Wattage of spiral mixers

[9slicePie]

If one is looking in to a spiral mixer like Famag or the like, is it better to go with the higher wattage mixer?

Higher wattage = more powerful mixer, right?   (And also higher electric bill, right?)



In addition to the above, any recommendations from personal experience?

[dragonspawn]

Electric bill is frankly irrelevant. Let's take the famag im 10s - It's (conservatively) rated for around 25 kg/h dough (3 batches per 8kg). Probably you could go above 30. It needs to work 2.5 hours to consume 1kwh electricity. Taking the California prices - at 38c/kwh - this gives you half a cent of electricity per kg of pizza dough.

Power with mixers is interesting beast. If you take a look at Ankarsrum (1600w) compared to the 10s (400w) - the 10s can beat it hands down in any kind of dough competition (disclaimer - I have both, but the ank hasn't seen flour since I got the famag). A lot of depends on how this power is organized and delivered.

But when we compare apples to apples - like in spirals - it once again depends. What you are interested in not wattage, but torque at the hook. Guess - what this is the only parameter not given. There may be differences in the drive train, not only the motor.

But if we have like absolutely the same kind of specs - then yes bigger is better. But my advice is - if you are buying a professional/heavy duty grade equipment - ignore the wattage and look at capacity. Just assume that the engineers have specced everything properly.

Btw - spiral are really low wattage - because of their incredible efficiency - they work at most on 10% of the dough at a time. So they don't need much power.

[HansB]

If one is looking in to a spiral mixer like Famag or the like, is it better to go with the higher wattage mixer?

Higher wattage = more powerful mixer, right?   (And also higher electric bill, right?)



In addition to the above, any recommendations from personal experience?

Really the only thing to consider is getting the right size for the amount of dough you will be making.

[9slicePie]

Much thanks, guys.

[billg]

Much thanks, guys.

If you live any where near Connecticut, you are more than welcome to come to my house and try the Sunmix 10 and the MF Italy Minimix Pro which has the about the same size bowl as the Sunmix 10.  I no longer own the Famag.  You can make dough all day and see which one you like better.

[Travinos_Pizza]

Yeah, KwH is negligible as others have said.