KitchenAid Professional 600 Mixer Review

Article by About Chef Austin Chef Austin 

 

 

 

If you're going to invest your hard-earned money on a new mixer, you'll want one to perfectly perform all of the tasks you ask of it, for years to come. However, not all mixers are created equally. Some mixers are better at kneading doughs, some mixers also transform into a multi-use appliance. At Everything Kitchens, we rigorously tested our top-selling mixers to find the perfect match for every cooking style. We literally got out our stopwatches and figuratively went through these mixers with a fine-tooth comb to see where each excels and where each could do better.

 


KitchenAid Professional 600 Mixer


 

Kitchen Aid Professional 600 Mixer Review

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Quick Specs: 575 Watt Motor | 6 Qt. Bowl | Weight: 31 lbs. | Height: 16.5" | 1-Year Warranty | 15+ Attachments Available 

Best For:

The power user and multi-tasker who needs lots of power and wants to do larger batches. Easier to work with the large open bowl lift design vs a tilt-head mixer. Compatible with the many attachments from KitchenAid to transform it into an ice cream maker to a vegetable spiralizer.

Pros:

  • Designed to Make More - Larger paddle, whisk, and dough hook with larger bowl makes bigger cooking jobs much easier and faster
  • Better For Bread - Much better for bread dough compared to KitchenAid Artisan tilt-head models. Make bigger batches with better kneading action with the large dough hook
  • Do More than Mixing - Extremely versatile, turn your KitchenAid into a multi-appliance with the meat grinder, spiralizer, or grain mill attachments.

Cons:

  • Imposing Presence - Very tall and heavy. Make sure you have enough clearance on your counter if you want to keep your mixer displayed in the kitchen
  • Big Tools Need Big Portions - Smaller batches do not mix well and are harder to make with large tools and a large bowl
  • Grab The Sponge - Mixing attachments are not dishwasher safe - hand wash only
  • Clean the Bowl First - The stainless steel mixing bowl takes quite a bit of cleaning to remove all of the food safe mechanical polish from the factory.

 

Design & Construction

The biggest difference you're going to see in the KitchenAid Professional 600 compared to the iconic Artisan is the bowl-lift design. Instead of tilting the mixer head back and forth, on the Professional, you simply load the bowl onto two arms that raise and lower with a lever. This makes it easier to add ingredients to your bowl and allow for a more powerful motor.  

 

KitchenAid Pro 600 Bowl Lift Mixer lifting

The bowl-lift design is very easy to use and gives you plenty of space to add ingredients.

Under the hood, you'll find a 575W motor, powerful enough to knead through 8 loaves worth of dough. If you were to put this much power into a tilt-head design mixer, it would shake and rattle so much it would eventually ruin the motor possibly damaging the mixer as well. The Professional 600 mixers also have an all-metal construction with steel gears. With all these hefty steel gears metal construct, the mixer weighs 31 pounds.

KitchenAid helps capture your cooking personality with over 18 colors of mixers. We've been using our white KitchenAid Pro mixer - it's a classic and stands out, like the way I cook. I love when my kitchen tools reflect my cooking style. You can get a fun and care-free Aqua Sky mixer if you're the type to bake beautifully decorated cupcakes or a more refined and subtle Onyx Black mixer for those making authentic Italian egg pasta from scratch. Whatever you love to cook, there is a perfect color of KitchenAid mixer to reflect who you are in the kitchen. 

On the front of the mixer underneath the silver logo'd cap is the attachment hub. This is my favorite feature about the KitchenAid Professional 600 mixer - the attachment hub allows you to utilize the powerful motor to power a slew of attachments which connect into it. Everything from pasta rollers and cutters to vegetable spiralizers can be attached to your mixer to make it a true multitasking machine. 

 

KitchenAid Pro 600 Mixer Speed Control

On the side, you'll see the speed control switch. Move the speed control switch forward to increase speed and backwards to decrease speed. The Professional 600 series has a slow-start function which gives a short delay before increasing speed to prevent food flying out onto your counter. 

 

Included Accessories

KitchenAid includes all the tools you need to for all your basic mixing task: the flat beater, PowerKnead Spiral dough hook, and wire whip. All of the tools are much larger than the KitchenAid Artisian's tools to accommodate the larger bowl.

 

KitchenAid Pro 600 Accessories

The flat beater is metal burnished beater blade. The all metal design means there is no coating on the blade which could chip off into your food, so the blade can last a long time when properly taken care of. 

 

KitchenAid Pro 600 Spiral Dough Hook & Artisan C Dough Hook

The Pro 600's Power Knead spiral dough hook is much larger and has a different shape designed to knead up to 14 cups of flour.

The PowerKnead Spiral dough hook, also burnished metal, is shaped differently than the Artisians' dough hook. It's designed to knead up to 14 cups of flour, this equates to 8.5 standard loaves of bread dough. This style dough hook can knead thick bread doughs like its air. 

The wire whip is very sturdy feeling and plenty large enough to whip multiple batches of meringue or whipped cream.

None of the tools are dishwasher safe, so hand wash only or it can corrode over time if it's continually washed improperly.

