Old question but archive not as clear as I need or have time to mine just now -- apologies for that. I'm considering compromising my obsession of doing everything possible in a mano and dust off a 34 year old KA (Hobart era) mixer w/dough hook and 8.5" bowl for this coming weekend's breads. I want to know how far I'm not getting in dough strength development by insisting on mixing by hand. A long way I suspect, judging from my doughs' invariant flacidity.
My usual batch of dough is 2 kg (= one miche or two boules). Can one of these old KA/Hobart (I can see "Hobart" underneath) workhorses handle that quantity of dough? I confess I don't recall ever using the thing -- inherited from my late sister 30 years ago and never gave it up, for sentimental reasons mostly. But now perhaps it can again have a purpose.
Thanks!
Tom
You do not say which model but I would bet that 2kg is too much.
Jeff
I have a 35 yr old K5A (USA-5qt bowl) and, at the max I can do recipes that have about 6-7cups (800-1000g) flour. At that capacity, it is working hard and not well. Also, it can only handle that amount of dough if it is not too stiff. It would not handle that much bagel dough. For making 1-2 loaves at a time (300-800g flour) it is a great machine-even at its 35 yr old age.
The max I was able to mix in my K45 was 1400 g of 75% hydration ciabatta, and that was done with the paddle rather than the dough hook. I would suggest starting with 1300 g and stepping up. It will depend on the hydration.
I've gotten good advice from onesharpcompany.com in the past. Give'em a call. The people I've spoken to there have been helpful and never pushy. If they treat you differently if you choose to ask them questions, please tell us.
Absolutely not! As I recall Norm once mentioned that even modern N50 should never be taken past 1.5 kilo.
Tom,
I just spoke with a KitchenAid tech this morning in our local area (about my 6 qt, but mentioned a 4.5 qt I just picked up). He said he personally owns a 4.5 qt, though he could easily have something else, and recommends that people stick with the smaller one. He's seen too many of the bigger ones blow up. He was also impressed that it was a Hobart-made KA, as is yours. So, whatever you end up doing with the mixer batch-wise, he'd say you have the best kind. :) BTW, I'm planning to use ours for cookies and other light-duty jobs, and leave the bread to the Bosch or my hands. Planning to, anyway. Really curious how your weekend challenge will come out!
Today's TFL traffic re: S&F and French Folding will give the "by hand" team of this weekend's planned comparison of K45 vs. hands a better shot at gold.
Best,
Tom
Why not do what I do with my 40 year old Kenwood Chef Major?
Mix the dough in two lots of, say, 1,00gr each, let the machine do most of the work. The second batch shouldn't be more than 10 minutes behind the first. Then quickly bench mix (about 1 minute kneeding) the two batched together before proofing as one large piece of dough.
Thanks pj. Yep, that is essentially what I'm planning to do this weekend, but only subjecting one kg to the KA, then FF/S&F the other kg, and compare the two boules thusly treated. I prefer not to rely on a mixer if possible (one less device to go down). I'm encouraged that I just need to be more patient and attentive with the current FF/S&F fashion. Fact is, I've made some downright crave-able loaves recently with just S&F and almost Lahey style o/n fermentation. Though those o/n spells are at temps so low that I'm not sure whether they constitute retardation as much as fermentation (50-60˚F). Still, I want to explore the spectrum of dough strength and there's nothing like a machine to exercise the gluten fully.
Tom
Really curious to know how your weekend mixer/by hand showdown went. Any insights for us? Also, how did the K45 handle the amount of dough you fed it?
:)
Sorry to disappoint, Shasta, but I'm the last person to look to for A/B baking comparisons. Please see my Intro from a few days ago. There are so many other dominant negative issues in my bread baking that this A/B hand/mixer exercise was overshadowed by, well, if I knew I'd tell you. I have yet to get "it", regarding bread baking. In genetics, we call it epistasis when one gene's activity obscures the effect of another. Well, my diverse and unspecified bread baking deficiencies are epistatic to the mode by which I mix the batter dough.
