Hello James, first of all sorry for my bad english. Italian fan here, i've been watching your videos for a long time but until now I've never made a comment. My nationality oblige me to tell you that here in Italy we use 1 egg (roughly 70g) and a little spoon of olive oil every 100g of flower so I wasn't surpirsed your pasta was dry, if u can try the product with this recepe I think it would turn better. The penne shape disc it's ok but you will never get penne out of there simply cause of gravity. The fettuccine shape disc is more like a linguine shape. I don't really think the pasta maker is that bad for the price but the recipe is completely wrong. All that said, love your videos and keep up with your work, I'll be following you from the land of pasta and pizza for sure
There are several tricks to make it work better. Oil the die openings. Add more water till you see the right consistency. The amount depends on elevation and humidity. You need to play with it till you get a good texture.
He’s in Nevada so it’s very dry and low altitude. He definitely needed more liquid! I’ve lived all along the east coast and I’m always so amazed at how much location affects cooking ratios and recipes.
This. I have an old machine and oil is always needed. I was even cracking the die holder when it was too dry. Maybe this is a machine where you can't rely too heavily on recipes.
Just a note, the amount of moisture needed for pasta can vary depending on temperature, humidity and so on, this means you can't go strictly by recipe but may need more or less liquid, your extrusions look a bit dry so I would have added a touch more water to it until the extrusion is smooth.
And different brands of flour need different amount of water. I use Italian tipo 100 and this needs at least 10% more moistures (egg and water). Another tip is to send the first 10/15 millimetres back in the container as a rerun
This is 100% correct. I’ve had an earlier version of this machine. I use it to make ramen. The air conditioning in my house dries up the air. I always add an extra 10 grams of water.
@@TheDevnul when I do popcorn in my way to cheap machine there was a problem to get the salt stick to my popcorn. So I put some seasalt into my coffee grinder and made the salt into dust. This salt actually works quite well. Now I found another use for this salt dust. Add it to my flour in the machine. This means I don’t need much salt in my pastawater. And Yes. I’m a Swede. And we are salt dependent. Look into any test of Swedish candy. There are really salt liquorice in this. It’s us and the Danes who loves salt candy. But anyway. Salt dust added to your pasta is really an improvement of taste.
13:11 he says he had been using a scale. But from my experience you just gotta go by feel a little more than directions since even the humidity in your air can affect dough. And he lives in a dry climate so probably just needs more liquid in general.
I used to have a Ronco pasta maker and I used it to make macaroni and spaghetti. I used it a lot. I used it until the motor gave out. I love homemade pasta with that machine.
1. I'd let the penne pasta get really long. So it self straights due to the weight and then straighten it out on a cutting board and cut to size manually. Basically like the length you let the spaghetti and fettuccini get to. 2. More liquid and or as someone else mentioned, a little oil on the die. The tearing causing those ridges is from the pasta getting stuck to the die. So either too dry or too sticky. 4. 1/4" is about what I expect the wide side of fet to be(which is what that looked like). But that looks like its too thick on the thin dimension of the fet so when its cook it just looks like fat spaghetti.That could possibly also be caused by the pasta being too dry and/or sticky I suppose. Still, overall it looked very simple to use. Once you tweak it a bit I could see using that fairly often.
Echoing what everyone else in the comments said. The problem with following recipes strictly with baking is that the humidity of the air matters a lot (this is my objection to the use of kitchen scales in baking). You're in Vegas, which means that your flour is definitely dryer than the norm. It's best to watch the dough and get a sense of what consistency looks 'right', and drizzle water in slow until you get there. Some oil might help, as well. This is obviously something that it takes a bit of experience to get a feel for.
