Today was the first day I really had time to start playing with the new Ankarsrum mixer. I had a small (four loaves) batch of multigrain sandwich dough to make, and we're out of bagels. That sounded like a fair test to start with! I did make a small batch of 50% whole wheat pizza dough on the weekend which was also a pretty good test of a small amount of wet dough. It handled it quite well, using the dough hook and scraper. Oh yes, and I made two batches (2 loaves each) of gluten free 'dough' using the plastic bowl and cookie dough whips. That was awesome. :)
So, essentially there are four ways to mix bread dough - with the dough hook, or the roller, and with or without the scraper for each.
First, the multigrain sandwich bread. This is an enriched dough (milk, honey and brown sugar) with all kinds of good things in it (cooked wild rice, durum semolina, ground flax seed and spelt flakes) so it's a bit soft and sticky and needs to be well-mixed to get everything distributed well. I put the water, milk, honey and yeast in the bowl first and let it mix while I measured all the dry ingredients into a bowl. Using the dough hook and scraper, I found that the yeast didn't dissolve very well, so I put the roller in instead and let it run against the side of the bowl. This worked better to mix the liquids. I then started to put in the dry ingredients, a scoop at time. This is so nice to do in the Ankarsrum because the motor is not overhead and in the way, so it's very easy to dump stuff in while it's running. I let it run with the roller for a bit, adjusting the distance between the bowl and roller a bit as the dough developed. I found that the dough didn't seem to be 'kneading' very much, so switched to the dough hook. I was happier with this. It's fascinating watching the dough roll around the stationary hook as the bowl revolves - so different from the action of a planetary mixer! You think it isn't doing much of anything, and when I took the dough out after about 5 minutes it seemed to be well-mixed (everything distributed well) but quite sticky (not unusual with this dough). However, after four stretch & folds at 10 minute intervals I was impressed how soft and silky the dough was. Even nicer than when I make this dough in either of the planetary mixers (the KA or the big Univex). And just the fact that I can do four loaves in this instead of firing up Max is awesome!
Next, the bagel dough. This was a great challenge - a batch of 24 (so, 2400 grams of dough) using a blend of bread flour, stone-ground whole wheat and stone-ground coarse whole rye. With the stiff starter the dough hydration is something less than 50% - stiff as a board! Once again I started with the dough roller and scraper to mix the water, stiff starter and honey. Then I added all the flours and the salt, and let it work for a bit. And once again I ended up switching to the dough hook. Part way through I removed the scraper (the dough seemed to be stuck in a ball between the two). That worked very well. I poked it with a spatula every now and then, and occasionally moved the dough hook manually. The action was slow but steady and it was really interesting to see how the dough moves and develops over time. I let it knead at a fairly low speed for close to 15 minutes. The machine itself was slightly warm after this, but the dough temperature hadn't risen much if at all. That in itself was impressive after 15 minutes! About 30 seconds of hand kneading and the dough was smooth and ready to rise. Again, very good result. Had I done this batch in the big mixer (30 quart Univex) the dough would have just climbed up the hook. And it would not have fit into the KA.
The only slight downside I found was that it is more difficult for me to get the dough out of the bowl after it's finished. That's because there is no handle on the bowl and it has a slight inward lip at the top edge. Also, the bowl itself weighs about 1.5 kg and a batch of four loaves is another 3 kg, so it's heavy! Minor detail though.
I'm sorry there are no pictures but stills wouldn't have added much to the description and videos of a mixer running can be a bit boring! Boring for me recording it anyway. :)
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in your future too! Not a bad thing for people my ages but youngsters might think it work:-)
I don't know what the 30 quart bowl on the big mixer weighs (a lot), but I regularly have to carry it upstairs with up to 10 kg of dough in it, and then dump it out on the bench. I also carry 20 kg bags of flour upstairs. My arms are pretty strong for an old lady, but my hands can't manage the grip anymore.
