KitchenAid KPEXTA Stand-Mixer Pasta-Extruder Attachment

After reading all the reviews at least twice, we bought the KPEXTA. First, we have been making pasta at home since Pierce bought me a KitchenAid with every available attachment as a present in 1981. (Hint -- cook more from scratch??) Anyway, our first attempt at home made pasta using the grinder with pasta attachment was an unmitigated disaster -- and I did it in front of company! Slowly, we learned to use pasta flour, then straight semolina. We now use Spicy World Semolina, 2-Pound Bags (Pack of 6). Never happy with the pasta made with our meat grinder, we bought an Marcato Atlas Wellness 150 Pasta Maker, Stainless Steel and purchased dried extruded pasta in the supermarket. I hate to buy anything I can make at home, and I never seem to have macaroni on hand when we crave comfort food. So we bought the KPEXTA.So to the issues:18 reviewers of a total of 109 stated that the retaining ring broke on first use. Inadvertently, we may have solved this problem. When "fiddling" with the KPEXTA after opening the box, I noted that unless you follow the instructions on page 3 you are going to have a problem -- "place the press upside down on a counter or table ... aligning the cross shaped peg with the matching indentation inside. When correctly positioned the top of the auger will be flush with the opening." It was very easy to mis-align the auger, while still being able to add the plate, then tighten the ring. Having suffered the problems of alignment in most of my KitchenAid attachments, and as a consequence had to buy replacements, this may be a solution to the "breaking ring" problem. Don't know for sure, but ALIGN CAREFULLY!Then, to the problem of texture and taste.We use 1 pound of semolina, 2 egg yolks and four whole eggs plus I tbs olive oil to make pasta. AND SOME TRICKS!First, weigh all your ingredients! We love theTaylor Biggest Loser 6.6 Pounds Kitchen Scale with Glass Platform because I can put the KitchenAid bowl on the scale, hit tare in either grams or ounces and pour ingredients in -- and it's inexpensive and easier on batteries than any we have owned!Two: Autolyse! Mix the semolina eggs and oil with the paddle until you have a sticky mess. Leave it sit for 20 minutes, covered, to allow the flour to absorb liquid. Then knead with the dough hook for 5 minutes. Add 1 tsp salt (to help develop gluten) and kneed for another 5 minutes.Trick 3; (from Ideas in Food -- Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work Vacuum seal the dough and let it rest for 10 minutes. (Or, let rest an hour in a Zip-Lock bag.) You will note that a very hard, not very pliable dough as turned silky and malleable! Just right for the KPEXTA.Trick 4: Form lots of little balls, and drop one into the extruder at a time. If you must push the dough to the auger you are going too fast (or the balls are too big!) Read the instruction book and match your speed to the plate!Try Potato Chip pasta from "Ideas in Food". It works well too.I also recommend the pasta flour recipe from Making Artisan Pasta: How to Make a World of Handmade Noodles, Stuffed Pasta, Dumplings, and More. The trick is finding the taste you love in pasta, then autolyse, vacuum seal and make pasta. The author states that she does not like pasta extruders -- we think this is because the dough can get hot (changing texture and taste) while being extruded. But remember -- all macaroni and fusilli are extruded in a factory -- so you can do it at home. Just proceed slowly. If the dough chute feels hot, stop for a minute.After fighting with "meat grinder" pasta -- which isn't good (even though we love our KitchenAid meat grinder to make sausage), we are delighted with the quality of pasta the KPEXTA extrudes. I'm glad Pierce bought this great tool for me.

I purchased this unit through the warehouse deals. I will start off by saying I will never make the spaghetti in this extruder...the difference in the texture between traditional rolled pasta is just overwhelming. I was taught how to make pasta by Marcella Hazan (The Classic Italian Cookbook), she had a very funny way of comparing the two styles and I tell this story often. A student in the class asked the difference between extruded pasta and rolled pasta and she replied: "You live on the third floor of an apartment building, you want to get down to the street...you have two choices, take the stairs or jump out the window. They both get you to the street but in very different states, the extruder is jumping out the window".That being said ya just can't make hollow pasta without an extruder...I will agree that weighing the flour and measuring the eggs is a sure-fire way to get consistent results and I find my kitchen scale a crucial piece of equipment. I have watched every Youtube video on this extruder and with one exception of the one made by kitchenaid, the were ALL using a dough that was way too moist. Yes, it extrudes easier but you will notice that all of the hollow pastas they make collapse and don't hold the hollow round shape once extruded. If I think that the pasta is too dry, it's usually perfect. Moist enough just to hold together if I grab a fistful.Adding the pasta dough in small amounts and ensuring it goes through the auger before adding more avoids delays and backups.As far as flour, I use the King Arthur brand pasta blend or blend durum with all purpose flour and find that makes a huge difference in texture.I made the rigatoni for my first attempt. I used the basic recipe provided by the KA instruction book and added 2 ounces of finely chopped basil. I did not adjust the water in the recipe. It came out perfect and held it's shape nicely.I had to stop myself from pushing and then pulling the cutter through each pass...you pull it toward you for one cut, then wait for the pasta to extrude again and push it for the next cut.The unit was very easy to put together and i felt it was very easy to clean. I love the way the disc holder stores within the unit and unlike others I feel this unit is very well made.The booklet talks about resting the machine between batches...well I have the 1.3HP motor so no need for that here...one of the reasons I upgraded to the 6000 was because my Epicurean could not handle pasta dough or rye bread dough and this 6000 is a beast!I was grateful that each disc had the name of the pasta that it made on it as I wasn't sure which disc was for which pasta.I'm very pleased with the performance of this unit and the quality and would recommend it.