Re: your question...The K45 could handle the glop just fine, although I caught a whiff of that expensive electrical burning smell from the motor while it liquified mixed half the Tartine CB dough. As far as I could tell, it made a bad batter dough worse. I was looking for "clearing the sides but not the bottom" as TFL's top boulangers describe their electric mixing objectives. In point of fact, it instantly "cleared the sides but not the bottom" when mixing began (I'm thinking, "What the...?") and within two minutes proceeded to reduce what might have been considered dough to what could only pass for batter. Bugger that. So I just combined it back with the hand mixed half (victimized by my slapstick circus of french folding -- how do you fold a batter? Hit him with your fastball! ) and exiled it to a cool-ish storm cellar (60˚F?) for the night. I retrieved it the next morning -- it hadn't budged -- and left it in a 70˚ kitchen all day, after which it was starting to show a bit of expansion. I shoved it in the fridge for the night, warmed it up the next morning, went through the motions of shaping it (couldn't) and tried to proof the soup for a few hours. How do you proof a puddle? Of course, it tried to take the linen of the banneton with it onto the peel (Linus/blanket?) and I barely got it onto the stone without pouring it on to the floor. It sprung a bit, but ended up with my bakes' signature height-to-width ratio of ~ 2" to 12". Crumb dense soggy rubber and the flavor is oooo sour. I ate half a slice and regreted it rest of evening. Not the first time my bread has crossed beyond the margin of digestability. This, by the way, is the primary reason my wife won't go near 'em. Hard to argue w/ that. Too bad I sliced it down the middle. Could have played a little frisbee w/ the 'coons.
Shame really. I had nailed the liquid levain timing perfectly on this one. Even passed the float test (rare). Smelled so nice I considered baking the levain as a dinner roll and bugger the miche. Maybe next time.
On to #48.
Tom
Tom,
At what hydration were you mixing? Which speed and attachment were you using? And how long did you mix before you gave up?
For a 75% hydration dough, using the paddle, a 5:15 mix time at speed 3 was always in the ball park. And yes, it does come off the sides, then it liquifies, and only after about 4 min does it begin to come off the sides again. After than it will form a ball and slap around in the bowl for another few minutes before it turns to soup once more.
Doc
Hey, thanks for asking Doc! As I've said, 6 months ago I settled on the Tartine Country Boule as the rock against which I would decminate hone my breadmaking skills. Eventually. Hopefully. Beginning to wonder. Theoretically, it is a 75% formula, but the esteemed author fails to include in that the 200/1200 proportion (the levain) that is 100% hydration. I've never seen that issue in the TCB discussed @TFL but I'm sure it's come up. Bottom line is it's 75-80% by the book. I actually calculated it when I developed my BBA-based Excel sheet -- can't remember the number now. But using that sheet, I've since adjusted his formula DOWN to 75% to take into account the 100% levain. I've actually thought about making up a 75% levain so that it wouldn't change the theoretical 75% hydration of the total TCB formula, hypothesizing that therein lies the error of my doughlful ways. But my sense is that an historic Convention of the Grand Imperial Levain Wizards must have once decreed that levains are to be either 50% or 100%. Nobody ever mentions levain hydration other than those two, from what I've read here and in those -- what are they called? -- oh, books.
Speed = #2, no higher. Attachment? Good question. I assume it's called a dough hook. It's kind of C or G shaped. There's also an attachment that's sort of a heart shape with a bar down the middle I think. Not sure what that's for. Like I said, I inherited the thing 30 years ago.
I mixed it for about 2-3 minutes, maybe more. Is that so critical? I have to tell you, it's really hard to believe that the liquid oozing around in the bottom of that bowl would ever have regained a status worthy of the apellation "dough". So I decided to cut my losses and do what I described above. I've read everywhere that it's possible, even easy, to overmix dough mechanically, and I'm trying to solve a problem, not create a new one.
Thanks again for asking.
Tom
That is the craziest thing I've ever heard. Are you kidding? (rhetorical: I know you're not). I'd be willing to throw together some 75% dough without any yeast or salt just to see that happen. But I got beans to plant today....
Thanks again Doc!
Tom
Tom,
You used the dough hook. Switch over and use what I call the paddle attachment (the one you would use for mixing a batter). From what you have said previously it sounds like you had only about 500g of dough in the bowl - which will probably shorten the mix time a little (my 5:15 mix time was with 1400g of dough). At speed 2 it will take forever, and with so little dough in the bowl it might not ever get there.
Yes, go ahead and mix a batch without the yeast, but do include the salt as it has an important role in toughening the gluten: 500g flour, 375g water, 10g salt; mix at speed 3 with the paddle. Report back with the results.
It would probably be instructive to let a test batch go through the whole cycle all the way to full destruction of the gluten (over mixing) just so you get to see when it happens and what it looks like and all of the stops along the way. That might be 7 to 10 min.
In the graduate course you do the same experiment with a bunch of different flours and record the time it takes to reach each stage plus motor current (proxy for torque) vs time.