RIP Bamix... not all steel!

[DanielCoffey]

I just killed a perfectly good Bamix making household soap!

I had no idea but my specific Bamix had an aluminium cutterguard. A few seconds into blending a small batch of Coconut/KOH household soap I saw the grey streaks appearing in the soap. I took it out and the cutterguard went black before my eyes! Dead Bamix!

We have had it a good few years and I thought I would treat us to a brand new one for the kitchen and demote the old one to soap-making but I have been thwarted.

Does anyone have a specific Bamix model number that is all SS? This one is labelled M160 2006-11

 

[DeeAnna]

Don't use a Bamix for making soap regardless of what metal the bell is made of. It also has elastomer seals at the ends of the shaft that are not lye resistant. While this is a good point for use with food, it's not for soap. Use an inexpensive stick blender that doesn't have this type of sealed shaft -- Cuisinart, Hamilton Beach, etc.

 

[Zany_in_CO]

I'm sorry for your loss...

 

[DanielCoffey]

Cheers folks - the poor Bamix is looking so sad... grey and dull and smelly too!

At least it had a good life in the kitchen, most recently for grinding up rolled naked barley for making digestive biscuits.

 

[DanielCoffey]

Well well... looks like Bamix Customer Support are keen to help get it back on its feet.

Apparently while all current models of Bamix have Aluminium cutter guards, they used to do a special edition model and have some spare "chromed Aluminium" guards left and are shipping me one right now.

The old guard comes off easily but has a left-handed thread which was why I couldn't work out how to remove it at first. I can see the rubberised seal you referred to, DeeAnna, and it looks a little chewed up physically from years of use. Lots of food gunk stuck down there too. Customer Services didn't mention anything about it not being suitable for use in lye.

 

[Rusti]

"chromed Aluminium"

Don't use that for anything but your food. Stainless steel only, ever, in your lye-based things. You will still stand a very good chance of ruining your soap, again.

DeeAnna knows her stuff. If she says don't use that brand ever, don't use that brand ever in your soap. Hit the store and find a stick blender you can dedicate to soap that's made of stainless steel!

 

[DeeAnna]

Rusti -- thanks for the vote of confidence, but I confess I had to learn this one the hard way by making a couple of batches of soap with my Bamix. The housing is no longer shiny, but it didn't get ruined. I'm sure the seals were also starting to be affected, but I think I figured out what was going on before they were destroyed. It still works fine for food, but I feel bad about being so stupid with such an expensive stick blender.

Daniel -- even though your new bell will be chrome plated, I still would not trust it in a lye solution. Any plating has some amount of surface defects that will allow chemicals like lye to penetrate to the underlying aluminum. Eventually the bell will have rough "pimples" all over from the inevitable corrosion.

As far as whether the seals are or are not suitable for lye .... well, I don't think I'd count on the typical customer service rep to really know that info. A stick blender isn't specifically designed for resistance to strong alkalis -- most foods are mildly alkaline to acidic -- and this will certainly affect the materials chosen for seals, if a SB'er happens to have a sealed shaft as the Bamix does.

Even tough I'm an engineer, I sometimes make stupid mistakes just like everyone else, and my abuse of my poor Bamix was one of those mistakes. I didn't realize there were seals on this SB'er. When the seals started to squeak and adhere slightly to the metal shaft after a couple of soap batches, I took the squeaking as a pretty strong indication that the seals were being affected by the lye. The ultimate proof would be to learn what material the seals are made from and confirm that this material is alkali safe, but by the time I realized this about the seals, the discoloration on the bell had already convinced me to get a cheap Hamilton Beach for soaping and save my Bamix for food.

But YMMV.

 

[cpjslater]

Well well... looks like Bamix Customer Support are keen to help get it back on its feet.

Apparently while all current models of Bamix have Aluminium cutter guards, they used to do a special edition model and have some spare "chromed Aluminium" guards left and are shipping me one right now.

The old guard comes off easily but has a left-handed thread which was why I couldn't work out how to remove it at first. I can see the rubberised seal you referred to, DeeAnna, and it looks a little chewed up physically from years of use. Lots of food gunk stuck down there too. Customer Services didn't mention anything about it not being suitable for use in lye.

Your really lucky Bamix UK wont help me on my broken one because it's over 10 years old