Small Dough Batch in Universal Plus?

[Puzzolento]

How small a batch of dough will a Bosch Universal Plus do? I have the scraper and hook, but not the bowl that has no pillar. I like to make pizzas that run around 520g.

I have been using a Cuisinart with a chopping blade to mix dough, and it's tremendous, but if I used the Bosch, I could use a single machine for both dough and cheese shredding. The Cuisinart makes a mess with cheese.

[Timpanogos Slim]

The Universal Plus is like a rethink of my old UM3 right? Basically the same accessories. I have both the plastic bowl with the stem in the center and the steel bowl with the hook attachment at the bottom. In fact, I have two of the "deluxe" vintage steel bowls. I should assure that i know where all the bits are and maybe offer the spare for sale. I may have misplaced the little stub shaft for one of them.

How small is small? By scraper do you mean the "dough hook extender"? I ordered one of those and i think it gets here today, but i may not have occasion to try it since i have plenty of dough in the fridge.

I did use the small batch accessory dingus that adds a couple little wings on my folks universal back in the 90's and it seemed to do a pretty alright job.

I don't have either of the shredder accessories that attach to the bowl side of my UM3. I see that the Plus shredder is compatible with the plastic bowl -- I also have a mid-grade cuisinart. Can you tell me what about the bosch shredder attachment you like better?

[loch]

I have an older Bosch Universal that I bought used in 2000 (uses the same mixing arm with center post). I just used it with the dough hook extender to make a very small brioche that used 8 ounces of flour. The first mix (without butter addition) was 6 minutes to develop the gluten. I didn't have to do any stirring down of the dough. Left alone the machine does the work. Butter additions required some side scraping with a spatula at first. With the dough hook extender I can also easily make a pizza dough using 10 ounces of flour.

Dave

[Puzzolento]

Thanks for the help.

I decided to try it instead of waiting for answers. It's no substitute for a food processor! The dough sticks to the bowl, and it takes a long time to process. The Cuisinart finishes the job in around 30 seconds and leaves almost no residue.

I remember telling people about the Cuisinart years ago, and they told me I was nuts. Maybe I am, but it works.

I think using the Bosch will be worth it, though, because I'll have one less set of tools to put in the dishwasher. We shall see.

[Timpanogos Slim]

Thanks for the help.

I decided to try it instead of waiting for answers. It's no substitute for a food processor! The dough sticks to the bowl, and it takes a long time to process. The Cuisinart finishes the job in around 30 seconds and leaves almost no residue.

I remember telling people about the Cuisinart years ago, and they told me I was nuts. Maybe I am, but it works.

I think using the Bosch will be worth it, though, because I'll have one less set of tools to put in the dishwasher. We shall see.

Yeah, my food processor is great for small batches. I like that i can leave the bosch kneading for 15 minutes, but then kneading is less necessary with a long ferment.

[kori]

The Cuisinart makes a mess with cheese.

It sure does, starts to shred nicely then quickly heats it up and almost melts it, softens it right up. It would work great if you could re-wire the thing and slow the motor down drastically.

[Timpanogos Slim]

It sure does, starts to shred nicely then quickly heats it up and almost melts it, softens it right up. It would work great if you could re-wire the thing and slow the motor down drastically.

I don't recall that specific issue from the times I've used my folks' early 90's era 11 cup cuisinart. I mean the cheese smeared a bit on the disc, but it wasn't a big deal? idunno.

[EdP]

Thanks for the help.

I decided to try it instead of waiting for answers. It's no substitute for a food processor! The dough sticks to the bowl, and it takes a long time to process. The Cuisinart finishes the job in around 30 seconds and leaves almost no residue.

I remember telling people about the Cuisinart years ago, and they told me I was nuts. Maybe I am, but it works.

I think using the Bosch will be worth it, though, because I'll have one less set of tools to put in the dishwasher. We shall see.

Would you mind saying which Cuisinart model you have? My recipes are based on 400g batches and I rarely make more than a double batch, but even 1 batch at a time would be great!

[Puzzolento]

It's funny that I'm being asked which Cuisinart I have, because I ordered a new machine yesterday. The one I have was discontinued. It's from the DLC-7 series. I think it's around 20 years old, but I don't recall for sure. The top with the pusher opening broke, and new parts are disappearing, so I decided to get a new processor.

