KitchenAid KSM150PSER Artisan Series 5-Quart Mixer, Empire Red
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Kitchen and Housewares Reviews of KitchenAid KSM150PSER Artisan Series 5-Quart Mixer, Empire Red
Customer Review: meh ( I broke down and got one)
Summary: 3 Stars
It was yuck at first sight when I first crossed paths with a Kitchenaid stand mixer in a cooking class. There's something about the aesthetics that really bug me about this machine and I bought a food processor and an immersion blender for a total of $220 to avoid the need for this type of machine. And if I was going to get this type of machine, I had decided I would get a non Kitchenaid with a glassbowl and less repulsive looking head or an Electrolux assistant if I became some kind of bread maker.
I bought this because
(1) my kitchenaid food processor would hop when mixing bread dough (one cup of flour!)
(2) $167.11 is a good price even though red, blue and black were the only colors - I knew that this machine would be useful to me
and the real reason
(3) the electic pasta extruder would help me make chinese dough recipes from Eileen Yin-Fei Lo's cookbooks
My family is happy expecting better breads and other goodies but all I want are homemade dumpling wrappers and super flattened Northern Chinese breads. But this machine means I will now be able to make lump free (ew) cream cheese frosting for cupcakes and cream butter with sugar or eggs by machine rather than manually.
I would never have gotten this at its regular $300 price or even at $200 but the double promo discounts pushed the price close to a cheaper but poorly rated Sunbeam and I really wanted the pasta extruder. Sigh. If I end up loving this machine, I will have to amend this review. The red matches my knife block and my isi soda siphon and cream whipper and I cleared a space for it on my counter just as if I really wanted this machine all along and as if red not white or wasabi is the color for me. I don't have to see the side profile of the machine from where it is placed and I have the other red items grouped around it so it's one bunch of red that the mixer doesn't lock the eyes.
It's not as gigantic as the one I remember from the cooking school which was the original design. This bowl has a flat bottom so it can rest on the counter. I was scolded for not paying $400 for the Professional model but this one has planetary motion and I still don't believe that these machines are worth their suggested retail prices. The sale supposed to be through tomorrow but I see that only the Cobalt Blue is still available at this special price.
This not that big but somewhat heavy machine was delivered in its original box without an extra brown box to protect it. I found it in the rain; the box can't be kept and the machine did get wet. There's really nothing included in the box to reflect what a heavy decision this mixer purchase is to many people - no leather bound manual or ceremonious unpacking process. It came with the small hooks (everything was smaller than I expected), the whisk must be hand washed(!), there is the registration card and a brief trilingual manual and some recipes. I also got a complimentary packet of Splenda which I will discard unopened.
p.s. with the bowl removed, the machine in profile casts a shadow that looks exactly like H.R. Geiger's Alien
Customer Review: Kitchen Necessity! .......Not Anymore - See Update.
Summary: 2 Stars
I grew up with one of the first KA mixers - my mom bought it at a fair over 35 years ago. With 5 kids in the house, it was used several times a week for years (cookies, cakes, desserts, bread, etc.). It finally started to give out last year (gear was slipping) so I bought her a new one. And I have 2 myself - one I got for a wedding present 18 years ago (it lives in my weekend house) & I just bought the red artisan for at home. I also have the meat grinder (as does my mom) & that is a handy device. Mom always used it to grind leftover turkey/beef roasts into the best sandwich spread. I can't say enough good about this mixer. I wouldn't bake half as much without it. It's powerful & dependable. I would give this mixer 10 stars if it was an option. You can't go wrong with this machine.
Update: 2/2/2010 I would now rate this 3 stars at most. I am shopping for a replacement to this mixer - ALREADY! And I don't think the replacement will be KA. My 20+ year-old KA is still going strong - this new Artisan has been a disappointment. Underpowered, cheap beaters (paint flakes off) & the head & the mixer itself jumps all over the place when mixing.
The wobbly head problem has become a common complaint with KA mixers. I found how to fix that at least temporarily 1. Unplug the mixer 2. Lock the head in place 3. Make sure the visible hinge pin that goes through body of the mixer is pushed all the way flush 4. Remove bowl & beaters 5. Turn the entire unit on its side 6.Look all the way down the shaft & you will see a screw. (My screw actually fell completely out & was thankfully on the counter, under the mixer!)6.Tighten that screw with a flat head screwdriver. This should fix the wobbly head problem. I was going through beaters - flaking paint issue(these new beaters are CHEAP junk) because the head was jumping all over & making the beater hit the bowl. I thought my beater to bowl clearance was wrong, but it was not. My old mixer never had this problem.
It hasn't died yet but I don't want to be without a mixer so I'm shopping for something better. KA has really slipped in quality. Jeez - I'd be willing to pay a bit more if I could count on KA holding up for more than a few years. They've been concentrating on pretty colors & not quality. The one year warranty should be a red flag!
By the way, the KA I bought my mom - DIED a year ago! What a disappointment. I have been a KA "cheerleader" for years, but no more. This is painful for me because I grew up using a KA stand mixer & have fond memories.
Customer Review: good but flaky chrome and no water jacket capabilities...