The only issues I have with emptying my bowl are in dealing with batters or near batters. Think cheesecake for example. This is where the plastic bowl and cookie whisks excel. You have a handle and a pour spout.
For doughs, use the rigid spatula that came with the mixer, or a flexible, generic dough scraper. The keys are: For stiff doughs, dust a bit flour on and around the dough, then use quick little scrapes to pull the dough into a ball. You should be able to lift the dough out of the bowl with your hands. For sticky doughs, mist the dough and bowl with water. Lay the bowl on its side and use the spatula to pull the dough together and scoop it onto the bench. Laying the bowl on its side will help with stiff doughs too if hand strength is a problem.
I apologize if I'm trying to teach Grandma how to suck eggs.
gary
That's pretty much what I do, though that's a good idea (new to me) to mist the bowl and dough with water. I did end up laying the bowl on it's side on the counter. That's what I do with the big bowl (the 30 quart one), so I tried it with the Ankarsrum bowl. It's a bit tricky with the lip on the edge but I'll get used to it. Just different, that's all. I've got a nice big flexible plastic bowl scraper that is a blessing for things like this too.
Thanks for the advice!
I got an Ankarsrum for Christmas and have been using it every weekend since. For my high hydration sourdough I've settled on using the dough hook and scraper for the initial mix to start the autolyse. I run it first at high speed and slow down as I scoop the flour in and it thickens. I've tried it with the roller but it didn't seem to work so well.
I take out the hook and let it autolyse for an hour or so, then put in the roller and scraper, add salt and levain, and mix fairly slowly for 8 or 10 minutes. I'm still trying to figure out how long. The roller/scraper combination is very gentle, doesn't tear the dough, which I found to be a problem with the dough hook. It doesn't look like it's doing anything at first but beautiful smooth dough after a few minutes.
I'll be following your posts with interest, I have far less experience than you!
Tom
It sounds like you have much more experience than I do with using the Ankarsrum, and I really appreciate your input. I have so many different types of bread that I make, so it will take a lot of playing around to figure out when the roller is best and when the hook is best and, as you say, how long for any of them. I'll be making some doughs today that have 'stuff' in them (i.e. raisins, cheese, onions). Normally I add all this in right at the beginning (with the big planetary mixer), so I might try adding them in after the dough has developed instead. Have you done any doughs like this in your mixer?
The roller and scraper will do the initial mix very well. Set the roller gap appropriate to the amount of dough. Run at dead slow* and add the dry ingredients to the wet. It will take about three minutes to mix to a shaggy mass.
I nearly always use a preferment, poolish or wet starter, or make enriched breads, so don't benefit from a long autolyse. A five to ten minute rest to allow the flour to absorb the liquids is plenty.
Knead, using the roller/scraper, at a medium-low speed (dial at ~3 o'clock) for three to fifteen minutes; less for lean breads or if you plan to s&f, more for enriched breads.
Use the hook only for large (exceeding ~3kg) batches, though really stiff doughs may benefit at smaller sizes say 1.5kg of bagel dough.
The manual's recommendations are very good; trust them. It doesn't always [b]look[/b] like it's doing much, but there's a lot going on. It's just different and mostly better than the actions of a planetary mixer.
As always, YMMV.
gary
* When premixing liquid ingredients, do so with the roller against the rim and run at a high speed.
Sounds like good advice. I'm learning as I go along, but input from people with experience is really helpful. See below for today's test.
This morning I gave the new mixer (I'll have to come up with a name for it) a good workout. I usually make six loaves of Oatmeal Raisin bread and six of Cheese & Onion bread for the weekend, and I make the doughs in advance on Thursday. The Oat Raisin makes 750 gram loaves (wet dough), so 4500 grams total, and the Cheese bread makes 550 gram loaves (wet dough). The Oat Raisin has soaked oats, wheat bran and oat bran as well as bread flour and WW flour (and of course raisins) and is enriched with milk, maple syrup and grape seed oil. The Cheese bread is enriched with milk and honey and has chopped cheese (I freeze it and chop it in the food processor so there is everything from small crumbs to largish chunks) and rehydrated minced onion.
