The Zyliss Quick Whisk, A New Type of Eggbeater

[andiesenji]

In a case of "what's old is new again!"

 

Look what I got. Sent to me to "test" and write a review - a newly introduced Zyliss "Quick Whisk" which is a new style of eggbeater.
Unlike those of yesteryear, this one has beaters that are removable for cleaning and has a "bail guard" so the beaters do not strike the sides and bottoms of bowls or other vessels.
And it works right or left handed which was a complaint of many women with some of the eggbeaters with handles that were for righties only.

I have several "vintage" eggbeaters and this is superior to all of them in the way it is constructed and the way it works.

Not only do the beaters themselves rotate, they rotate around a common shaft in a "planetary" motion.

[caroled]

Haven't used one of these but their other products I have had occasion to use have been very good. 

[rotuts]

wow

 

nice

 

I used to have my mothers very old egg beater.  

 

it had something at the bottom that protected the blades from getting damaged by the bottom

 

some sort of guard.

 

I can not envision the issue w R or L handed that you mention

 

it might be real

 

the old Beater could be used ether handed as far as I can recall.

 

I also have my mothers very old electric ' mix-master '

 

this was mentioned a fair while ago here.

 

those beaters were not ' wire . beaters , but had a scalloped  if you will inner indentation  to them

 

now days its just a wire

 

but I have not looked at them in a while

 

what you are showing here does look pretty nice !

 

it was pretty much lie this one w some sort of hard on the bottom :

 

 

hard to see here , but the blades are not simple wires

 

and as far as I can see , would work L or R handed

 

 

Edited October 22, 2017 by rotuts (log)

[DesertTinker]

2 hours ago, andiesenji said:

In a case of "what's old is new again!"

 

Look what I got. Sent to me to "test" and write a review - a newly introduced Zyliss "Quick Whisk" which is a new style of eggbeater.
Unlike those of yesteryear, this one has beaters that are removable for cleaning and has a "bail guard" so the beaters do not strike the sides and bottoms of bowls or other vessels.
And it works right or left handed which was a complaint of many women with some of the eggbeaters with handles that were for righties only.

I have several "vintage" eggbeaters and this is superior to all of them in the way it is constructed and the way it works.

Not only do the beaters themselves rotate, they rotate around a common shaft in a "planetary" motion.

Great backup for “no power days”. Thanks!

[andiesenji]

3 hours ago, rotuts said:

wow

 

nice

 

I used to have my mothers very old egg beater.  

 

it had something at the bottom that protected the blades from getting damaged by the bottom

 

some sort of guard.

 

I can not envision the issue w R or L handed that you mention

 

it might be real

 

 

 

 

 

 

These are not easy for lefties to use.

 

[andiesenji]

Here are some of my vintage eggbeaters.  I chose one of each type that I have.  

[boilsover]

Maybe I'm odd, but I've always found these beaters to be no less work than a whisk.  Yet more awkward to use...

[JoNorvelleWalker]

17 minutes ago, boilsover said:

Maybe I'm odd, but I've always found these beaters to be no less work than a whisk.  Yet more awkward to use...

 

When I was young we did not have whisks.

 

[rotuts]

nobody else did either

 

this side of The Pond.

 

my mothers had the handle on the top.

 

and once one got the hang of it , it worked very well and very fast for

 

whipped cream and the like

 

you would have to be an idiot to use it for anything heavier  

 

whisks like this put AngelFood cake right on the plate.

 

Edited October 23, 2017 by rotuts (log)

[rotuts]

@andiesenji  

 

interesting what you say about lefties and the model you presented.

 

Ive never handled one , so I defer to you

 

however , the mirror image  of the item would put the handle on the L  ( or R depending  on your starting ref. )

 

and the crank on the other side

 

so 

 

as usual 

 

Im missing sorting.

