced so many gears they won’t cover them anymore when the gear is stripped for mixing dough. But they won’t come right out and say you cannot mix dough in their mixers because they market it for dough. So they say no extended mixing time.

When you strip your gear from mixing dough, be prepared to spend around $100 for the gear replacement. Or you can replace the gear yourself for about half that cost. Either way, it will be an expensive repair.

Kitchenaid used to be a an outstanding company when it was owned by Hobart. And for some years after Whirlpool bought it in the mid-80’s it was still a very good company. But mixers quality has dropped dramatically over the past 10 yrs.

 

[ppardee]

First of all, it absolutely kneads the dough. I just made two loaves last night that were better kneaded than anything I've made by hand. America's Test Kitchen has done tests with various mixers and have had success kneading doughs. Perhaps we have different definitions of "kneading", but as far as developing gluten in bread dough, my mixer does just fine. There are hundreds of videos of people successfully using theirs to develop gluten in bread dough as well.

I can't speak to all of KitchenAid's mixers, but the new 6qt bowl-lift Pro 600 mixer has sintered metal gears, not nylon. The only warning about the dough hook in the manual is to only use the dough hook on speed 2.

"Note: Use Speed 2 to mix or knead yeast doughs. Use of any other speed creates high potential for Stand Mixer failure. The PowerKnead (tm) spiral dough hook efficiently kneads most yeast dough within 4 minutes."

The only mention of extended mixing times is in the troubleshooting guide: "Under heavy loads with extended mixing time periods, you may not be able to to comfortably touch the top of the Stand Mixer. This is normal."

I didn't time how long I ran my mixer for my bread last night, but I did check to see if the housing was getting hot, and it was just mildly warm near the bottom of the housing (though for a 6 quart mixer and only 5 cups of flour, I wouldn't really expect it to be having much trouble. It was essentially only working a 50% duty cycle because the dough tends to only contact the sides a couple of times per rotation)

If the gears DO strip outside of warranty, they're like $25 on Amazon and take all of 15 minutes to replace. I did a lot of research before buying this mixer - $500 for a kitchen appliance is a big deal - and the quality of materials and repairability were the key deciding factors for this model.

I'm sure what you're saying is true for some Kitchenaid mixers (there are replacement nylon gears available for some kitchenaids, for example), but it's certainly not true for all.