The raisin bread was the biggest challenge. It makes a heavy, sticky dough so I figured it would be a very good test. I think six loaves of this is probably the maximum I could do in the Ank and will probably continue to mix this bread in the 30 litre mixer (Max) in the future. That said, the Ank did an admirable job. Normally when I make this dough I dump all the ingredients into Max at once and mix until it's smooth and more or less developed (I refrigerate the dough for a couple of days so it doesn't need to be fully developed). In the Ank I mixed the dough first without the salt, cinnamon and plumped raisins, then added them in later. I used the dough hook without the scraper as it was a pretty big mass and the scraper just seemed to cause a jam. The dough climbed up the hook a bit but it's easy to push it down with a rubber scraper while the machine is running (unlike a planetary mixer). When I took the big finished dough ball out of the mixer and hand-kneaded it for about 30 seconds, I was impressed how smooth and stretchy it was, and that all the cinnamon and raisins were well-incorporated.
Next, the cheese bread. This bread has a firm sourdough starter as well as a bit of dry yeast in it. I put the water, milk, honey, starter and yeast into the mixer bowl and let it mix (with the roller and scraper) while I measured the flour and salt. The roller does a good job of this (let it rest against the side of the bowl for this step), adequately squishing the firm starter up and mixing it into the liquids. Normally I would do this step either with a rubber spatula or by hand, thus losing a few grams that stuck to whatever I was using to mix. Then I scooped the flour and salt into the mixer as it was running, adjusting the roller away from the side of the bowl at the mixture got thicker. This dough is slightly less than 60% hydration, with the firm starter, but the roller made it very smooth and it looked easy.
Once the dough was smooth I dumped in the cheese and onion, and switched to the dough hook. I thought it might be easier on the cheese to use this (I could be wrong). I didn't use the scraper at first, but ended up having to put it in because there was a thin layer of cheese and onion accumulating on the sides and bottom of the bowl. The scraper worked well, and it was fascinating watching the dough slowly develop. You can't see much going on as the Ank works but it's working for sure! It's a fairly lengthy video but does show how the dough develops over time, and the different action from the roller, scraper and dough hook. If you play it with sound, you'll notice a scraping sound - this is the sound of the scraper rubbing over the bits of dough and flour on the sides of the bowl.
Once again, the dough was smooth and soft, and well-mixed. I'm very impressed so far with this mixer! Next test, high-hydration doughs. Note - it was way easier learning to use the mixer than it was figuring out how to get the video from my phone to this post!
That mixer was not at all what I expected! Having the bowl rotate rather than the hook wasn't something I expected at all. Thank you for posting the videos!
Yes, that's the joy and the steep learning curve of a spiral mixer as opposed to a planetary action mixer - you have to re-learn everything! Hence the tests with all my usual recipes. I did one later this afternoon that worked out fairly well but I obviously didn't let the mixer run long enough and the dough is wet and sticky. The spiral mixer is much more gentle but generally seems to take longer to develop the dough. I also have to find out when to use the dough roller and when to use the dough hook. Lots of fun!
I recently bought an Ankarsrum and am having a difficult time getting used to kneading with it. In your Cheese Bread 1 video it really looks to me that the mixer is doing a terrible job of kneading. I think mine looks even worse. It appears that most of the time the dough is not revolving around the hook and that would seem cause the bottom of the lump to heat up from the friction of the revolving bowl. You seem to be getting good results so maybe I need to adjust my expectations of what proper kneading in an Ankarsrum should look like. I've grown accustomed to KA.
I am able to get better results with very high hydration, but the stiffer dough looks terrible while kneading.
I am confident that this is a great mixer, but so far I haven't gotten the hang of it...