 

[Smithy]

Like rotuts, I'm having trouble seeing the problem with the left- vs right-handedness of the beaters with the handle on the side.  My mother, a leftie, used ours with no problem. However, she grew up in an era that discouraged left-handed work, and I may have overlooked some compensation she made to this machine. What am I missing?

[Thanks for the Crepes]

1 hour ago, Smithy said:

Like rotuts, I'm having trouble seeing the problem with the left- vs right-handedness of the beaters with the handle on the side.  My mother, a leftie, used ours with no problem. However, she grew up in an era that discouraged left-handed work, and I may have overlooked some compensation she made to this machine. What am I missing?

 

I'm guessing here as a righty, who used one of these old-fashioned egg beaters in my youth and into my twenties. I think it's probably that the contraption is geared to work in one direction only. Righty's would use it overhand, and lefty's would be reduced to using it underhand, with weaker muscles in play. You could still do it, I just think it would not be as easy.

 

I just "air guitared" the action with both hands, and I really think it would be more difficult to do it underhanded. YMMV.

 

I liked these things, actually, but not sure I like the design of the Zyliss. It seems to have a very small handle on the lever that threatens busting one's knuckles on the shafts. The ones I used had a handle the full width of your hand at a perpendicular angle to the horizontal 

shafts and on a longer shaft out from the vertical shafts. Sort of like this first picture in the link and the third one. You could really crank on those without fear of bruising your knuckles. I believe ours was even more user friendly (for righty's) but can't find a pic. Mom was an RN and was all about ergonomics before it was really even an English word. 

 

Not sure that's so with the Zyliss, not to mention that the knob/handle looks a little carpel tunnel-inducing to me, if you used it much. 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

My mom with her egg beater was an RN also -- but in the 21'st century why not use a whisk?

 

[Porthos]

RE: Right hand/left hand: My DW (we've been married for 39 years) is a lefty. There were numerous things she had to learn to do using right-handed items growing up. I still remember one of the things she acquired very early in our marriage was left-handed shears for her sewing. So much more comfortable and easy to use.

 

Edited to fix a typo. It's too late for me to be at the keyboard.

Edited October 24, 2017 by Porthos (log)

[Thanks for the Crepes]

2 minutes ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

My mom with her egg beater was an RN also -- but in the 21'st century why not use a whisk?

 

 

I found the old egg beaters easier on my wrist. The actions of your movement are multiplied by leverage and gears. Also, especially now, from an older, worn out perspective, the up and down wrist motion on the old manual egg beater is easier on the bones and cartilage than the sort of lateral grinding that goes on with a whisk, although, that is what I usually use now, because well-designed manual eggbeaters seem to be a thing of the past.

 

These things, when they are well-designed, are the bomb, IMO. Of course, I now have a handheld Sunbeam mixer from the 80's that I still use, usually for cakes. Unfortunately, no old-fashioned, ergonomic eggbeater contraption in my culinary repertoire anymore. That's my loss, I think, especially as an older person, not resilient as I was in my youth. 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

5 minutes ago, Thanks for the Crepes said:

 

I found the old egg beaters easier on my wrist. The actions of your movement are multiplied by leverage and gears. Also, especially now, from an older, worn out perspective, the up and down wrist motion on the old manual egg beater is easier on the bones and cartilage than the sort of lateral grinding that goes on with a whisk, although, that is what I usually use now, because well-designed manual eggbeaters seem to be a thing of the past.

 

These things, when they are well-designed, are the bomb, IMO. Of course, I now have a handheld Sunbeam mixer from the 80's that I still use, usually for cakes. Unfortunately, no old-fashioned, ergonomic eggbeater contraption in my culinary repertoire anymore. That's my loss, I think, especially as an older person, not resilient as I was in my youth. 

 

Quite seriously, with a good whisk it is all in the wrist and not much effort.  I recall once my younger son watching and he asked "How do you do that?"

 

Then again there is always a rotor-stator homogenizer.

