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75 of 76 found the following review helpful:
 Finding attachments Dec 26, 2008
By Ms.Baker
I received this mixer yesterday for Christmas from my kids. Then I read the above review and I got a little aprehensive. Today I telephoned this number 1-800-541-6390 to ask about the attachments for this model mixer. She answered several questions and she gave me the numbers of appliance models that are compatible with the K4SS mixer. The wire whip model number is K5AW. The attachments with model numbers KSM500 and K5SS will all fit the K4SS mixer. Hope this helps.
20 of 20 found the following review helpful:
Great but be careful of buying attachments, here are the model numbers you need Dec 15, 2010
By Steve in Ohio
"Steve in Ohio"
Hello,
thanks to everyone that has reviewed this item. I bought it on Black Friday at Walmart (model k4sswh) and got a good deal, but the deal is because the inside literature is of little use, and it doesn't tell you a thing about the mixer you have nor the attachments you need! I went to the KitchenAid website and it didn't have very good info either... surprising. But I did call the KitchenAid phone number 800-541-6390 and after getting through another bad telephone computer routing system I got to a very nice and helpful KitchenAid Rep.
Here is what I found out about these are the model numbers that fit this mixer:.
*Dough Hooks: Burnished k5bdh, Coated k5adh.
*Wire Whisk: k5aww and this will work with the 4.5 and 5 quart bowls.
*5 Quart polished bowl will work with this mixer if you want it: 5.0 quart k5asbp
*Pour shield: KN1PS
*All KitchenAid front mounted attachments work with all of the KitchenAid Mixers, so no worries there, but the same is obviously not true for the beater attachments.
** I didn't find out about the beater to use with this but it comes with one anyway, I suggest calling them to find out what is needed for sure. Better make the 10 minute call and not have to deal with the wrong part.
(Review added to on 2/26/2011)
I have had this mixer for three months now and I have to say I love it. I use it to make bread dough, batters, guacamole (the best is from Tony Kahn on Morning Stories radio, "Fresh avocados, a few lemons, an onion, a little bit of mayonnaise, salt and pepper. You take the avocado, mash it up, put a
little mayonnaise in, mostly for the color. Squeeze the lemons into it, dice the
onion, mix them in, salt and pepper to taste, and then the secret: Don't eat it.
Put it in the refrigerator for about three hours. The onion will begin to fraternizewith the lemon juice. The flavors begin to blend. The guacamole comes to life. So that's it! Easy as pie - only, it's guacamole."
I added this recipe to show the varience of things I would not have normally mixed with a mixer had I not had a stand mixer of this quality. I have made mixing meat for say meatballs or meatloaf many times and let me tell you, it is a breeze and since it is so easy to clean, it is worth the effort and it does a great job of mixing. I don't use a bowl and wooden spoon anymore, it is just easier with this mixer.
I bought the mixer food grinder, it works well, it is not commercial but it works slowly and you do have to nurse it to get the food through. If you want to do less than a pound of say meat to grind, ask your butcher, and if you want to do more than say 5 pounds, again ask your butcher to do it. But in the middle, you are good as gold. I also added the sausage stuffer that you add onto the end of the grinder and since it is already full of the sausage mix you probably made with it.
I have the front attach juicer, it works OK, again, to do half a lemon, do it by hand but we had bought a case of oranges and it was time to juice the rest and it did it 4 out of 5 rating on it. But it made the process much easier.
Overall, I am very satisfied with the mixer and would recommend anyone to buy it. One thing, if I had to do it over, I would buy the slightly more expensive 5 quart bowl with the attachments. I noticed that the 5 quart model of this its the same thing just a different bowl, (if someone knows this is wrong, please put it in comments for this post) with slightly lower top edge. This is a double edge sword because with the lower lip, it is easier to put things in the bowl as you are using it, but the extra bit at the top keeps things from splattering out the top, I am assuming, but if you are doing regular recipies, you should not have a problem with splatter.
