How to Buy the Right Mixer

Today, we continue our series on how to choose the best restaurant equipment for your business with an article on how to buy the right commercial mixer (also known as dough mixers or planetary mixers) for you!  If there is a specific type of equipment you want advice about, please leave a comment on this post and we will dedicate a future post to it.

A planetary mixer is a very versatile machine that can operate on a large scale.  Different attachments allow you to mix cookie, cake, and bread dough, whip up creams, sauces, and icing, even slice, grind, shred or grate products.  Planetary mixers have a single offset shaft that turns in an orbital motion resembling planets going around the sun, which accounts for their name.  When attachments are affixed to this shaft they rotate through the mixer bowl in an elliptical shape, which ensures an effective mixing of the entire contents of the bowl. 

To determine the size mixer you need, take these of factors into consideration:

1.       Some items expand when agitated, so bear this in mind when considering your batch sizes.

2.       As your business grows, you may need to make larger batches, so you may want to account for this growth.  Some people choose to buy smaller mixers and then upgrade as necessary, but if possible, it is generally more cost-effective to account for growth when buying your first mixer.

3.       If you’re mixing dough, you can determine the size you need by calculating the absorption ratio (AR).  The drier the dough the tougher it is to mix, and that is going to affect how large a batch you can mix according to the size of your mixer.

To calculate the absorption ratio, divide the water weight by the flour weight (for example, 20lbs of water and 50lbs of flour equals a .4, or 40% AR).  The lower the AR, the more stiff and therefore more difficult to mix the dough is - and therefore, the smaller the batch will need to be.

Note that just because you need to mix a smaller batch due to the stiffness of the dough does not mean you can use a smaller mixer.  The point of calculating the AR is to find a batch size that your mixer can manage without overworking and burning out.  Consult with the operator's manual or the mixer manufacturer for recommended batch sizes for different absorption ratios.  In general, if you plan to use your mixer for day-in and day-out dough mixing, go with a heavier duty floor mixer that can handle the heavy load dough puts on a mixer motor.

Depending on the tools you need in your kitchen, you will probably also want to purchase several attachments to go with your mixer.  All of the mixers we sell come equipped with the following parts, which we also sell seperately in case you need replacements; the links below are to our replacement pages so you can see images:

• Bowl
• Dough Hook - Spiral shaped attachments for mixing and kneading yeast-based dough
• Flat Beater - Paddle shaped attachments perfect for mixing batters and icings or for mashing vegetables like potatoes.  Basically, anything that needs to be creamed should get the flat beater treatment.
• Wire Whip - Looks just like the hand-held version, but packs a lot more punch.  Use it for the same things you would use your hand whip - meringue, creams, and frostings - just on a much larger scale.

 Many businesses also choose to buy the following additional attachments, enabliing their mixer to perform multiple different tasks and saving space in the kitchen:

• Vegetable Slicers and Graters/Shredders - these attachments can process a high volume of just about any kind of vegetable very quickly.  Use them to slash your prep times on tedious slicing tasks.
• Meat Chopper/Grinder - these attachments allow you to chop up or grind meat products quickly and efficiently.  They fit a variety of disc sizes to customize output.

A commercial mixer can do a lot of work for you.  Buy the right one at the start and take care of it throughout and you'll have a permanent, reliable fixture in your kitchen's daily operations.