Commercial Mixer Repair

The most common types of commercial mixers are spiral mixers (otherwise known as commercial dough mixers) and planetary mixers, though there are plenty more styles available, such as the vertical cutter and horizontal mixers.

Planetary mixers and their large bowl size are suitable for high volume commercial kitchens. With adjustable settings, such as speed, and multiple attachments, planetary mixers can mix, chop, slice, whip or knead a range of ingredients. Whether handling sweet or savoury, the versatility of planetary mixers means they’re the perfect kitchen aid.

Planetary mixers operate by rotating a mixing device, which can be swapped depending on what you want to achieve (from cutting vegetables to lightly whipping cream), within a stationary mixing bowl. Smaller planetary mixers can sit on a work surface, whilst bigger machines are free-standing.

Spiral mixers work perfectly with doughs for making bread, pizzas, or pastries. The main difference is that spiral mixers, unlike the planetary mixer, rotate the bowl, as well as the mixing device, for a gentle mix; this keeps the dough at a lower temperature, and therefore controls the processing of the dough. Spiral mixers are typically free standing, so available floor space in your commercial kitchen is a necessary asset.

Commercial mixers and their bowls are available in a variety of sizes to suit your commercial kitchen needs.

When deciding on the size of mixer your catering business needs, consider how much you will use your mixer, the power needed behind the mixer (larger mixes tend to host more power), and the quantities of ingredients that will be used.

Whilst selecting a smaller commercial mixer will save both money and space – such as being able to sit on a countertop – overloading a food mixer risks breaking it. Larger mixers are suitable for high volume kitchens that make a lot of bread, pizza, or pastries from scratch, or need mass quantities of food preparation. They will be more expensive, and take up more room in the kitchen, however.

Smaller mixers (available in 5-10 quarts), and mid-size mixers (20 quart) are usually compact enough to sit on top of work surfaces. These mixers can handle between 4 and 25lbs of bread dough, depending on the size of mixer you’re working with.

Larger, free standing food mixers, such as those between 30 and 60 quarts, can manage much higher quantities of ingredients; the 30 quart model can mix up to 45lbs of bread dough, as a mode of comparison.

These mixers are most common in commercial kitchens, and suitable for kitchens processing higher volumes of food preparation. 

There are numerous types of mixer attachments to extend the skillset of your commercial food mixer.

The most common types of attachments are a flat beater, dough hook, and balloon whisk. These do not exclusively form the extent of attachments, however, and attachments also come in the forms of other niche options. When working with savoury food items, such as vegetables and meats, there are attachments for cutting and slicing, grinding and grating, mincing and chopping.

A flat beater is the most common type of mixing device, since it can turn its hand to a variety of tasks and ingredients. This attachment is pretty versatile and can handle normal to heavy consistencies – perfect for everyday tasks in a commercial catering kitchen.

The flat beater has more recently received an update – the flex edge beater. This mixer is the same attachment as its parent, and can be used for the same sort of tasks. However, the flex edge beater has a silicone or rubber sleeve around the outer edge of the mixing device, which better incorporates the ingredients within the bowl. The sticky silicone coating picks up excess ingredients that have been pushed up the edge of the bowl and would have been ordinarily missed by the flat beater.

The dough hook is designed to work best with dough. Shaped as a hook (as the name suggests), it turns and churns the dough in order to knead it. This durable device is suited to heavier ingredients: doughs and heavy pastry mixes which will be picked up by the mixing device, rather than just cutting through it.

Finally, the balloon whisk. This whisk introduces air into its mixture with a delicate hand – perfect for whisking egg whites or whipping up cream and light cake mixtures.