Mixer Reviews

We used this to make applesause. in a word, Awesome. It turned 5 pounds of apples into applesause in five minutes.

This gizmo makes the shortest work of making applesauce you ever imagined. You slice the apples, cook in a large pan with a small amount of water until they are soft. Then you push the apple mush, skins, seeds, core, stems, etc. in the top of the food grinder, and out the sieve part comes pure applesauce, out the end, comes the seeds, skin and stem. It takes maybe 10 minutes to process a 16qt pot of cooked apples.

I usually get every burner on my stove going, heat the pots of apples, process the mush into sauce, then can the lot. The canning part takes the longest.

Anyway if you can apple sauce, you need this tool.

It works fine except that the juices from the tomatoes leak out. Good for dry things but not for juicy items.

This tray makes big jobs easier. You can get by with the smaller one that comes with the grinder, but if you're gonna be making large quantities, save yourself some stress and buy this tray, it helps a lot.

Since there isn't a photo of this food tray, I'll first describe it to you. It's made from the same white plastic that the rest of the kitchenaid attachements are made from. It's about 10 inches long, The same width as the food grinder tray. The lip is about an inch deep. It slides over the top of the food grinder tray providing a pretty good fit. It's not a water tight fit however.

The tray is nice when you are laddling in things to be ground up. It helps keep the items from falling into the bowl of already ground up stuff. If you are into large batches of apple sauce or meat, its worth getting.

If you are grinding a soup up it keeps the splatter out but the seal with the food grinder is not water tight, so you can't really overload it.

I like it, its well made, if you are a careful cook you can live without it. If you are looking for a gift for a cook who has it all, it would be a good present.

If you want to take the time to grind twice just for one loaf that's okay,BUT, if you are interested in grinding 5 or more pounds at once this is not the mill you want. Try the Grainmaster with the lifetime warranty.

Generally I've been satisfied with all Kitchen Aid attachments, but this one is a little different. For the price I could buy myself a stand alone grain mill with more features and save the load on my beloved workhorse.

I have had the pleasure of milling all the wheat we use for bread with this mill for almost 5 years. It does a terrific job. I have never double milled and do not find that step necessary. The resulting flour makes the greatest bread.

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 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 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.

I bought one of these several years ago and have used it quite a bit. It is very handy for straining, if a bit slow and messy. The big gripe I have with the product is -- one of the first times I used it (straining blackberries) the seam down the side of the strainer cone split. I continued to use it for a couple of years, but it finally split completely and became unusable. I called about a replacement and the customer service representative told me that they do not reccommend straining blackberries in it, for just that reason. I looked in my manual. I couldn't find a warning to that effect, although in all fairness the straining instructions contain a list of fruit and blackberries are not listed. At any rate I think it is really sorry that this fruit strainer self destructs over blackberries. The real clincher to my poor review is that the strainer cone, just that one dinky peice, costs $$$$$ to replace. I was in too much shock to even ask about shipping costs....

Makes much easier work of processing tomatoes (home grown or farmer's market) for tomato sauce, and I am looking forward to processing fall apples for apple sauce for canning. I wish the instructions were more helpful. Tells you how to assemble and clean it, but no instructions and just a few recipes. I had to find out for myself that I need to put the tomato waste through three times to get the most juice and pulp. You have to experiment with it. We are going to try it with grapes this fall, for juice and wine.

The attachments that are available for KitchenAid mixers are worth their weight in gold. This is the most recent attachment I've purchased for my mixer. I can't tell you how much time was saved when making apple butter and apple relish for the holiday season. This time of year, saving time is a good thing when there doesn't seem to be enough time for everything on your LISTS!!! Happy Holidays!