 

KitchenAid Pro 600 Stand Mixer Pouring Shield

The pour shield does come in handy when needing to add ingredients while using the Kitchenaid mixer.

The Professional 600 mixers sport a wider and larger bowl compared to the KitchenAid Artisan's 5qt bowl. The Pro's 6qt stainless steel bowl can handle recipes calling for up to 14 cups of flour. This equates to 8.5 standard loaves of bread dough or up to 13 dozen cookies at full capacity. If you enjoy making goodies and treats for your whole family and co-workers for the holidays or enjoy making artisan breads, this is the mixer series for you. 

Also included is a pouring shield. This tool sits on top of the mixing bowl and gives you a chute to more easily add in ingredients while mixing. 

 

Test Drive

The first thing I noticed is the Professional 600 has slower start function that the Artisan lacks.  When selecting your speed, there is a short delay from when you set the speed to when it starts up, then gradually climbs up to the set speed - this can prevent messes of flour flying all over your counter. 

To test the beater blade, we made my Great Aunt Rose's Chicago chocolate chip cookies, full of chocolate chips, oats, and corn flakes. The more powerful motor and larger bowl made it easier to make the cookies compared to the smaller KitchenAid Artisan. I have a much larger space to add ingredients when I can lower the bowl away from the mixer head and easily add the ingredients. You just do not get this much space with the smaller Artisan mixer.

The KitchenAid Professional 600 did a great job creaming butter and sugar together. The mixer evenly incorporated all ingredients with no unmixed streaks. There was no jumping around when adding the solid chocolate chips and oats thanks to it's hefty design. 

Kitchen Aid Professional 600 Mixer Mixing Cookie Dough

For the wire whip, we tested with two amounts of egg whites. When enough air is incorporated into egg whites, they become foamy and fluffy and can be used for meringue or souffle. If you've ever tried to do this by hand, you know how much of a workout it is. KitchenAid did a perfect job whipping 1/2 cup of egg whites into stiff-peaked meringue. The only thing KitchenAid Professional 600 couldn't do was whip 1/4 cup of egg whites, the whip was just a little to high from the bottom of the bowl. So if you're making smaller batches, the Pro's larger bowl won't do so well. KitchenAid does have a solution for this problem with a dedicated 3qt bowl for small recipes.

We tested the dough hook by making fresh pizza dough. Pizza dough is very sticky and is a pain to knead by hand. We did notice at first it was having some issues incorporating the ingredients.  Once all of the flour was added, the KitchenAid Professional 600 produced a stretchy dough ball and incorporated all of the ingredients leaving nothing sitting in the bottom of the bowl unmixed. The large dough hook requires a large amount of ingredients in the bowl to properly mix and knead.
 

Attachments

Transform your mixer into a juicer, meat grinder and more. The Professional is compatible with KitchenAid's attachments to really make your KitchenAid more than just a mixer. The Attachment Hub in front of the mixer can be loaded with one of the many attachments. Turn your mixer into a grain mill, ice cream maker, or vegetable spiralizer - There are over 15 attachments for your KitchenAid to will transform it into another appliance. If you want to grind meat or chop vegetables, you will get the smoothest experience from the KitchenAid Professional 600 with its more powerful 575W motor.

Be sure to double check the compatibility, there are certain attachments which have a version for the smaller Professional 600 or the larger bowl-lift series. 

Chef Austin's Final Thoughts

The Professional 600 Series powerful stand mixers are perfect for those who are serious about home baking and need to feed crowds of people. This is the KitchenAid for bigger batches. If you need to make triple batches of mashed potatoes, whip out meringues faster, or knead through pounds of bread dough, then do it all with the larger capacity, stronger KitchenAid Pro 600. Making cookies en masse for the holidays is easy with the bowl lift design and the powerful 575W motor makes it easy to mix through anything. Making smaller batches of bread doughs is probably the only thing the Pro 600 had issues with, but when I want to make bread, I'm making a lot of loaves anyway. The Professional 600 is a huge step up from the Artisan and would be perfect for those needing that extra mixing power and larger bowl capacity.

Need even more mixing strength? Or maybe a mixer with a smaller footprint? KitchenAid has bowl-lift mixers that pack up to 1.3 horsepower motors. We have mini mixers and from KitchenAid too. For a complete overview on what KitchenAid has to offer, check out our KitchenAid Stand Mixer Shopping Guide to find the one that fits your kitchen.  

 

Most Popular KitchenAid Pro 600 Colors

KitchenAid Pro 600 Shop Now Color Button-Empire Red KitchenAid Pro 600 Shop Now Color Button- Black KitchenAid Pro 600 Shop Now Color Button-Aqua Sky KitchenAid Pro 600 Shop Now Color Button-Copper Pearl

 

 

About Chef Austin

About the Author: 

Chef Austin Merath is Everything Kitchen's Culinary Wizard, Kitchen-Gadget Reviewer, and New-Product Tester. He studied under chefs in College of the Ozarks' Culinary Program. It's his job to make sure you choose the kitchen tools that are right for you by testing the best we have to offer. When not cooking, Austin is tinkering with computers or exploring the Ozarks with his wife Amy. Click here for his full bio.

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