For anyone who is new to using one of these, here's a really useful tip for cleaning. Let the dough actually dry out in the dies, because then you can usually just tap the die on the countertop and the bits that are left in the die will usually just pop right out. If any bits still remain, you can use the cleaning tool to just lightly press against the opening and the remaining ones will easily drop out. The second thing is that dough consistency is key to success. You'll see in his last run for the linguini, he got the dough way too dry. To wet and things will clog up. Too dry and you'll overtax the motor and the die will become really hot during use, exactly as he noted. Follow the instructions they provide closely and you should be okay... but watch the mix as it's worked. You'll want to get small pea sized bits inside the machine. Also, when you first start extruding the pasta, the first few inches are always kind of defective looking till the auger that's feeding the dough into the die gets fully loaded with dough. So cut off those first few defective bits, turn off the machine, open the lid, and toss those first few inches back inside to get re-processed. One thing that you'll notice is that extruded pasta has rough edges compared to cut pasta. That's actually a good thing, because those rough edges are great for capturing sauces.
We've had the original version (it's the larger version that cost ~$300 back 8+ years ago). It's still going strong and we've got many different dies for it that we've bought over the years. A couple points for our machine: 1) Make sure that the egg/water mixes well with the flour 2) After the initial extrusion and backup step, we stop the machine (it's not worth the time for the small amount that may come out after). This is at roughly 9 min total 3) I shake the machine and tilt it foward to aid in the flour reaching the auger at the front. Opening the lid and pushing it by hand helps with clumps that form Overall, it's marvelous and we have had very few issues making pasta. If you are feeding more than 1 person, get the bigger unit. This one shown is great for single serve sizing.
I do have a funny story. Years ago, my M-I-L insisted her 2 daughters-in-law take turns fixing meals for the family when my husband's brother's family visited from out of state. I thought it would be fun to bring over my Popeil Pasta Maker for my turn. I made such a huge mess in her kitchen (she's a neat freak) that she never asked me to do that again. It was so worth what I paid for that machine!
FETTUCINE is generally a narrow pasta. Since you live in DRY Nevada you may need to adjust your liquid to flour ratio to get your pasta texture correct.
Fettuccine is a flat noodle. So it's thicker than spaghetti but it's flat. I think you're thinking of linguine which is about the same width as spaghetti but instead of being a round noodle it is a flatter noodle
If you have a KitchenAid mixer, you might want to try their pasta extruder attachment. That way you can mix and knead the dough with more control and then push it through a die in a similar manner as your machine.
I have an old Takka electric pasta machine that makes very good pasta. I just don't like cleaning it. I now use my KitchenAid mixer. I make the dough in the mixer, then attach an off brand pasta attachment to roll out the pasta sheet to the desired thickness and put the sheet in the spaghetti attachment to cut it. I use the flat sheet to make lasagna or ravioli. The attachment works great. Much easier to clean too.
@@brichter4669 I have the set of pasta rollers for my KitchenAid mixer and they do work very well. But, if you want to make macaroni and spaghetti, there's also an extruder. I just don't know if I will ever eat that much pasta.
The easiest way to clean the disks is to leave them out in the air and allow the pas t a to dry and harden. Then take a toothpick and poke out the dry bits
I used a way more expensive extruder like this at a restaurant I worked at years ago now and we were probably 50 to 100lbs of each type of pasta we had a day. We used semolina flour as well. The one we had did have brass inserts too. Also, I wanted to add if you noticed at 4:42 the pasta is coming out smoother and more uniform it is because the insert where the pasta is coming out from is getting hot. I don't know if you can get the attachment for this one. Still, there is an attachment we had where if we were making rigatoni noodles it was a blade that was spinning around and that we could set the speed to and it would cut the pasta for you while you are working the sauté station or something. Pasta maker La Fattorina is pretty much the exact one we used if you want to google it.
Looks like a decent deal for the price. My husband just got me a kitchen aid and the pasta maker attachment, I’m in love. Just made homemade egg noodles and saved so much time
Hello Herr Fraken, James if you prefer (I'm also a Jamesian) Back in the 1970s a close friend of mine had a machine very similar to this one. To help out I would do a lot of the cooking and I remember both of us wrasslin with this mechanical demon. Your testing brought back unpleasant memories of our results half a century ago. Acceptable but thin spaghetti, much too thin and curley tublets and fetucininininini. Also it was a pain in the tuchus to clean. Some things never change. Thanks for this drag down memory lane Jacques Mexico retired....