Summary: 4 Stars
i wonder why some of the chrome detailing was flaking off prior to my using it, and it was supposed to be a new item. no regrets though. overall this mixer is a great stand mixer, especially for its price. the artisian mixer saves me a lot of time, and saves my wrists a lot of pain, especially for kneading yeast breads. Plus really wet doughs like ciabata are made simple with this beauty.
if you're on the fence, trying to decide whether or not to buy a stand mixer at all, i highly recommend a kitchen aid stand mixer for your home (or business). These mixers are used by so many people, to the point that several baking cook book authors use these as their mixing units when testing recipes (apart from hobart, but those products are in an astronomically different price range; or, to a lesser degree, viking is used, but still, quite a bit more expensive, including accessories, replacement parts, service, etc.). repeatedly i read that people claim they have been using their kitchen aid for years (often 10 years). having some of the same equipment as so many baking book authors can only be a good thing for the end results of your baked goods. a lot of restaraunts use these models for their smaller batch products (like a couple of cakes, whereas they usually have a large hobart for giant batches of cookies and bread). plus there are so many wonderful attachments available (especially the pasta making attachments look wonderfully enticing), it really leaves a lot of other companies far behind.
aside from the flaking chrome, my only major gripes are that the tilt-head models, such as the artisian, are not presently equipped to use a water jacket (a jacket, or bowl, that the mixing bowl rests in, which can be filled with ice, ice water, hot water, etc., depending on what you are working on). If i had known this in advance, i probably would have ordered one of the bowl-raised type of models which do have a water jacket available to buy for them. i recommend that you look into this as a featurewhen weighing your options as to what model to order. I think the little extra money for the KitchenAid K5SSWH Heavy Duty 5-Quart Mixer, for instance, might be money well spent.
Also, the planetary motion of the beater head is much better than the conventional old spinning bowl style, but you still have to get in and scrape down the sides.
Customer Review: Self destructed during first use.
Summary: 1 Stars
About me. Aircraft technician for 23 years, I love to cook, I am a perfectionist and, I hate cheap tools. I purchased this mixer as a to me gift for christmas. On New Years day I thought I would break it in by baking a red velvet cake. While mixing the light and fluffy frosting I heard something let loose in the mixer and in a instant there was a spark and than the circut breaker blew. Well I was able to frost my cake and than my attention was turned to this 200 dollar tool I had purchased. I reset the circuit breaker and atempted to run the mixer. It kind of ran but I could tell there was something other than my fluffy frosting holding the 350 watt motor back. Having had alot of expereance taking things apart and being very curious I had to take a look at what made the thing tick. I removed the back cover and it became very clear that this is not the Kitchen Aid stand mixer my mother used to make two cakes a week with when I was a kid. You would think that for over 200 dollars the machine would have some sort of solid state speed control. I was very surprised to see a very cheap looking reostat devise that looks like it came out of my old electric race car set speed controller that I had as a kid. What a disapointmant. The part that came apart was some sort of spring roller clip on the motor shaft. When it let loose it got stuck in the reostat and shorted the thing out. The reasons I am writting this review are 1. This mixer has almost a five star satisfaction rating. This rating influenced my purchase. 2. Kitchen Aid is living off an American made tradition of high quality. This mixer is not American made and the quality is low. 3. As a consumer I am tired of companies main concern being the bottom line. I would gladly pay more for solidstate construction. In conclusion this mixer may do the job its intended to do but don't be surpised if it breaks down. After all why would there be so many remanufactored units for sale if there wasn't a quality problem. Amazon . com will be getting this unit back and hopefully the replacement will hold together a little longer than the first.Customer Review: Please Check other Review Sites and see how this machines reputation will be trash very very soon
Summary: 1 Stars
Before you decide to purchase this product PLEASE please PLEASE take the time to read other people's "horror" stories on other websites. There is invariably a very large proportion of negative reviews about this machine including their customer service vs the positive ones. Yes we all know that people are more likely to post negative reviews than positive ones - but I believe IMHO that the "across the board" consensus proves that not everyone can be wrong.
This all being said, I'll tell you my little story. My grandmother had one of these (well it looked the same) and I've been in love with it - fondly remembering licking the bowl after it was used to make wonderful kitchen concoctions. I have been "sold" on wanting one of the VERY SAME mixers from the time I was in that kitchen standing on the stool so I could see over the kitchen counter.
Just as a silly I-have-extra-time-on-my-hands thing, I decided to see what the reviews said about my "love". Well, I was offended at first thinking, these people must be crazy - I checked to make sure we were all talking about the same machine, etc. Yep, sure enough. Well the long and the short of it is - that my grandmother's machine manufactured 35+ years ago was manufactured as a part of a retail (home) line of a commercial mixer manufacturer called Hobart. Hobart is a company that still manufactures mixers (very high quality) but the have long since stopped being used by KitchenAid to make their mixers.
My grandmother was one of the lucky few that back in the day quality of the mixer and customer service was made by Hobart, but no longer do we in this generation have that wonderful option.
Now, I feel like I do not want to even CHANCE having any of the problems that a KitchenAid is NOW known for. If I could go back in time and get one of the older models - that is what I would do. But for me, I think the choice is going with a used Hobart (smallest version of course) - that WILL actually last.