Avoid A Big Mistake By Testing Your KitchenAid's Bowl Clearance

If you recently invested in a KitchenAid stand mixer, prepping to get ahead of some serious holiday baking, don't think you can just toss that baby on your countertop and start making cookie dough. You need to do one thing first. Likewise, if you've had a KitchenAid stand mixer for a while and feel like it's not working all that well, you might need to do the same thing. We're talking about testing your KitchnAid's bowl clearance or how much space is between the end of the mixer paddle and the bottom of the bowl. Too much space means uneven mixing; Too little could be a potential health hazard.

According to KitchenAid, testing your mixer's bowl clearance is easy. All you do is place your chosen attachment on the mixer, ensure the bowl is in place (just as it would be when mixing up a batch of brownies or some cookie dough), and then throw in a dime. Turn the mixer on and watch the coin. If the paddle doesn't touch the dime, it is too high. If the dime moves haphazardly or more than just a quarter-inch each time the paddle rotates, then the paddle is too low.

If you've tested your KitchenAid's bowl clearance and found it too high, realize that until you adjust the mixer, you'll have to do some extra stirring and bowl-scraping by hand to ensure all your ingredients are thoroughly mixed. However, if you tested the bowl clearance and found it too low, stop using your mixer until you can adjust the clearance. Otherwise, the mixer attachments could scrape the mixer bowl, damaging the mixer, or as some users have reported, the friction could leave metal shavings in your food.

Once you've tested your KitchenAid's bowl clearance, adjusting it is simple. Depending on the model, the mixer will either have a screw on the interior of the mixer body (facing toward the mixing bowl) or inside the hinge that tilts the mixer head backward. Wherever you find this screw, turn it left to raise the mixer head or right to lower the mixer head. Note that you may have to perform this test and adjustment each time you use a different attachment or if you decide to try out one of the many underutilized and genius ways to use your KitchenAid stand mixer.