12 of 12 found the following review helpful:
Good, solid mixer (goes on sale for an amazing deal) Jan 06, 2009
By T. Foster
The only reason I give this little mixer 4 stars instead of 5 is the lack of attachments (I too have gone through multiple versions guessing at what will fit).
But mine works great. At first, I thought I might have gotten a lemon when it made this awful thumping sound when it mixed. Then I realized that I hadn't pushed the bowl all the way through the clip in the back.
I've had good success with various batters I've made (and hope to soon get the dough hook). This should have plenty of power to handle my breads, and it's not bad to have this slightly smaller model. Really, the 600 series would have just been too much mixer.
For more information, check out the Kitchen Aid forum on this mixer:
http://forum.kitchenaid.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=24260&whichpage=1
17 of 20 found the following review helpful:
 Spend the extra bucks Dec 22, 2008
By Pete
I purchased one of these as a Black Friday Special. Whoo Hoo! I thought I was getting a great deal and could finally afford a Kitchen Aid! I was wrong. This mixer has several problems.
First, and on first use, the motor froze as if the beater were stuck. I was making Key Lime pie, mixing condensed milk and egg yolks... so it wasn't like I was trying to knead bread dough. The beater stopped and the motor emitted a whine. The beater wasn't jammed or lodged, just some strange phenomenon caused the motor to whine and stop. After turning the unit off and on a few times it then worked fine. The motor on low speeds sounds like it wants to stop. Like it can barely keep up the torque of mixing simple cookie dough. This was the first thing that worried me.
Next, attachments are incredibly hard to find, and the K45xx series attachments do not fit. You need to buy the K5 attachments for some reason. I went through 2 wire whisks before phoning Kitchen Aid and finding out the correct part. Even the Kitchen Aid rep was stumped, but finally we figured it out.
Lastly, after making a batch of cookies, I hand washed the beater attachment and put it away (storing it in the bowl, much as it was shipped in the packaging). Upon next use the beater had changed color... from shiny silver to a dark pewter. The entire attachment had changed, as if by chemical reaction. So 3 uses and 3 washes (with organic dish soap) was enough to theoretically dissolve the coating on the beater and cause a galvanic reaction between the aluminum and the steel! NICE!
All in all, and the reason this received 2 stars instead of none, was the fact that I know it was a Kitchen Aid. I know that I could have called Kitchen Aid and gotten a no hassle replacement. It just so happened I was within my 30-day return policy, and Amazon just happened to have a professional series mixer on sale within $50 (after rebate) of what I paid for this mixer. Plus ANY return, even a no-hassle one, is a hassle. So for the difference in price, it's worth the premium for a 6-qt pro mixer with almost twice as much power, all attachments, and a pouring shield. Live and learn.
So if you're looking for a gift for someone, or looking to introduce someone to baking, this machine is probably fine. Mine was probably a lemon snd you'll do much better. But if you're shopping for yourself, and can swing the marginal premium, wait for the deals and get yourself a pro 600 series. Remember... you get what you pay for!
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
Great mixer, read manual thoroughly before using Mar 02, 2010
By PiccoloWeaponX
We received this mixer as a wedding gift and have frequently enjoyed using it to make a variety of things, especially homemade bread with a separately purchased dough hook. However, the machine broke after a few month of usage while making bread. After getting transfered to at least 5 different numbers, pressing numbers on the automated answering system, and waiting on the phone for over half an hour, we never got to the right person with any phone numbers they provided. Getting on their website [...], and using the live chat is much quicker. They provided an excellent customer service. Our mixer was replaced within one week on the condition that we had to ship ours back with the packaging and prepaid shipping label that they provided. They suggested that when making any kind of yeast dough, the use and care manual recommends ONLY speed 2 throughout the entire mixing/kneading process. Kneading should only be done for 2 minutes once the dough starts to form a ball on the hook and cleans the sides of the bowl. They also recommended reading through the use and care manual thoroughly to ensure that appropriate speeds, beaters, mixing times, and ingredient capacities are followed for all types of mixtures. We will be sure to do that they next time instead of just following the speed in the recipes, since the outcome of the bread doesn't seem to be different when using a different speed anyway.
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