Any suggestions?
Yes, the action is so different from a planetary mixer that it's a real learning experience. I've tried several different kinds of dough and batch sizes now and am gradually learning (or at least getting my preferences more clear). So far I prefer the dough hook to the roller, but the roller is good for early stages of some doughs. I haven't persevered enough to get a well-developed dough with the roller yet. One thing I have found is that it takes much longer to develop dough in the Ank, which is fine because it seems so gentle.
Here is a video I made of about 1000 grams of 75% hydration dough; half bread flour and half durum atta (fine whole durum flour). You can see where I took out the scraper once the dough was not sticking to the sides anymore. It is a good illustration of how the dough develops over time. I had to push it down off the hook frequently at the beginning (but this is so much easier to do on the Ank that it's not a problem). Towards the end of the video you can see how the action is very much like stretching and folding.
I did do a batch of very stiff bagel dough (2400 grams) and this actually turned out okay too. One thing I've noticed is that the dough does not seem to heat up, even with a long mix.
My advice - keep trying, be patient and approach it as a learning experience!
For that small amount or for that hydration, the roller and scraper are much more effective. For both in the same dough, the hook is simply [i]not[/i] the right tool. I think you're having a problem with preconceived notions of how a mixer's action should look. The manual suggests using the hook only for batches exceeding 2.5kg (5.5lbs).
The roller may not [i]look[/i] like it's working, but believe me, it is. By indirect comparison (a KA user describes time and speed for a particular formula), I find the DLX's roller reaches the same degree of gluten development in less time than does the KA.
For the small batch in your video, set the roller 1in (2.5cm) from the rim and set the speed to dead slow to make the initial mix. In about three minutes, it should be well mixed. Let rest for 5-10 minutes to let the flour fully hydrate. Then restart the mixer and raise the speed to medium-low (dial turned to 2-3 o'clock).
You alluded to the hook doing unseen work. That's even more true of the roller. Toward the end of gluten development, the action will include stretching from the scraper while twisting and finally squeezing. Lather, rinse and repeat.
The only times I pull out the hook in seven years of ownership is when kneading 3lb+ of 55% bagel dough.
gary
Thanks for the advice and input, Gary. I'll certain keep trying. So far when I've used the roller (and I have tried it with different kinds of dough) the dough seems sticky and the gluten very undeveloped (no windowpane). But I make a lot of bread so lots of opportunity to test it out!
The inward lip of the relatively heavy bowl makes scraping out highly hydrated dough (like the Pain a l'Ancienne that I bake every week), so tedious and awkward, that I went back to using my old KA for most of my doughs.
Also, my Ankarsrum was not able to handle the somewhat dry, heavy dough of the multigrain pitas I also bake every week - no matter what kind of attachment I use: the dough crawls up into the engine.
Therefore, unfortunately, my Ankarsrum sits on the bench, waiting for the Kitchenaid to bite the dust.
Karin
I've had the opposite experience, especially with stiff dough. I was much happier with the Ankarsrum for the bagel dough. In my KA the dough did indeed crawl up the hook and into the planetary gear (very messy and difficult to clean). With the Ankarsrum the dough sometimes climbs to the top of the hook but as there is nothing up there but a simple pin holding it on, it's very easy to clean. It's also much easier to push the dough down off the hook (see the videos above) while the machine is running, unlike the KA which had to be constantly stopped so I could take the hook out and clean it. I'm not quite sure what you mean by "the dough crawls up into the engine", as the motor on the Ank is in the base?
I'm learning how to get the dough out of the lipped bowl. It's a bit different, for sure, but just needs a different technique. And the Kitchenaid is for sale. :)
but I really was bummed, having paid so much for the Ankarsrum, and then experiencing difficulties with the two doughs I make every week for sale. You are right, there is no engine for the dough to crawl in, but I found it annoying enough having to untangle the pita dough from the top of the hook.
