My Hobart 30 qt died yesterday. Found a Berkel 30 qt for a good price and it checked out clean with my technician but I’ve never used anything besides Hobart. Anyone using a Berkel Mixer now or in the past with some insight?
I use a 60qt Berkel mixer right now. They are serviced by Hobart now as they own the brand.
No real issues with it, it was missing a screw and thus leaking oil when i first bought it. But since we figured that out, no problems with it at all.
How long have you used it? And is your 1st gear on Berkel faster than 1st gear on the Hobart?
Berkel is a good mixer but not as good as Hobart
George Mills
I’ve never had experience with a Berkel Mixer, but if they are anything like their slicers, I would need to look elsewhere.
I have a Globe 20Qt which its only use has been for attaching a meat grinder head because the overload breaker always popped when I was trying to mix a dry spice mix in it which should have been an easy task.
Don’t be afraid to take a look at a Spiral mixer for your dough, I was very weary of using one because I had no experience with them, now I am where I’d never consider using a planetary mixer for dough ever again.
Been around a year now since i bought it refurbished. Gearing is all right, 1st gear is about the same as a Hobart from what i remember. But 3rd gear is considerably slower, using the pelican head attachment is slower.
Thanks George. Can you reveal any past experiences you’ve had with Berkelmixers? I bought a PM 40 for $1,650 in San Francisco. Seems very strong and has a quiet motor. Does Hobart service Berkel mixers by the way?
Yeah I’d never buy a Berkel slicer, always heard bad reviews. Always had Hobart slicers and mixers. I was in a desperate situation to get a mixer asap as running a pizza place without one is brutal! Found 2 Hobart 30 qt for $2,800. After inspecting them, one had a pin missing for gear 1 so it would not work properly and that’s the gear for mixing dough. To the untrained eye, it worked fine but if you know how to inspect them, you can find the flaws easily. The other had a pin missing in gear 2 and gear 3. Tested the Berkel and it checked out clean. Half the price and delivered that afternoon in time to prep. Hoping for the best and getting it serviced next week just to make sure.
Sorry to be late answering.
I have little experience with Berkel mixers.
I understand that hobart will service them.
George Mills
Have you ever seen a mixer shut it self off while grating cheese? If so, what’s the issue?
My only guess is there may be an overload feature in the electrical system.
George Mills
As Mr. Mills has already mentioned, it is probably the thermal overload breaker, what brand of mixer??? Some are auto-reset, some are manual reset.
I would be curious to see what is causing the overload, I have seen bushings with no lube on them cause some major friction. Make sure you use a food-safe lubricant such as “Super Lube”
linky>>>> http://www.super-lube.com/food-grade-ezp-289.html
I prefer the tube of grease as opposed to the aerosol, pull out the shaft of the pelican head, and clean up the bushing and shaft, lube it, and see if that helps.
Meat grinder heads can also cause an overload if not properly lubed too, but they’ll typically get loud to let you know they want some lube.
I’ve seen cooks use pan release spray to lube things, and that garbage causes items to seize do to the thick gunk it turns into. Many a Hobart slicer carriage was made inoperable because of things like this.
My mixer did indeed shut off mysterisouly while making dough but never sauce after i got it. We traced it down to the missing screw.
What was happening was the missing screw was causing the oil to leak out of the compartment at the top that houses the drive motor. Once the oil level got low enough it would shut off. As the mixer runs the oil heats up and expands, thus when it was under no/little load the oil would not expand out the hole. But once it got to around 4 to 5 minutes depending on the consitancy of the dough it would start shutting off (the smoke coming out of the compartment from the oil insertion whole was the dead give away, that and the smell).
Since we fixed the missing screw, it stopped shutting off “randomly” because the oil level is high enough that the thermal protection doesn’t shut off the motor to protect itself.