Customer Reviews

KitchenAid FPPA Mixer Attachment Pack for Stand Mixers

5 star:		(100)
4 star:		(29)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I have a KitchenAid and I must say, they are as good as their high reputation. I bought the mixer mainly to make bread, but what makes it even better are the accessories. These convert the stand mixer/dough maker into a vegetable processor, grinder and sausage maker. There is also a grain grinder that really works quite well. Here are the pros and cons of this set, as I see it:

Pros:
You get a decent meat grinder with two blades, coarse and fine. This means you can make ground turkey with no additives, ground chicken without added fat, or fresh ground beef. You can also grind meat for sausage (about which, later.)

You get a slicer similar to those hand-turned cone types that make cole slaw or waffled carrot slices.

Cons:
The sausage nozzle for filling the casings is not included. This is, in my opinion, really dumb. It's just a couple of pieces of molded plastic. For heaven's sake, include it.

The slicer is a bit clunky. If you don't put the bowl to catch the shreds just right, you get slaw all over. And sometimes it is hard to get the cone off the flanges of the connecting pin that fits into the mixer attachment point. But screwing it into the mixer and grabbing with a rubber mat usually works for me.

I prefer a mandoline, a food processor or even a big board and a really sharp chef's knife to the slicer, but it does save on counter space. So, this is a good thing to have as an addition to your KitchenAid if you do any kind of prep cooking, such as canning, salads, baby foods, venison processing, or sausages. It's very good quality plastic and metal, though the cone blade finish seems a bit crude to me. I can recommend it, with the reservations I mentioned.

I use this with my Kitchenaid Epicurean and really enjoy it. Used it to grind our own beef and pork for meatloaf and shredded plenty of cheese for mac and cheese. The motor provides plenty of power to grind and shred through just about anything, and the shredding/grinding blades seem to keep their edge quite nicely.

There are a lot of bits to keep track of though, and some of them can be a little difficult to clean properly. I also wish the hopper for the grinder attachment was a little bit bigger.

It's not going to replace my food processor, but when I have a large volume of stuff to do, or for things my food processor's motor just can't handle, this certainly does the trick.

I purchased this set about 2 years ago. The shredders work OK, but it is easier and less mess to chop them by hand. Much of the produce gets caught between the housing and the shredder. It's difficult getting uniform cuts. The piece that is poorly designed is the meat grinder. I'm on my second grinder. Both the feeder shaft and the housing are constructed of a plastic molding on metal. Over a relatively short amount of use, they both began to crack apart at the unions. This of course is not good, being they are used on meat and it makes it almost impossible to clean. I would recommend going for a good sharp knife and a seperate all metal meat grinder (which I am now looking for).

I recently purchased these attachments, but this week I really put them to the test. Fresh fruits and vegetables are in season and in the past 2 days I made cherry jam with the fruit & vegetable strainer the next day I made 4 qts of zucchini & cucumber relish. What used to take me hours with a food processor, now took no time at all. Now I need to get rid of that food processor!

I bought this attachment pack just after buying my KitchenAid, in the early 80's. I've used it for all manner of things, but mostly for grinding meat for hamburger, which it does easily and well, and for putting up sauces from garden produce. That it does well but it's a little tricky to make sure the refuse from the end of the strainer attachment does not fall into the bowl of sauce. I've set up a measuring cup on top of another item to put it at the right height, and that worked, but it is a bit clunky. The other thing I've had to work out is that I'm only 5'4" and the mixer is tall. It needs to stand on my sturdy counter to do grinding, and I need to stand on one of the dining chairs to feed things into it at the appropriate rate. These user issues are why I've given the attachments 4 stars, not 5. Otherwise, they are good, and have seen a lot of use over the years, especially in canning season.

This attachment pack includes the food grinder, which I love. It is so nice to be able to grind my own turkey and chicken. I already have the sausage stuffer, which works fine if you are into that sort of thing. I prefer to make my own sausage and just keep it in bulk form. The food shredder isn't the best design, but it does work well shredding cheese and is maybe easier to use for that purpose than my food processor. The food strainer does a fine job of straining berries to remove the seeds and pureeing some vegetables. I really started to use these attachments after purchasing The Mixer Bible. There are so many recipes in this book that use them (over 300). Last night I made the Shrimp Bisque and actually ground the shells into the stock for more flavor using the grinder. It worked like a charm and we had the best shrimp bisque I ever tasted. There is definitely a lot more that can be done with these attachments than meets the eye. The Mixer Bible has shown me how to really get my money's worth out of these attachments.

I have been retired a few years after spending more than twenty years in the grocery business. The fruit and vegetable strainer made short work out of a bumper crop of Italian tomatos which we converted the juice into tomato sauce.
The food grinder worked better than I expedted when I made sausage from a boston butt pork shoulder. Of course it did not have the power of the commerdial grinders that I used for 20+ years, but it did a real good job. Did a lot better than I expected. I allso got the larger food tray which made the work easier. For the money invested, If you have a Kitchen Aid stand mixer, I would highly reccomend this attachment pack.

I enjoy canning as a hobby (and I'm not a senior citizen - only 38 years old!) The fruit and vegetable strainer attachment has saved me so many hours and so much manual labor in straining out apple seeds, cores and skins and it makes an amazing applesauce. I've also used it with fresh tomatoes for canning spaghetti sauce, as well as concord grapes for making grape jam. It is awesome!

I honestly haven't used the other attachments much, so I can't give a good review on them, but the weight of the attachments and the high quality of them makes me think that they would last for a long time.

The attachments by and large are well made and seem to work well in concert with the basic mixer unit. The price was quite reasonable when purchased at a special discount of $99.00 for the whole caboodle. But as I so often find, by the time you assemble the contraption, then disassemble and clean all the parts, it would have been much easier to use a good knife. And some things just don't seem to work well at all--to wit, the rotor slicer/shredder on onions was marginal (the outer skin layers of the onion tend to get trapped in the space between the slicer and the housing) and with bacon, it was a disaster. A gummy mess developed that was impossible to remove. Should I have used frozen bacon? I followed a recipe for pea soup from the Mixer Cookbook, I will not attempt it again soon.
So the gadgets look nice but their utility is in considerable doubt.

I recently received this for a (early) Christmas present as my daughter was starting solid food. I have used the vegetable strainer the most and have used it to make bulk baby foods. I am used to using a food mill, but this is much faster! It makes a beautiful applesauce, as well as easily pureeing sweet potatoes, squash, and pears. Clean up is a breeze, and I usually wash it by hand because it is an odd shape for me to try to fit it onto my older dishwasher so it will get clean. I have found that I use my mixer much more after getting these attachments.