"Universal" mixers, Kenwood, KitchenAid, Ankarsrum


 
J

Jonas-Switzerland

TVWBB Fan
We have a kenwood mixer with a bunch of attachments. It is soon to hit 9 years of regular use, and it begins to show. The Pasta attachment did put some strain on the machine. Its much noisier than it used to. We had a look around, and the new kenwood machines seem to be incompatible with my attachments. So when the thing gives out, I am up for a new brand.

The mixer has two main job in my house, kneading bread dough and slicing/grinding large batches of vegetables

Today we walked past an Ankarsrum. Never heard of it. Has anybody had experience with them? Looks like it could be good for heavier doughs.
 
From what I know of Ankarsrum, it's European in origin, and making it's way over the pond to the the USA. It's gotten some pretty strong recommendations here, and it does look like an interesting machine.

We have a Kitchenaid, and the nose attachments I think are largely universal for decades. Bowls and beaters are specific to the particular model.
 
The Ankrasum is an absolute beast of a machine. I know a couple people who have them and tell me it's scary strong. Wife and I have large KitchenAid Commercial 8qt. It too is a beast with 1.3 horsepower, good thermal protection and a continuous duty rating. It's also VERY quiet. A factor I love. Another thing that is nice with KitchenAid. They've been using the same design attachment hub since 1902 (yes you read that correctly). So you can use accessories that go back over 100 years on a machine you bought yesterday. Recently KA revamped it's entire line of large frame machines from the 5.5 qt lift bowl up to now have the same type of drive train as the commercial rated one. They only differ on a slightly less motor power and not the same user protections (no "trigger" guard, shorter black lighter gauge cord as opposed to very long 14 ga bright orange cord), and some minor differences that honestly to a home cook may mean nothing.
The new line of 5,5 and 6qt machines carry a new model # designation. Starting with "KSM" so KSM55, KSM60, KSM70.
Thing is perhaps a European made and supported machine might be better for your needs though
 
LMichaels said:
It too is a beast with 1.3 horsepower, good thermal protection and a continuous duty rating. It's also VERY quiet.
Click to expand...

This puzzles me. When I google for the KSM70, I get two possible Watts. Sometimes it is rated at 500 Watts, sometimes at 375. Far away from other machines.

https://novissa.ch/ksm70-swiss-gara...z8qGR9e87jbfuKohGvsTLwjVew7BYRrBoCN9UQAvD_BwE

I know now that Watts isn't everything. My hand mixer had over 1000 Watts. Its broken now. Could not handle the torque, or the length of which it was used. But 375 is IMO low.
 
Jonas-Switzerland said:
This puzzles me. When I google for the KSM70, I get two possible Watts. Sometimes it is rated at 500 Watts, sometimes at 375. Far away from other machines.

https://novissa.ch/ksm70-swiss-gara...z8qGR9e87jbfuKohGvsTLwjVew7BYRrBoCN9UQAvD_BwE

I know now that Watts isn't everything. My hand mixer had over 1000 Watts. Its broken now. Could not handle the torque, or the length of which it was used. But 375 is IMO low.
Click to expand...
I have no clue what to tell ya except perhaps it's rated differently on different voltages. None of the web site makes sense to me even translated. Here in the USA it's rated 500W max at 120V. Beyond that not what I can tell you.
 
LMichaels said:
I have no clue what to tell ya except perhaps it's rated differently on different voltages. None of the web site makes sense to me even translated. Here in the USA it's rated 500W max at 120V. Beyond that not what I can tell you.
Click to expand...
<scratches head> I'd suspect that the website description is wrong, that item records were duplicated from another model and not updated appropriately. Obviously, the motor will be wound for 240v, but I'd expect the wattage to be nearly identical to 120v models to deliver the same mechanical output power.
 
No clue there. Perhaps they build the same basic chassis and use different internals? IDK but not a concern since I'd never work on a Euro Spec machine
 
Jonas-Switzerland said:
We have a kenwood mixer with a bunch of attachments. It is soon to hit 9 years of regular use, and it begins to show. The Pasta attachment did put some strain on the machine. Its much noisier than it used to. We had a look around, and the new kenwood machines seem to be incompatible with my attachments. So when the thing gives out, I am up for a new brand.

The mixer has two main job in my house, kneading bread dough and slicing/grinding large batches of vegetables

Today we walked past an Ankarsrum. Never heard of it. Has anybody had experience with them? Looks like it could be good for heavier doughs.
Click to expand...
I have, and very much like, an Ankarsrum mixer. Made in Sweden, has been marketed in the US (and maybe elsewhere) under the DLX brand, but more recently directly by Ankarsrum. The motor is in the base of the unit, and it turns the bowl. You can use the roller or the dough hook in combination with the semi-fixed scraper to mix virtually any variety of dough. It does take a little getting used to, as the mechanism for mixing and kneading are somewhat different due to its design, but I think it does a better job than the KA I used to have. I've used it for straight dough, wet dough, dry dough, enriched dough, etc, and it doesn't blink. If you were very mindful of what you were doing, you could do batches up to 5-6kg, but you do need to add ingredients in batches, incorporate, repeat. Most of my home bakery batches were 6kg, and it was actually an easier workflow for me to just mix and manipulate those by hand! :)

Hope that helps some!

R
 
Ditto to everything that @Rich G said above.

My wife uses it mostly for bread because it's a different animal, so for now we use the KA for everything else until we get more used to the Ank.

1000005199.jpg
 
Jonas-Switzerland said:
We have a kenwood mixer with a bunch of attachments. It is soon to hit 9 years of regular use, and it begins to show. The Pasta attachment did put some strain on the machine. Its much noisier than it used to. We had a look around, and the new kenwood machines seem to be incompatible with my attachments. So when the thing gives out, I am up for a new brand.

The mixer has two main job in my house, kneading bread dough and slicing/grinding large batches of vegetables

Today we walked past an Ankarsrum. Never heard of it. Has anybody had experience with them? Looks like it could be good for heavier doughs.
Click to expand...
We only had ours since 1984 so it’s hard to tell about quality and longevity 😎
But it’s one hell of machine for baking bread, we seldom buy bread, large batches for holidays and smaller for everyday use. We also have the meat grinder, veggie slicer and other stuff, they all work great. We have a 400 W motor, it never breaks a sweat but as the new ones have 1500 W motors, ≈ 2 hp, I really can’t think of a dough it will struggle with.
 
So I fished around a bit, the KitchenAid KSM70 was likely a wrong power listing, and is indeed 500W.

Thing is, even if I go to a specialty shop, the Ankarsrum is actually cheaper here than many kitchen aid models. With the currency conversion, KitchenAid must be making bank on the swiss market sales.

So an Ankarsrum it probably will be. I have to decide if I am going to first run my Kenwood into the dirt, or keep it for the rarer attachments.
 
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