Good evening
Can anyone offer any tips on purchasing an electric bread/dough mixing machine? I currently bake sourdough once a week for a local cafe & do all my mixing by hand. Looking ahead I feel a mixer would make me more efficient. When mixed my total dough weight is almost 7kg so I will need a machine that can handle this weight & possibly slightly more in the future. Any thoughts would be appreciated. One machine I have looked at is a Robot Coupe HC-10 Dough mixer.
Thanks.
Jane
Category:
Replies
Hi Jane,
I mix batches a bit more than double your kgs and have used a cheap Taiwanese spiral mixer for 2years. It is single phase, very simple to use, one speed, has a timer and the head tilts up, removable bowl, no maintenance that we can find - but noisy. It's the kind used by pizza joints. I was advised not to overload it as that's where the pizza mixxing people run into problems.
Cheers
Thank you for your thoughts Lily, would it be possible for you to tell me the brand name & or where you purchased your machine?
Much appreciated.
Cheers
It's an FED machine, Adelaide at Allbake Bakery Services (they're online). I only do bread doughs though, and if you want to mix ingredients for say, patisserie, you might want something with a more variable speed, different attachments - maybe a planetary mixer like a Hobart?
Thanks again Lily, I will look into all of that!
Cheers
With a bit of time you should be able to find a good older spiral mixer that is big enough for your needs on ebay for around $600. they come up fairly often the trick is to find one in your area.
I have just upgraded from the classic Hobart A200 to a 30 liter spiral (bought from a local online auction for $700). If you have the space and only want to make dough I belive it is the way to go. The hobarts are great for different things and I mix up to 6kg of 60%-70% hydration dough in mine.
I would say be wary of cheap planetry mixers though.
Sorry about the disconnected and short writting style. I dropped a largish oven on some fingers a couple days ago and am dealing with fingers taped together.
If you want to know more just ask and I'll get back to you when I have ten fingers again.
Cheers.
Hi there-
I tried to respond several days ago but got blocked out by the spam filters when I posted too many links! At any rate, I agree that if you can find a robust 30 liter or even 20 liter mixer it should do you well; still, I'd rather see you have what we call an "80 qt" (80 liter) and then mix doughs that don't exceed 20 kilos. It'll last forever and give you the flexibility to do other things should opportunity present itself. I guess the key in my mind is to have enough machine that you don't have to push it too hard.
It is certainly true that mixers increase efficiency a great deal -but do keep in mind that they encourage you to fully develop doughs (as opposed to depending on time and turns to get to a good development) and that can change the nature of your final product. Although almost all the doughs I mix or make up get full development on the machine, I actually prefer bread that is allowed to develop off the machine. Modern practice encourages speed, however, and there you have it!
Good luck,
Muff