It’s been a while since I used a commercial mixer with a dough hook, but Hobart has always set the standard for mixers, in my opinion. I have spent countless hours in kitchens using mixers, and Hobart is the never fail option. My friend owns a local donut shop and his Hobart gets a ton of use, literally.

For the short time I was at Body Bliss (lotion factory) we used a Hobart mixer to make the clay masks. It had no problems mixing up heavy clay.

Webstraunt has some good mixers. You may also check restaurant supply stores, locally. If I knew your approximate location I could probably source some.

I also see others have mentioned Hobart. Hobart does make smaller mixers, from 5qt counter top all the way to huge bowl mixers. If the budget allows, Hobart really is the way to go. (I don’t work for, and am not affiliated with Hobart in any way. I have just used their mixers a lot and believe they are the gold standard, setting the bar that everyone else attempts to achieve.)

For general baking, Bosch Universal is great, my wife uses it for all her baking and she makes several hundred pounds of cookies at christmas.

I'm the bread baker in the house and I had an Ankershrum but didn't really love it. Reading their facebook group it seems that some love them and a lot don't seem to love them but won't admit it.

I bought a Famag spiral mixer last year for bread/pizza dough and found nirvana with it.

Mark - did you get the 5S? And where did you order from?

Pleasant Hill appears to be backordered for a couple months, and they seem to be the only folks who carry them domestically. I jumped through their backorder hoops with my mill (backorder is backordered) for about six months. Decent service overall, but you get tired of waiting for yet another email.

There's an outfit in Australia that has them in stock and about $150 cheaper, but I'd be nervous about sending that amount of money halfway around the world on eBay.

The backorder for the 5S was a couple months when I ordered and didn't want to wait so for an extra hundred I got the 8S tilt head, regular speed. I forget the minimum flour quantity but I usually use 1000 grams minimum anyway. Bread freezes great as does pizza dough, balled after first rise.

quote:

Originally posted by mark60:
I bought a Famag spiral mixer last year for bread/pizza dough and found nirvana with it.

After yet another round of futzing with the Ankarsrum, I gave up and decided to give myself an early Christmas present. My Famag arrived on Monday and all I can say is wow!

Nirvana is correct. This thing is amazing. No guesswork, no "learning curve", ... just perfectly beautiful dough in a fraction of the time. I did pizza on Monday, my whole wheat sandwich bread yesterday, and a panettone today. All have turned out perfectly (although the panettone still needs its final rise and bake).

Why didn't I buy one of these years ago? Big hit in the wallet, but if you like to bake, worth every penny IMO.

^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^
Good stuff ain't cheap. Cheap stuff ain't good ^^^^^^
.

quote:

Originally posted by OKCGene:
^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^
Good stuff ain't cheap. Cheap stuff ain't good ^^^^^^
.

Buy once cry once? Or something like that.

Congrats. I might be weird but I really enjoy watching it work and watching the pumpkin form.

Not weird at all for us bread geeks.

Curious if you think the 8S is a little big? I went with the 5S tilt high speed and am just tickled with it. It's the perfect size for me as I don't ever anticipate making larger batches than it'll handle. The regular speeds were backordered, which is why I got the high speed. I suppose it'll be nice if I want to do a super high hydration dough, and it still goes almost painfully slow on the lowest setting.

The 5s would have been plenty for me, I couldn't handle the wait though. I forget how small a batch it's rated for but I'm ok with 1000gm of flour at minimum. I make 5 or 6 pizza dougballs and freeze a few or I'll make a couple loaves of bread, slice it all and wrap the slices to freeze so we can pull out what we want as needed.