My stand mixer started smoking mid batch of dough...

I was making a double batch of brioche dough last Saturday morning, about 4 cups of flour in, when I smelled this weird burning plastic smell. Then I saw a little puff of smoke coming from the back of my KitchenAid. I panicked and yanked the plug out of the wall. The dough was halfway kneaded and totally stuck, so I had to finish it by hand for like 20 minutes. Turns out the grease in the gears had completely dried up after about 8 years of heavy use. I took it apart and regreased it myself using food grade lubricant from a hardware store. Has anyone else had their mixer seize up on them like that? What did you do to fix it?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_robin1mo ago

Dug into mine last year after it started making this grinding noise like rocks in a coffee can. Opened up the gear housing and found this ancient black grease that had turned into basically tar... hard and crumbly. It's wild how we expect these machines to just run forever without giving them any maintenance. Kinda reminds me of how people treat their dryers or furnaces too, just run em until something breaks and then act surprised. A little bit of upkeep every few years and these things would last a lifetime instead of ending up in a landfill.

the_daniel1mo ago

Had a buddy this happened to with his old Hobart. He was making pizza dough on a Sunday night and his machine started squealing like a stuck pig. He let it cool down, then the next day he took the whole thing apart in his kitchen. Found the same dried up grease situation. @the_robin you're spot on about that tar like stuff. My friend spent like two hours scraping it all out with a screwdriver and a toothbrush. He ordered a tube of food grade grease online for like 8 bucks and put it all back together. That was maybe three years ago and his mixer is still running smooth. He said the hardest part was getting the gears lined up right when he put the housing back on. Had to watch a youtube video three times to get it right. But yeah, these things are tanks if you just give them a little love every now and then.

casey_barnes1mo ago

Just an fyi, most food grade grease isn't rated for gearboxes that get hot like that.