That Wednesday my stand mixer nearly caught fire during a 20-loaf order

I was pushing through a big batch of sourdough for a local cafe when smoke started pouring out of the motor housing on my 10-year-old KitchenAid. Has anyone else had a mixer just give up mid-knead like that, or was I just running it too hard?

3 comments

3 Comments

harperp242d ago

Pushing a 10 year old machine that hard is asking for trouble, same as running an old truck with a heavy load up a long hill. You got the warning. Now's the time to either baby it with smaller batches or start shopping for a commercial grade replacement.

bailey.jennifer2d ago

Pretty sure @harperp24 is right about the machine getting old, but nobody's talking about the moisture content of the ingredients... Drier flours or stale oats can make a machine work way harder than it should. Might be worth checking your batch consistency before you write off the whole mixer.

harperp242d ago

It's funny how that works with so many things, not just mixers. You ignore the little signs something's off (the weird noise, the harder pull) until it just gives up completely. Kinda like how my car started hesitating for weeks before the alternator finally died on me.