Customer Reviews

KitchenAid 6-qt. Pro Line Stand Mixer, Onyx Black.

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've had this stand mixer for a few months now and I was very excited when it came in the mail. It looks great in my kitchen - very sleek and a nice size. The mixer is very easy to operate and very powerful, I never really mix above speed 5 or so. The whip, dough, and paddle attachments (included with the mixer) secure very easily and stay secured when in use. After everything is secured in place, the lever on the right side (as pictured) is turned to bring the mixing bowl up and in place. The mixer works very well in mixing all ingredients together even if there is very little inside - but sometimes takes a while. The attachments mix all the way to the bottom of the bowl. A cookbook is included with instructions and recipes. The Kitchenaid brand is reliable and it compliments other Kitchenaid items in my kitchen!

The reason for the 4 stars:
The mixing bowl can be a little tedious to put in place, however. There's a little ding in the back that has to fit into a hole. Once it is secured, then the side holes go in. If the back isn't secured first, the mixing bowl is not in place and swings - and would shake loose while mixing. Also, some of the metal coating on the attachments come off (I had to peel back a little so it wouldn't get into my food). After soaking the dough hook (so I could wash it) for a couple hours, it stained with some splotches. When mixing dough with the dough hook for bread, the mixer works very hard (the bowl rattles and the machine gets hot). A few times while kneading dough, the mixer shorted out and stopped working. I had to turn it off, unplug it, let it cool, then start kneading again. The fact that it just stopped working is disconcerting because I'm scared it will just stop working one day.

This mixer arrived today and I've just run a first batch of pizza dough through it.

The 5 qt professional model it replaced was fine at everything except dough, which it would just take for a spin while the dough climbed the hook and rarely touched the bowl. Of course a beater blade or sideswipe blade is a necessary extra for creaming and mixing. Otherwise it's pretty useless.

We got this model for two reasons. First it had a spiral dough hook, which has the promise of being able to actually mix dough in the way other consumer models don't. Secondly it supposedly has an all metal construction including the gear housing. This is the well hidden difference between the 6qt professional model and the 6qt proline model. In all visible and operational respects they appear identical, but the stiff doughs will destroy a mixer and the hope is that this one will last longer with a proper metal gear housing.

It was a 90% success. The dough which I normally have to do by hand mixed together with little intervention and started to get kneaded. Three times during the 16 minutes of mixing I had to intervene because the dough managed to climb the hook a little, detach from the bowl and start spinning rather than kneading. Stopping it, pulling off the dough and restarting got it going again. Unfortunately this means that you can't set it and leave it. You need to keep an eye on it and intervene if if is spinning, but compared to the c hook of the smaller model, the spiral hook tended to push the dough down in the bowl and so keep it moving and prevent it climbing. Importantly, my arms don't hurt at the end.

I suspect it may behave a little better with a larger batch. I will have to experiment to see.

It does make a whiny noise when mixing, even under no load. This doesn't inspire confidence, but hopefully the burrs will wear off the gears and it will quieten up.

One day, sanity will visit the mixer manufacturers and they will make an actual kneading machine, rather than a mixer pretending to be a kneading machine. The fork mixers look nice, but the smallest models available are huge for a home kitchen.

So 3 stars for this mixer. It works well as a mixer. It is adequate at dough. But it is far from ideal as a dough mixing machine compared to the likes of a commercial fork mixer.

One star down for the whiny noise and inability to mix dough perfectly and one star down for the sheer lack of imagination on the part of Kitchenaid and all the other mixer manufacturers, who should know that we consumers buy the big model primarily because the smaller models can't handle dough. So what we really want is a dough kneader, to complement the smaller mixer, not a huge mixer that happens to be adequate at dough.

I think this is probably the best of a bad bunch in terms of dough mixing. If you don't do bread, I would look at the cuisinart, but if a machine to knead bread dough it your goal, the cuisinart model and all the other US models I looked at don't have a decent spiral dough hook. That puts this machine on top, even if it is far from perfect.

I upgraded to this model after discovering that two batches of cake was just barely too much for my 5 qt Artisan tilt-head Kitchenaid to handle. While I do miss the tilt-head model for a number of reasons (easier access to bowl, not having to take the beater/whip off when removing the bowl from the mixer), I have to say that my absolute favorite part of this mixer is the bowl itself. I love that there isn't a "stand" on the bottom of it like the 4.5 and 5 quart models--just the little dimple. So, the bowl will still sit level on your counter without falling over, but I can also use the bowl over a hot water bath as a double boiler before moving the bowl to the mixer (very useful for making swiss buttercream).

I love the 11-wire whip that comes with this mixer (though it can be hard to hold onto for washing, since the gaps between the wires are *just* small enough that I can't get my fingers in there). I do think that it whips much faster than the usual 6 wire whip included with other models.

On a side note, when I received my mixer, the burnished flat beater had tiny bits of metal flaking off the top... so I called Kitchenaid to ask for a replacement. I asked if they could send me the coated version of the beater instead, since it's dishwasher safe, and they had no problem with that. It was all free, including shipping. Yea for Kitchenaid customer service.

We made a lot of research, before buying, due to the fact there are several models of the same brand, we finally went for more power, this power is provided by Watts consumption (575 Watts labeled) then came the best price between the few (575 watts) factor and also the campatibility with several attachments for other functions than only a regular mixer.

This was a great mixer for about a year and a half. I used it once or twice a week, mainly for baked goods. Then it started to get uncomfortably noisy, but still worked. I started using ear plugs! Now, two years after receiving this mixer as a gift, it isn't working at all. Very disappointing...