My mom used to make her own pasta and sauce (think pot of tomatoes simmering all day). She would have pasta laying all over the kitchen to dry. Chairs, cupboard doors, counters, you name it. Pasta was everywhere.😂
I’ll say these comments are very helpful with this machine! I’ve never made pasta homemade but have always been interested in it. And I’ve come to learn that pasta making is truly an art. It takes a lot of trial and error to perfect your recipe for sure
Depending on the flour you use it might need more or less liquid. Some flour needs more liquid and some flour needs less liquid. They absorb the water differently so when making products with flour the gluten formation is affected by the protein content and the amount of liquid you use. It's difficult to recognize how much water is needed unless you have the eye for it after making bread or using flour enough times. It also helps to use one brand and then learn how much water it needs to be to get a certain outcome. Otherwise it can come out dry or it might not form correctly. Suggested dough hydration for pasta is 42%. That's 420g of water per 1000g of flour. Adjust according to recipes. Edit: seems like the recipe shows a 40% hydration, 80g(liquid) / 200g flour. Too dry. Edit2: Semolina flour hydration in the recipe is at 37.5% it's dryer because semolina needs less water. but I think it's still too dry for this machine.
hi one of the reason for the "riges" isn't really the reciepie, it's the extrusion trough a plastic dye, there is too much friction and it breaks up the pasta surface, industrial dyes are made out of bronze to combat that exact issue =)
I have a Phillips with built in scale. You fill upp with free amount of flour, put on your lid and it tells you how much liquid to add. There are two settings. One for only water and one egg noodles. I read about the trick adding olive oil to your dough and oil the nozzle. Never tried this. But will definitely do it next time I make pasta
I have an older version of the Philips pasta maker and love it. My older version looks to be better built than this current version. Mine also came with more selections of pasta shapes. A good tip is to take the first rough looking pasta that comes out and relend it back into the machine. Also exact measurement is important.
For those of you saying that the dough is too dry, these machines can’t handle a much wetter dough. Generally, extruded pasta is much less hydrated than hand rolled pasta. Anything much wetter than the texture of sand will come out gummy or be too firm to go through the extruder and it will automatically turn off to not burn out the motor. That being said, when I make Asian noodles like ramen, udon, somen, or soba, I do use different flours and I let the dough hydrate a for like 10 minutes before I extrude. I then extrude the doughy once, chop the noodles into 1/4 inch pieces and then put them back in the machine to mix and extrude again. This makes for a much bouncier texture seen in some Asian noodles. I don’t know if this technique is necessary for Italian pasta, since I did buy my machine for Asian noodles primarily.
Reminds me of the Ronco Pasta Maker from 20 years ago. It looks like you could have used a bit more water in every recipe because the pasta looked to be too dry as they came out and gave it that weird crumbly looking texture.
As many comments said, it needs adjusting, making pasta is an art and just like any automatic machine and recipe, it's always going to need adjusting and a learning curve. If you do notice that your pasta stick together while cooking, you can actually let it dry out naturally just by letting it sit for a little bit on the counter. Flouring the sticky pasta would just change the ratio and that's not what you want. P.S. True italians know that semolina is what you use to roll pizza dough over because it gives it texture and no ap flour taste :).
I have the old Ronco or Popeil or whatever one. It's right here in the box, but I haven't used it in years. The pasta came out okay when I used it and tasted better than store bought dry pasta (my recipe called for salt too) and it's novel, but going through all that to make something I can buy in the store for a buck or two seemed over the top. Maybe I'll break it out again now that you inspired me!
I’ve been watching your videos for a very long time a very long time. You didn’t used to repeat things as frequently but lately you’ve been repeating yourself nearly 4 times a minute, 4 times a minute. Keep up the great work James
@@mrmurphy172 Based on the Italians in the shorts that I've watched, the pasta being pale is the correct color. The darker yellow pasta is lower quality. Dunno how accurate that is but I'm gonna trust the Italians from Italy.