 

[Thanks for the Crepes]

4 minutes ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

Quite seriously, with a good whisk it is all in the wrist and not much effort.  I recall once my younger son watching and he asked "How do you do that?"

 

Then again there is always a rotor-stator homogenizer.

 

 

I'm glad your wrists are still in great shape, Jo. I'm sort of having to conserve some irreplaceable things these days. I do miss the good old mechanical eggbeaters, and I think they were superior to the whisks we are reduced to now. YMMV

[andiesenji]

3 hours ago, Smithy said:

Like rotuts, I'm having trouble seeing the problem with the left- vs right-handedness of the beaters with the handle on the side.  My mother, a leftie, used ours with no problem. However, she grew up in an era that discouraged left-handed work, and I may have overlooked some compensation she made to this machine. What am I missing?

The crank is only on the right side and the handle is in the same plane as the rotating gear assembly.  It is made to be held with the left hand and cranked with the right.  The ones with the top handles or the "post-type" handles work with either hand but I know from experience (a left-handed stepdaughter) that the ones with the side handles are impossible for a lefty to use.

There were ones made for left-handed people - by one manufacturer - they were sold at dime stores and were made by EKCO.  They are quite rare.

Edited October 24, 2017 by andiesenji (log)

[JoNorvelleWalker]

29 minutes ago, Thanks for the Crepes said:

 

I'm glad your wrists are still in great shape, Jo. I'm sort of having to conserve some irreplaceable things these days. I do miss the good old mechanical eggbeaters, and I think they were superior to the whisks we are reduced to now. YMMV

 

Wrists are indeed in great shape, thanks.  Other things not so much.

 

[kayb]

I'm a whisk wuss. My immersion blender has a whisk attachment, and that's my go-to.

 

[Katie Meadow]

@andiesenji's beaters beat all. They are lovely. Andie, I have it in the fog of my memory you are a Hobart girl. That company invented the very first stand mixer in 1908. The first electric hand mixer was invented in 1922, but didn't become practical until Kitchen-Aid produced the bullet-shaped light weight prototype we use today. Not that anyone asked, but if you are going to talk about egg-beaters these are important facts bearing on the question of why Zyliss thinks this new style old-style object will be a big seller for them. My millennial nephew and millennial  daughter would not be the target audience; they have the electric beaters their parents gave them when said parents upgraded.

 

Top versus side handled: I have a very vague memory of the side handled version, but as a lefty I can't quite see what the problem would be...am I missing something? But of course  us lefties are a clever and adaptable bunch.The gears on the top-handled ones work both directions, why not the side ones? I know I had a top-handled version when I moved into my first apartment during my college years, but that was fifty years ago. The hand mixer was the first appliance I bought for myself. Out of sentiment I held onto that egg-beater my mother gave me for about two days.

 

Almost everything a person would have used an egg-beater for I use an electric hand mixer. Or, for appropriate short tasks, one of several whisks I have accumulated. Again, what am I missing here? For what reason would anyone go out and buy an egg-beater unless they live in a cabin without electricity? If my house loses power due to a hurricane, I won't need an egg-beater; I'll be in one. If I lose power due to an earthquake I may have a lot of broken eggs on my hands, but "Where's my husband?" will probably be closer to the top of my list of questions than, "Where's my whisk?" I'll need his stamina and optimism to whisk all those eggs.

 

But back to the left-handed issue and the electric hand mixer, neither of which are actually the topic of this thread. The side-cord is always meant for right-handed people, and it isn't easy to find a mixer that has a back cord or a rotating cord. Just saying.

 

OMG it's time to get a grip and get out of bed and eat some toast.Time's a wastin'.  I think I'll light a fire in the grate and dig out my brass toasting fork. Then I'm going to take my old British toast rack, which is the greatest invention of all time for making sure that your toast is stone cold on the journey from the fire to the table.

Edited October 25, 2017 by Katie Meadow (log)