The top that doesn't work with a pusher is okay, so I can still make dough, but I am on my second chopper blade because the old one failed while I was making batch using around 4 cups of flour. I hope the new machine will be tougher. ATK recommends it.

The pizza I made yesterday was very tough. I started Googling and learned that the cause was kneading too long. I think this makes the Bosch a bad choice for small dough batches, because it mixes things so slowly, it makes me err on the site of overdoing it in order to make sure everything is distributed.

The Cuisinart mixes the dry ingredients in less than two seconds, and processing the dough is a couple of short bursts. Once the dough forms a coherent ball, I know I'm done. No uncertainty.

[Timpanogos Slim]

Picked up the hook extender accessory out of curiosity.

My folks bought the "dough divider" accessory in the early 90's and we never thought much of it. I'm not sure if i have one.

But since i have both the standard toroidal plastic bowl and the "deluxe" bowl, was curious which one does a better job with a small batch.

Made an 800g batch. It did a perfectly ok job of pushing around the dough.

I'm not sure if it did a better job than the deluxe steel bowl w/ the hook attaching at the bottom does. Maybe about similar, and perhaps looks better doing it.

This batch is 450g of CM Organic 00 Regular, 38g of semolina, 12g of dark rye, 60% hydration, 1.8%-ish salt, 0.4% SAF IDY.

Gonna let it rise a long time at RT, which is 72ish and will fall overnight. I'll decide late tonight if I'm gonna let it go until morning.

[thezaman]

 There is a wonderful book that uses a food processor for bread and pizza dough. Is goes into his methods for making both doughs in depth. His explanation of ingredient temperatures and adjustments for them is very easy to understand and helpful.the book is best bread ever but Charles VanOver. I believe 45 seconds is his average mix time.
 I have been using a Stephan vertical cutter mixer for over 40 years for pizza dough. I also have an Italian mixer for Neapolitan dough. Lately I have been using the VCM for it as well. I seem to like the dough better using the VCM. Seems to activate the proof faster. My employers ask why I don't get a hobart. 25 pounds of flour mixes in 90 second so 4 batches 6 minutes. It takes 15 minutes a batch for 50 pounds. So I save time as well as handling 50 pound bags are hard to carry and dump. also floor space is limited in my work area.

[scott r]

Thats very cool info about the vcm.  What type of mixer is the Italian mixer?

[Timpanogos Slim]

There is a wonderful book that uses a food processor for bread and pizza dough. Is goes into his methods for making both doughs in depth. His explanation of ingredient temperatures and adjustments for them is very easy to understand and helpful.the book is best bread ever but Charles VanOver. I believe 45 seconds is his average mix time.

Yeah, I've made a lot of small batches in cuisinart food processors. I don't recall what model mine is, only that it's not half as nice as mom's old dlc-8, which I can remember because I have frequently been tasked with tracking down replacement parts. The grating and slicing discs on mine have permanently attached stems for example. It's pretty cheezy and I don't use it much other than for pastry crusts.

It does the job pretty well, but if you wanted the dough kneaded it isn't really gonna do that for you in the way a stand mixer will.

I don't grate cheese with it much because I live alone and don't often need more grated cheese than I can produce in a minute with hand tools. I am relatively certain that I haven't used it since thanksgiving last year. Counter space is at a real premium in my kitchen so it is stored away.

[Essen1]

How small a batch of dough will a Bosch Universal Plus do? I have the scraper and hook, but not the bowl that has no pillar. I like to make pizzas that run around 520g.

I have been using a Cuisinart with a chopping blade to mix dough, and it's tremendous, but if I used the Bosch, I could use a single machine for both dough and cheese shredding. The Cuisinart makes a mess with cheese.

The SS bowl without the column in the center is designed for LARGE batches only!

The other two will handle small batches just fine, with the SS bowl being the superior one of the two.

[Timpanogos Slim]

The SS bowl without the column in the center is designed for LARGE batches only!

The other two will handle small batches just fine, with the SS bowl being the superior one of the two.