@@Igmusthe color shows the quality when buying pasta from the grocery store. And what it shows is how it's produced. How quick it's dried, how quick it passed through the nozzle and if your nozzle is bronze or not. And the main rule is the paler the better. A pale pasta is better to absorb your sauce and leaves more starch in the water. In this case there is a dough containing egg and in the last recipe semolina flour. This leaves you with a yellow coloured pasta.
I'm not an Italian granny, but there are two steps I always do when making homemade pasta that they don't do, and I wonder how much of an effect that would have on the final product. One: I knead my pasta until it's smooth and elastic. Two: I then rest my dough for at least 20 minutes. I use attachments to my Kitchenaid mixer to shape it. As others have said, their recipe seems to call for less liquid than I'd expect for good pasta. Id be interested in seeing you test this again with a different recipe.
I've had a machine like this for years. I've always used a combination of all-purpose flour and pasta flour, and I had to get used to the cooking time difference between what comes out of the machine and dry pasta. Since it uses plastic discs, it didn't surprise me that the pasta sometimes comes out a little rough. When dealing with flour in recipes, sometimes you need less or more liquid.
The recipe was definitely the culprit. With pasta and breads, it's all about the feel of the dough, which is why you see most chefs make a well and add flour a little at a time. Depending on the moisture in your environment, some flous is more hydrated than others. I typically start out with 2/3 rds the liquid a recipe calls for and then go by feel. With a machine, that is almost impossible unless you learn your environment and flour hydration. Keep experimenting and I bet that machine will work wonders for you
In Italy, they made a law that only Durum wheat flour can be used for pasta making. My bread teacher says that not all flours are the same, even if they’re the same type. They vary from one brand to another in how much liquid they will absorb. When you find the right combo, stick with those brands.
Not sure if your instructions said to soak the die in hot water, but the one I have does. I also let the dough dry in the die dry out and it sorta pops out if you bang it on the counter. Then use a toothpick if anything is left. A splash of olive oil couldn't hurt
Heating up the die is pretty useless for plastic dies. They cool down faster than the dough gets ready to be extruded. It is crucial for bronze dies, though.
not only does it work better it also helps dry the pasta a bit , as some noodles will melt in hot water if they are not dried first. this is why in Italian households , pasta making is a whole day activity. make and dry then cook. Grew up in an Italian household , i remember this all too well.
Try using the 60g water then add egg and teaspoon of olive oil to the 200g flour. Due to flour can need more water, run machine. If to dry turn off and 1 teaspoon more water and let remix. Some flour can be more dry than others and always us room temperature flours.😊
The extruder dies has a hard time at the start because they get clogged by dry flour that dropped in during initial mixing. Speed "picks up" once all of that flour has been purged. Ideally, you'd have a high-flow nozzle (perhaps the penne one without the inner die) to run the whole batch through quickly to purge the extruder of poorly mixed product, then put the whole batch back in for re-mix and re-extrusion for more uniform result without the batch uniformity problems. Your flour may have been drier than what was used to establish recipe proportions. If you have 4g less moisture in your flour, you end up with 4g more flour and 4g less water than the 75-80g of add-on liquids was intended for. If you try double-extrusion, you will need a few extra grams to offset evaporation between the two passes too.
I love homemade pasta and really used my machines. I owned 3 different pasta makers in the past (been awhile), and the plastic parts break pretty easy.
The ridges on that linguine are gonna hold sauce real good. As long as the texture is good and the waste isn't too bad, I think it's a winner. The "penne" is really just large macaroni, which is wonderful because I love to make goulash.
To get the dough out of the little holes, let it dry and then take the white cutting tool that has two metal sticks on both ends of it. One is wider that the other. Using the right size stick poke the dry dough out. You can also use a toothpick or a plastic dental floss tool that looks like slingshot. Hope this helps.
They only give you three shaping discs? I bought a Pasta Express pasta maker like that about 30 years ago and it came with eleven different shaping discs. (and you could upgrade it to twenty three total.)
Yeah I think with pasta, it's tricky to just follow a recipe especially when it comes to liquid. With all three, it seems like it needed more liquid. That said, those craggy edges are wonderful for making the sauce adhere ❤️ this is REALLY making me want to buy it 😂❤
I love all the great suggestions in the comments. I hope James took some notes to try with his follow-up uses that we’ll hear about when he does the update video for this one.
