esoller

John..It was nice meting you at the congress (Eric from Hobart). The congress presentations were amazing, and you were everywhere. I check back daily waiting for your post. Based on what I saw, you must have thousands of photos to weed through. Good luck...and hurry!!

Once it is sold, can you remove it? I know, I know, probably not. But can you at least make it easier to work with from the perspective of adding ingredients (without it running along the cage edge and out?) with the mixer running? ← There is an accessory that clips onto the bowl guard that makes it easy to add ingredients. It is kind of spout that allows the user to add any ingredients while the mixer is running.

FYI No new floor mixer sold after 1995 has been sold without a cage. Nobody really likes working with them, but it is the law. However, the Hobart is the easiest to work with, and does have a nice pourning shield.

The International Pizza Expo is in Las Vegas next week, March 20-22. All you have to do is attend the show, fill out an entry form at the Hobart booth, and be present at the end of the show to win. It has a $17,000 list price, so it is a nice prize for a pizza operator. It is a 60 Quart mixer model P662.

I do work for Hobart, so let me get that out of the way. I just thought that people might think this is cool. We're giving this one-of-a-kind mixer away at the Pizza Expo in Las Vegas. I wish I had a mixer that looked like this when I was making 70-pound batches of dough every day.

I ate at Alinea recently. I was not alone, but the person dining next to me was. He appeared to have a great time and was treated very well. I had the 28 course "tour", and it was truly one of the best meals I've had, and certainly the most eye-opening and inspiring. My wife and I went with another couple, and we were amazed and thrilled by every course. Just make sure you set aside some time. We were there for almost 5 hours.

Moderate-use bread makers should be fine with a new KitchenAid. Frequent/heavy users may have a problem with burnout. The 25 year old KitchenAid is a pre 1986 model, which was manufactured by Hobart. It should say Hobart Manufacturing on the badge. These are true workhorses (I work for Hobart, and I'm kind of partial).

I've seen several posts mentioning Hobart Kitchen Aids, pre 1986. The Hobart N50 is the current professional model still manufactured by Hobart and is the king of stand mixers. It is the design that KitchenAids and most other stand mixers are based on. At $1800 street price, it is expensive, but I have seen used models on eBay in the $400 range. It would last a home cook for two lifetimes.

Here are some pictures from the competition that I mentioned in an earlier post: This is the Lang 60 smoker This is a shot of the inside of the somker Pulling the pork Pulle pork (placed 12th out of 27, not bad for first contest) Brisket (placed 15th out of 27) This was a great experience. I hope you all enjoy it.

I have yet to use lump, but my kinsford has been running a little cool lately so it's time to experiment. shhhhh (no jinx)... guess what? I'm joining a competitve bbq team! Does anybody have experiance with competition? I'm so psyched! ← I'm on a competition team. We actually entered our first Kansas City BBQ Society event last month. Man, did we learn a lot that first contest! Lots of great teams there. It was the Kentucky State Finals. We are also singed up for an event in Indiana in August. I was thinking about chronicling it on this site. I wonder if anyone would be interested. If you have any specific questions let me know. By the way... based on that contest, lots of the competitors with big smokers use whole logs which they burn down to coals. Lots of people also use Kingsford. I have always used Kingsford for heat, accented with whole logs of hickory and cherry for smoke. We have a Lang 60 trailer smoker and hardwood lump burns way too fast in a big smoker. There is just too much oxygen in a large fire box. I wlll try and post a few pictures from that competition.