Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

We purchased this to replace a 15 year old 5.5 quart KitchenAid "Professional" series lift mixer. Cooking for a family of six (two kiddos, two in-laws), not to mention batches of play dough for the preschool, were challenging the capacity of the old mixer, which has otherwise been 100% dependable over all these years. The biggest surprise was the compact size of the 8 quart mixer: it's not much bigger than the unit it replaced. The large stainless steel mixing bowl, once mounted in place, is certainly wider by a few inches, and the depth of the unit is also a few inches greater, but the height is nearly unchanged (just a hair under 17 inches), as is the weight. The expectation that we would sacrifice a great amount of counter space for this extra capacity never came to fruition. Whereas the old unit, while operating at higher speeds, emitted a medium pitch whine reminiscent of my mom's '70's era electric beater, this mixer hums along with the quiet, even-tone of a well-built gear reduction drive. It has a welcome "soft start" feature, rather than jerking to action. Nothing inside is working too hard, or spinning too fast. My wife and I both spent time around Hobart commercial grade floor-stand mixers, and no, this small KitchenAid isn't at all like those beasts, but in operation it evokes memories of an appliance designed to that standard. The bowl seems about the same gauge of stainless steel as what we had on the 5.5 quart model, which is to say, don't drop it -- a lightly dented mixing bowl is all kinds of nuisance. This one takes two hands and quite a bit of firm force to snap the rear "ball" into the spring clip. Don't be shy about it: if you try to insert the ball first, then align with the two retention posts on the side arms, you'll have a fit. I don't like the edge of this bowl -- it's not completely rolled over as with KitchenAid's smaller models, so presents a rather blunt (somewhat short of "sharp") edge, and I notice this while mounting the bowl and washing it. The stainless steel whisk, bread hook, and paddle are all high quality stainless, NSF rated for food service useage, and welcome upgrades from the white-painted aluminum and plastic attachments we used with the previous model. We also ordered up a KitchenAid KEFA7L "flex beater" with the rubber scraper on one edge, to replace the (aftermarket) two-sided scraper we had for the previous model. It seems to do as good a job, despite being only one-sided, but at $40, seems overpriced -- especially since it's only cast aluminum, not stainless steel like the non-scraper paddle that comes in the box. Whipping up a batch of whip is remarkably fast -- don't know whether this is due to the 11 spoke, oval whisk design, the pattern of rotation, or just plain speed -- probably a combination all three -- but we found all mixing jobs are more efficient and require a little more eyes-on attention because this mixer's efficiency. Our most challenging, regularly-recurring task is big batches of play dough for the kids' school. It's every bit as thick as the heaviest bread dough. Where the old mixer worked hard and got a bit warm, this unit remains very even keeled right up to when we lower the bowl. At that point, the dough is still quite warm and not yet up to that final thick consistency, but it's stiffer than any bread dough we might normally make. Around the holidays, my wife bakes up loaves upon loaves of applesauce raisin bread to give out to family, friends, and the school bake sale, and was disappointed she couldn't quite double her recipe with this larger unit. In fact, the lip of the 8-quart bowl comes right up to the top of the mixing head, so a full batch can get a little messy. But it increased her output 50%, easily, and considering how many loaves she pushes through, that's a lot. The only real tell-tale that this is something other than your standard residential-grade KitchenAid mixer is the orange cord, which I consider a bit unsightly (we picked a white mixer, after all, so that it would simply blend in with the kitchen -- as much as we liked the red and black options). Oh, and under load, it'll blow a 20 amp circuit it shares with other high-draw appliances, such as electric griddles or toasters. This was never a problem with the smaller motor on the previous mixer, but the higher amp draw is a fair trade for the extra power. Given that we got 15 years of use out of the previous mixer (and it's still in good enough shape to sell on Craigslist), I'd like to believe this mixer will last at least as long. Naturally, any updates will get posted here.