I've had one of these little machines for years. The best way to get faster extrusions and more uniformity, is to put the die in hot water with a little oil in it before you make the pasta. Also, as far as cleaning out the die.... If you put it in the freezer until it's hard frozen and then smack it on the counter top, all the little pieces of dough will pop out
It's so easy to clean the shaping disks. Just toss them in the freezer then hit them on the counter. The frozen left overs just fall. Other way os leave them dirty for 24 hours, the residue will dry and fall off, then you wash.
I would say the semolina flour is more traditional and does make a better pasta. I would be curious how the Emeril Ligase pasta maker really does. It looked pretty good on the infomercial when I saw it a while back ago. I don't recall what all types of pasta shapes it does though. Maybe try and locate one and do that as a comparison video?
Yeah i definitely think more moisture is needed for the pasta dough. Also i think the die for Fettuccine was purposely compromised to allow the machine to make more of it at once, resulting in smaller pasta.
I have a more premium version they make with more dies and it automatically weighs the ingredients etc and it's superb. Sometimes the first few pieces a little dry so break them off and just pop them back in the machine and they'll remix.
FYI, don’t try to wash the discs. Leave some of the dough attached and let it dry out overnight. You can pop the dough out and it should take out most of the other little bits and pieces with it. You can then use the brush to clean whatever is left. I would only wash your discs after you’ve gotten the dough off them. This process makes the cleaning much easier!
The main thing you learn when using these machines is that with the first bit of pasta that comes out poorly is to take it and toss that bit back into the machine to be reformed so there's no waste.
Wow, only 3 dies in this model? I have an old Ronco pasta machine, and it came with 18 different dies, I think. This is made very similarly. I remember they suggested letting the dough dry (or put in the freezer for a short time) and it will just fall off the parts and then you can easily wash it. Unless you really enjoy making your own pasta or have allergies & need or want to make specialty pasta, it's easier just to buy it.
Eh.. I dunno. This thing looks pretty solid to me actually. It's very similar to the Ron Popiel pasta maker that was around when I was a little kid. Like you said, I think it just depends more on the pasta recipe.
I find that if you mix it the 3 min. Stop the machine and let the dough rest for 15-20 minutes. Then set the machine to auto and let it mix then extrude. This avoids the dry crumbly edges.
I live in the sam dry climate like your's... and I 'always' have to add extra liquid. Seems like the pasta was too dry. I would try it again with a little extra liquid or olive oil. Also, yes, you do need to use semolina four (or 0.0 flour). :)
As @bm1co said, pasta is a very exacting yet vague process. How has your flour need stored? Has it absorbed moisture or dried out? What kind of flour did you use (there are a lot) and is it American or European which are completely different . What about your water? The water in different areas has different chemicals in it an can change to pasta. You will never just dump the ingredients in and get good pasta. You will have to work to get the right combo. But when you do! The machine really need an extrude button. Keep it mixing as you watch and you can adjust the mixture if it looks to wet or dry before it started extruding.
I use my old Ronco (?) machine for gluten-free pasta, and it works great. It tastes so much better than store-bought chickpea,...pasta that's also *very* expensive. If we weren't gluten free (celiac), we'd probably just buy dry pasta and call it a day. 🤷♀️
I watched this video with the idea of buying one of these machines because my friends and I get together once a year for Noodle Day. We make egg noodles and use an attachment for my Kitchen Aid mixer to flatten and cut into shape (spaghetti or fettuccine). After watching your review, I'll be staying with how we make it. Sometimes simple is better. Thanks for saving me some money and disappointment.
I bought the very first model pasta maker from Philips in 2016. It looks sturdier and better than this model. And it works very well. In addition to pasta, I also make noodles and lasagna sheets in it. Top device. From Dutch company.
