Stand Mixers reviewed by Cooks Illustrated — a rant

This topic has 6 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 1 year, 1 month ago by skeptic7.

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October 15, 2023 at 5:56 pm #40682
skeptic7
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The current version of Cooks Illustrated supposedly reviews stand mixers. I read the article at a Grocery store and reread it in the Library. I gave up my subscription a decade ago.
Supposedly many (12 ) brands of mixers were reviewed, but Cooks Illustrated only mentioned their two favorites, Kitchenaid and Ankstrum. Information about the other brands is available only on their websites. I'm peeved since that is behind a firewall, and I was curious as to what the other brands are like. Kitchenaid and Ankstrum were the favorite brands at the beginning of this century. I was doing research to buy my mother the very BEST mixer.
Back to the rant. Cooks Illustrated should have described all the other models and their prices and short comings and advantages. Why? Because I have seen new brands at Sur La Table, and other stores, and am curious. I have had friends who had different brands and was curious about an objective opinion. My subjective opinion was that it was ugly and noisy; but it worked fine for cookies.

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October 15, 2023 at 7:20 pm #40683
JennC13
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If you want to send me your email, I can send you a pdf of the entire article. It is to big to attach here. My email is jcanfield1013@gmail.com.
October 15, 2023 at 7:52 pm #40685
Mike Nolan
Keymaster
I can't say I'm surprised, Cooks Illustrated was going downhill for a long time before they dumped Christopher Kimball, and seems more interested in selling things (including site subscriptions) than providing useful information to cooks these days.
October 16, 2023 at 8:04 pm #40697
BakerAunt
Participant
Skeptic--That is the same kind of game that Consumer Reports plays; they charge extra for access to their website, which is why I no longer subscribe.
October 16, 2023 at 10:30 pm #40700
Mike Nolan
Keymaster
Consumer Reports has a report on stand mixers that looks at 39 different models and around two dozen brands, but Anksarsrum isn't one of them Most of them appear to be priced below the KA ones.

You have to buy a login to their site to see the ratings, and I have no idea if the full report was published in the magazine, which we haven't subscribed to for probably 40 years.

If I go ahead with my subscription bread service, I might be looking for a 20 quart spiral mixer that can produce at least 15 pounds of bread dough at a time. I don't think the Anksarsrum and similar mixers can do more than 8-10 pounds of dough at a time (and the videos for a large batch show it climbing up the dough hook), though that'd still be over twice what I can get from my 4.5Q KA.
October 17, 2023 at 5:16 am #40702
aaronatthedoublef
Participant
I had a love-hate relationship with Consumer Reports going back to my days at Microsoft in 90s.

They published a horrible review of the Isuzu Trooper citing it tendency to roll.

A bunch of us owned Troopers and some of my co-workers began digging into to Transportation Department testing and reports as well as insurance claims and Troopers had almost zero rollovers. This led to a great deal of correspondence between my friends and CR. I've always been a little skeptical since then.
October 17, 2023 at 6:55 am #40704
skeptic7
Participant
I have a print subscription for Consumer reports and I like it, but sometimes I can't find the particular copy. I'll check my back issues later and see if I can find when they reviewed stand mixers.
The vehicle I remember as getting a bad review was the Suzuki Samuari. Did you have problems with the Consumer Reports testing methods?
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