The old UM3 manual is here:

https://cookingwithjim.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/bosch-universal-food-mixer-iii-um3-full-manual1.pdf

It does say that the bowl with the stem up the middle is rated to 8 pounds of dough and that the deluxe steel bowl is rated for up to 12 pounds, but doesn't really make a distinction about smaller batches.

In my experience, it does work for an 800g batch. Maybe not with impressive efficiency, but neither does the regular bowl and hook. The dough does get slung around, stretched, etc. I've made cookies with the steel bowl and bottom-mounted dough hook too. Didn't even do a bad job of creaming the eggs/sugar/butter.

[Timpanogos Slim]

Got out my cuisinart for today's batch, which i shoulda made yesterday.

It turns out to be a DLC-5 (no Pro or other suffix). "7-cup" capacity.

Did a fine job with my 820g batch. I imagine it may be fine up to 1kg but maybe not much more.

[Timpanogos Slim]

I got out my pre-1986 bosch 'deluxe' SS bowl today. for science.

Roughly 1kg batch consisting of 200g-ish of old dough (batch that was weird and wet), 150g poolish, overall hydration target was about 62%.

Observations:

my very old bosch's rubber feet are too slippy and i need to do something about that. By nature the dough load is often off-center and i had to hold the thing in place.

It took longer to mix the old dough with the water/yeast/preferment mixture than it does in the toroidal bowl.

When i switched to a higher speed, approximately 40ml of water got splashed out and had to be replaced. I've had this problem in the toroidal bowl but not to the same extent. Adding a small amount of the flour to make the mixture thicker would probably help. The revised design of how the lid connects probably reduces this in later versions of both bowl styles. Could be reduced by adding a gasket, probably split silicone tubing fitted to the rim of the bowl would work well.

Kneaded it quite well, no winding up around the center stem because it isn't there. instead it winds up on one of the arms of the hook, turns on it a bit, and then gets chucked out and caught by another arm.

[loch]

The feet replacement parts are available from the distributor.
https://www.boschmixers.com/product-category/parts/bosch-universal-classic-parts/classic-mixer-parts/

Some of the very few parts available new.

Dave

[Timpanogos Slim]

The feet replacement parts are available from the distributor.
https://www.boschmixers.com/product-category/parts/bosch-universal-classic-parts/classic-mixer-parts/

Some of the very few parts available new.

Dave

Those are for the 86-2009 version, mine is the 1972-1986 UM3 design. I haven't found anything on it that is certainly a date code, but if the number stamped on the side of the motor field coil assembly is a date code it was made in the 42nd week of 1972.

All of the soft rubber parts on my UM3 are degrading, and there are no new soft rubber parts available, but i ran the feet through an ultrasonic bath and scrubbed them with a brush, and they are tacky again.

I did some exploratory surgery last night. The transmission looks fine from the outside. Some of the parts diagrams refer to it as "oil filled" and it has an oil seal which is a standard industrial part, but most of the rest of it is no longer available. I would need a sturdy set of split ring pliers to go deeper, but i'm not sure i want to. I over-tensioned the belt when i reassembled, so I'll need to fix that before i use it again. No big deal now that i know my way in and out of the thing.

A set of pulley pullers of the right sizes are required to disassemble the motor, as it's captive by the high-speed drive on the top and the drive pulley at the bottom.

I may try to replace the motor base with one from the early 2000's if this one starts sounding bad again, but as i've said before it actually sounds better now than it did when i bought it from a thrift store probably 25 years ago. My best guess is that it had sat for a long time, and i eventually warmed it up enough to melt caked grease? who knows. I assume there is a ball bearing at the bottom of the motor where it drives the belt. The top has a simple bushing, so i applied some bushing oil and ran it upside down for a bit.

I still have no idea what the failure mode is on old UM3s that sound like a rock tumbler. Maybe the bearing at the bottom of the motor?

UM3 parts are sold here as well:

https://www.mykitchencenter.com/shop/Small-Appliances/Small-Appliance-Replacement-Parts/Stand-Mixer-Replacement-Parts/Bosch-Replacement-Parts/Bosch-Universal-UM3-Replacement-Parts.htm

This guy's video is informative but it turns out that you don't have to take the knob off at all.

[loch]

Thanks for all the information!

Dave