Stick blenders

[houseofwool]

I am in the market for a new stick blender. I have a Hamilton Beach that no matter what I do always leaves a little tiny bubbles in my soap. I'm tired of it. And I want to upgrade to something that has a longer shaft.

For those of you who are selling, what do you use and what have you found that you'd like or dislike?

 

[shunt2011]

I have a cuisnart with a stainless removable shaft and I love it. It's 3 years old and still going strong. I paid 20.00 for it at Costco. I do have a cheapie I bought at salvation army just in case it decides to quit as a spare.

 

[cmzaha]

I use this one and love it http://www.therdstore.com/page/IFSES/waring-mixer/WSB33. I always recommend using one with a stainless steel shaft and blade guard. When I started soapmaking I had a plastic sb, that I did not realize broke a piece of the guard in a batch of soap until I went to make another batch. To clarify it was about a year later that is sb broke and I was selling by then. Since I had no idea if the broken plastic was in the soap or not I ended up dumping a 5lb batch of shea soap. I am suspicious that over time the chemicals weakened the guard, do not really know, every since I only use stainless

 

[houseofwool]

Carolyn, when it says a 7" shaft, does that include the tapered coupling?

 

[newbie]

I have a Cuisinart stainless steel one, removable shaft (SO SO convenient) and it has an infinite dial setting for speed, not just 2 or 3 speeds. I love that as well. It's top heavy so it can easily fall over if you leave it standing up, so I just don't do that. THis is my third SB and the one I like the best of them all. It was $40 at Costco and came with a balloon whisk attachment and a couple measuring cups, tall, that the SB fits into, for small amounts. My others didn't have the removable shaft which meant having to be very careful when cleaning to not let water get into the housing. This set-up is much better and I can run the shaft through the DW. Worth the money, for me.

 

[cmzaha]

I would consider the Waring to have a 6.5" fixed shaft. I measured from the very beginning of the shiny section of the stainless shaft to the bottom of the blade guard

 

[navigator9]

I have a Cuisinart that no matter how much I burped it, leaves bubbles in my soap. In the middle of my busiest season, I was a little nervous that it might die in the middle of a batch, since I had no back up. So I went to Ocean State Job Lot to grab a cheap one, to have just in case. I paid $10 for it. I decided to test it out, just to make sure it worked. Well........no bubbles! Now the Cuisinart is my back up. lol The Cuisinart has holes in the bell, which to my way of thinking, would let the air out as you push it down into the soap batter, and yet, it makes bubbles. The cheap, little, no-name SB has no holes in the bell....works like a charm. Go figure!

 

[TVivian]

I have a stainless steel kitchen aid and I get bubbles (the tiny ones that mess up the wire cutting) with it. It's not a burping issue but about air traveling down the shaft to where the blades are. It's so annoying. I've been meaning to buy a new one, but for now I've alleviated the problem by not cleaning my SB entirely. Up behind the blades I leave soap to harden and it sort of makes a "dam" where the bubbles can't get out from the shaft. The best stick blender I've had was from Wal Mart. It was plastic but I never got bubbles .. I gave it away to a soap maker who needed one and I wish I'd kept it and gave them the more expensive one haha..

 

[houseofwool]

Part of what I am looking at is the shaft length, from the bottom of the bell to the bottom of the coupling. My current SB shaft is a measly 5.5". Now that I am scaling up my production, I need a longer shaft to reach further into the batter.

 

[kath4553]

I use this one and love it http://www.therdstore.com/page/IFSES/waring-mixer/WSB33. I always recommend using one with a stainless steel shaft and blade guard. When I started soapmaking I had a plastic sb, that I did not realize broke a piece of the guard in a batch of soap until I went to make another batch. To clarify it was about a year later that is sb broke and I was selling by then. Since I had no idea if the broken plastic was in the soap or not I ended up dumping a 5lb batch of shea soap. I am suspicious that over time the chemicals weakened the guard, do not really know, every since I only use stainless

I see you posted this three years ago, do you still love this and what about the bubble issue?

 

[Pinkie]

I'm also was looking for a new stick blender. I have used a Braun with 350 Watts for the last 15 years until I started getting bubbles in the soap. After looking around for a reasonably priced new one with more wattage than my old one, my partner recommended a Kennwood with 1000Watts. After reading critiques that the plastic inlay behind the blades trapped food particles and was hard to clean , I thought this would not be good for soap. He said higher Wattage is better because the blender will just get hot too quickly, and that the plastic inlay doesn't matter. After reading further reviews, it became known that the Kennwood, although 1000 Watts, was only designed for 50 seconds of use per 4 minutes!! This turned me off to it more.
But what do you all say? So far what I'm reading from these Forums is that more expensive is not necessarily better. But maybe some of you have experience with a high wattage, higher quality stick blender? Could you enlighten me? Thank you!

 

[amd]

This is an old thread. There are more recent discussions on stick blenders, and you may get more / better answers starting your own thread.