Pinzon 5-9-Inch Pasta Maker
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Kitchen and Housewares Reviews of Pinzon 5-9-Inch Pasta Maker
Customer Review: Great roller..very bad cutter
Summary: 2 Stars
The roller of this little machine is nice, however my worktime is more than doubled as the machine does NOT have good cut quality. You have to separate each strand by hand whether you select spaghetti cut or fettuchini cut. Glad it was not a high cost item. Love making homemade pasta because the quality is amazing -- nothing like pre-packaged mass produced pasta....and it is so simple and easy to do. Going to bite the bullet and probably purchase the Atlas machine..... I do not recommend the Pinzon unit for this reason. This couldn't be just an isolated problem with one unit because they are mass produced. And this little unit has been very carefully handled - never dropped or put in water... I've had it about 6 weeks and used it probably 12 times or more. Make pasta for my family as well as friends...
UPDATE 11-13-09: Purchased the Atlas Model 150 and just ran the first 2 rounds of dough through it. There is NO comparison between the Atlas and the Pinzon. The quality of construction and materials of the Atlas unit is much far superior to the Pinzon. And the roller and cutting action of the Atlas is top notch. I finished making pasta in LESS than 1/3 of the time it took with the Pinzon. I just don't have time to stand and hand separate each and every strand of pasta. (Or continually reset the handle from it falling out) There are no cutting or handle issues with the Atlas - the cutting mechanisms are nice and sharp - no separating strands. And the handle stays put. Cheaper is not always better! Making pasta today was a pleasure. I was so impressed I ordered the Atlas Angel Hair attachment today.
Customer Review: Essential kitchen equipement, wish I bought it sooner
Summary: 5 Stars
I have chickens and I have eggs and I live an hour from the fresh pasta store.After 13 batches of egg dough, rolled out with a rolling pin, I told my sister I wanted this machine.
I made my first batch last night, and the consistancy of the rollers makes all the difference in the taste and tenderness of the pasta. Plus it is faster than my rolling pin.
The machine works well, comes with no useable directions. Its heavy and well made, requires a spot to clamp, the edge of my rolling table was perfect.
The tension knob is non intuitive,,, pull it out to turn the rollers!!!
The thin setting is very thin!, too thin for me. Meduim is about right.
My recipe is easy, 1/2 cup flour, 1/2 duram, 2 eggs, dash of olive oil. Knead into a ball, a firm dough, rest an hour.
Cut off small pieces, , flatten, dust with flour and roll.
I use a heavy baking sheet to hold noodles.
The cutting blade has two edges, fine and super fine. Fine is good enough for me. Be sure and seperate nooldes right away and allow to dry for a while before cooking. I just lay them on the cookie sheet.
Boil lots of water, add salt, then noodles coook and enjoy.
This machine makes making pasta really easy and fast. My family was very happy with the results.
two weeks later*** tension knob 3-4 givs the correct noodles for the cutter, the cutter can be sticky, dust more flour. total time to make noodles,7 minutes for one cup of flour.
Customer Review: Economical, functional, and frustrating
Summary: 2 Stars
We were a little new to the making homemade pasta thing so I did not want to spend a lot of money on a pasta cutter. This one was priced very economically, so we gave it a try. While it is not bad value for the price, it has the frustrating fault of coming apart during use. The attachment that determines what pasta you are cutting just slides onto two little tabs and basically sits on the base. Because it is a handle crank, it is not uncommon for someone to slip turning the crank with result the attachment flies off. Very annoying after you have spent about an hour or so getting your dough ready to see it hit the floor. Additionally, the feeding of dough into the rollers is not so great. There is no friction between any of the rollers, which makes it a two person job with this cutter to feed pasta through. One person cranks and holds the attachment on the base, while the other feeds dough (literally you will need to push the dough into the rollers) and catches the cut pasta. You pretty much have to preroll the dough to a very thin layer before trying to use this machine, so don't try without a roller already at home.
If you are going to make home made pasta a few times a year, have a high frustration threshold and limited funds to spend on something like this, it is perfect. Homemade pasta tastes great, so you should try it at some point!
Customer Review: Great little thing
Summary: 4 Stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
As the product name indicates the rollers are only 5 1/2 inch, which is much smaller than in regular pasta makers. I found it to be an actual advantage as narrower dough is much easier to handle.
I prepared some dough (flour, egg, salt and water) and run it through the rollers several times, going from the thickest to the thinnest setting. It worked very well, and dough got a great consistence. Switching between settings is very easy, but handle tends to fall out while rolling.
There are two cutters available - for thin and medium noodles. The trick is to keep feeding the cutters without stopping (or dough can get stuck to the top of machine) while catching the noodles at the other end... Maybe it's just me but I have always thought that pasta makers required at least three hands. But since the dough is narrow, I could pick the noodles up with one hand and hang them up to dry in one swift move.
All in all a great pasta maker. I am taking one star off because the handle is made of ugly brown plastic, that does not match the cool stainless steel body.
Customer Review: Glutten Free pasta!
Summary: 3 Stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
I was able to find some recipes online for making your own glutten free pasta and this machine was helpful in this adventure. It doesn't clamp down very well on my counter, so I clamped it to a large butcher block and it was pretty stable on that -- kind of a pain though. ANYway, the pasta came out very good! I was worried the mix would get jammed in the rollers since gf is so sticky, but I kept continual flour on the rollers and such and it didn't stick too badly.
There are great gf pasta out there, but the shapes that are not available is what I seek to make. Egg noodle size in particular was what I wanted to attempt and I give my results a B+. The machine worked well, the handle is a little cheap looking and the clamp is an odd size/depth for my counters. The butcher block worked okay, but it was a little wobbly. Al in all it was a bit more work to do than I wanted but the results were good. I would give it 3.5 stars if I could, but it did not deserve 4 in my eyes so I rounded down.