The KA is not my favorite, either, I found the 7-qt Cuisinart much better (no need to scrape down the bowl all the time.) Unfortunately, Cuisinart didn't make a successor model, and the old one is not in stores anymore.
Just wanted to chime in to agree with Gary. I have had my DLX for years, and used the hook once or twice, and then put it up in the attic. The roller and scraper do a great job for me , though I primarily use it for high hydration dough. One thing to add is that if you are doing a small amount of dough, it sometimes helps to manually pull the roller towards the middle a few times the first few minutes, and to use a spatula to knock off dough from the back side of the scraper again towards the beginning of kneading to make sure that part gets incorporated.
Pita dough is fairly wet, right? ~70% hydration? At that hydration, don't use the hook unless your batch exceeds ~3.5kg. The roller and scraper are the better tools for that dough. The higher the hydration, the larger the batch before switching to the hook. E.g. 1.4kg for bagels to never for 75+% hydrations
With the Ankarsrum, etc., etc. the hook is needed only in rare cases, when there is compelling reason. Stay with the roller and scraper for nearly everything.
gary
//edit: I see you use a fairly dry dough for pita. Still, if it's not less than 60%, stick with the roller for up to 5-6 lbs.
After our discussion and since this is my baking preparation day, I decided to mix the final pita dough in the Ankarsrum again - after two years of it idling in our pantry.
It was interesting, because for the first two minutes, the roller didn't make too much contact with the dough, even though I moved it manually. That was the point when I usually got so frustrated about the non-progress, that I gave up and continued kneading by hand or with the KA.
This time I wanted to see what would happen and left it alone. Lo and behold, after 3 minutes the roller finally got a grip on the dough and then worked it very thoroughly, so that it looked good after 4 minutes, followed by 5 minutes autolyse and 1 more minute of kneading.
I remember now that I once read a comparison between the KA and the Ankarsrum, mixing the same cake batter, and that the Ankarsrum took longer to get to it, but then, after the same amount of time, produced the same result.
So, since I'm not really a KA fan - I dislike scraping down the sides of the bowl - I will work with the Ankarsrum again for smaller batches. (For larger batches I use my 20-qt Hobart).
Thanks, Gary, for bringing this up,
Karin
I've now made a few more batches of my regular doughs with the roller and scraper. I still find that the dough is very sticky, even after six or eight minutes, but everything seems to be well-incorporated so obviously there is mixing / kneading action happening. I just have to do a few more stretch and folds afterwards to get it to a more silky and stretchy dough.
I love the fact that I can dump ingredients in easily as the mixer is running and that there is no annoying bump in the middle of the bowl. Karin, I'm so glad you tried your Ank again. My KA got retired the minute the Ank came in the door and there is no going back to it!
Most of the available on-line videos on YouTube didn't help me learn to knead properly with the Ankarsrum. Most videos told me to use less flour and also to add the flour gradually.
I didn't want to use less flour. I wanted to follow the formula and keep the recommended hydration. So I use the requested flour.
I mix the wet ingredients, then the starter (if used), a soaker (if used), any other ingredients, AND THEN add all of the flour (with salt mixed into it) at once. Let the scraper and roller do it's thing. I do make a practice of stopping the kneading process (10 - 30 minutes) once all ingredients are incorporated into a shaggy mass. Be patient and have faith. I love my Ankarsrum...
It can be difficult to migrate from KA to an Ank. But it is worth the effort. And I don't think you'll be replacing gears EVER. Forget about noises, vibrations, and having to hold down to mixer to stop it from moving. This machine is a work horse.
Dan
Just dropping in, many years later, to say thanks. A really useful thread and great videos.
A big 'thank you' to everyone who has posted about their Ankarsrum mixer. Just received my Ank today and am looking forward to using it to make the goodies that I've been making in my Bosch mixer for nearly 30 years. Everyone's input is important and a blessing. Thanks for taking the time to share!
Blessings, KittyJ