[geeks] food geekery question

[gsm at mendelson.com]

On Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 09:02:16AM -0500, Phil Stracchino wrote:
>Nylon, by you, is not plastic?

No, Nylon gears are much stronger, and self lubricating. So while Nylon
is a plastic, compared to the plastic geared Chinese made mixers I've had,
it is a very different material.


>"composite metal"?  I strongly doubt a consumer electric mixer had a
>beater made of metal-matrix composite, so I'm assuming that when you say
>"composite metal" you're talking either part-metal, part-plastic
>construction, or some kind of pot-metal die-casting alloy such as mazac.

Yes, I am referring to something closer to pot metal than something else.
The 20 year old beater someone gave me looks like pot metal, this looks
like a stronger material, so I won't call it pot metal, but it's still 
something similar.


>> Note that my 500 watt Kitchen Aid would not do such a thing, with much less
>> flour, it would walk across the counter and drop the bowl (it had a lever to
>> raise the bowl into place,not a drop down motor).
>
>I don't think my wife ever got her KitchenAid to "walk".

Mine used to do it all the time. One time it walked off the counter top. :-(

>
>By the way ... when you're talking about KitchenAids being
>"underpowered", one thing to keep in mind when you're comparing power
>ratings on mixers is that not only are they  not all rated the same,
>they're not all rated the same *way*. 

Kenwood mixers are rated in output power too. Mine is 1000 watts normal,
1200 watts stalled. There are larger ones rated 1200 normal and smaller
ones that look more like the Kitchen Aid units rated 600 watts.

The Delonghi ones sold in the US with 120v 50Hz motors were orginally the
600 watt units. They later produced one run of the 1000 watt units.
Different designs, the 600 watt unit is more of a mixer, the 1000 watt
unit is a multifunction machine. 

The units had a specially made speed control unit to fit US specs, and
they were problematic. I don't know if there has been a corrected
production run yet.

The Kitchen aid ones are rated 500 watts for the one top of the line model,
the regular ones, including the "professional" ones are rated 325 watts.
I'm familar with that because people bring them here to run on transformers.
At 50Hz, they only put out a max of 250 watts. 

>KitchenAid's commercial origins as "KitchenAid by Hobart" - it was
>basically a half-scale Hobart C-100 commercial mixer, originally
>designed as a portable demo unit. 

Bear in mind that has not been true since around 1993 when Hobart sold the
brand to another company. 

What I do reget is that I did not buy a Sunbeam Mixmaster when I had a
chance. In 2000 Sunbeam Australia built a production run (the last worldwide)
with 240volt 50Hz motors and they were sold here. 

Here is the web page to the current Hobart small mixer:

http://www.hobartcorp.com/products/food-prep/mixers/n50-5-quart-mixer/

Geoff.

-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel gsm at mendelson.com  N3OWJ/4X1GM
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