You have the patience of Jobe to make four batches for us to see..... would you say it makes enough for a family of four or would 2 batches have to be run? Thanks for all your reviews James, very helpful. 👍😎
It's possible that if the dough is too moist it may strain the motor to extrude it. Sure adding oil and or water would help the dough but it may strain the motor and burn it out
Hello James, first of all sorry for my bad english.
Italian fan here, i've been watching your videos for a long time but until now I've never made a comment.
My nationality oblige me to tell you that here in Italy we use 1 egg (roughly 70g) and a little spoon of olive oil every 100g of flower so I wasn't surpirsed your pasta was dry, if u can try the product with this recepe I think it would turn better.
The penne shape disc it's ok but you will never get penne out of there simply cause of gravity.
The fettuccine shape disc is more like a linguine shape.
I don't really think the pasta maker is that bad for the price but the recipe is completely wrong.
All that said, love your videos and keep up with your work, I'll be following you from the land of pasta and pizza for sure
Your English is better than a lot of English speakers haha!!
I really hope he sees this comment and tries it in the next video!
@@Naz_Nomadunfortunately this is true. Too many butcher our language these days.
@@ericmendenhall2867 Who you a speakada about?
Your English is much better than my Itaian. Best wishes to the land of pasta and pizza.
There are several tricks to make it work better. Oil the die openings. Add more water till you see the right consistency. The amount depends on elevation and humidity. You need to play with it till you get a good texture.
He’s in Nevada so it’s very dry and low altitude. He definitely needed more liquid! I’ve lived all along the east coast and I’m always so amazed at how much location affects cooking ratios and recipes.
This. I have an old machine and oil is always needed. I was even cracking the die holder when it was too dry. Maybe this is a machine where you can't rely too heavily on recipes.
You can also re use the pasta cant you? If the batch comes out dry you can throw it back in and add water?
@@Pulstar232 yes, you can! It’s just three ingredients luckily so you can absolutely do that with the raw dough.
@@Pulstar232i do this all the time until I get a good result
Yeah I think we're gonna need a part 2 to this.
I think a wetter dough would extrude out better, maybe add a touch of olive oil instead of just water.
Just a note, the amount of moisture needed for pasta can vary depending on temperature, humidity and so on, this means you can't go strictly by recipe but may need more or less liquid, your extrusions look a bit dry so I would have added a touch more water to it until the extrusion is smooth.
And different brands of flour need different amount of water. I use Italian tipo 100 and this needs at least 10% more moistures (egg and water).
Another tip is to send the first 10/15 millimetres back in the container as a rerun
This is 100% correct.
I’ve had an earlier version of this machine. I use it to make ramen.
The air conditioning in my house dries up the air. I always add an extra 10 grams of water.
@@TheDevnul when I do popcorn in my way to cheap machine there was a problem to get the salt stick to my popcorn. So I put some seasalt into my coffee grinder and made the salt into dust. This salt actually works quite well. Now I found another use for this salt dust. Add it to my flour in the machine. This means I don’t need much salt in my pastawater. And Yes. I’m a Swede. And we are salt dependent. Look into any test of Swedish candy. There are really salt liquorice in this. It’s us and the Danes who loves salt candy.
But anyway. Salt dust added to your pasta is really an improvement of taste.
I think you need to weigh the egg mixture, not measure cup it. The mixture is too dry.
I was thinking the same thing.
It's the wrong type of flour anyway. Doubt that flimsy machine can handle pasta semolina. 🤷♂
13:11 he says he had been using a scale. But from my experience you just gotta go by feel a little more than directions since even the humidity in your air can affect dough. And he lives in a dry climate so probably just needs more liquid in general.
I came to say this....after merely watching the previews. DOUGH IS TOO DRYYYY.
After the dough is made it needs to sit to give the flour time to hydrate before shaping
I used to have a Ronco pasta maker and I used it to make macaroni and spaghetti. I used it a lot. I used it until the motor gave out. I love homemade pasta with that machine.
I wondered how it compared with the Ronco. That was a temptation I resisted with difficulty.
I used to watch those infomercials way more than I should admit to. ☺️
I miss my ronco products.
1. I'd let the penne pasta get really long. So it self straights due to the weight and then straighten it out on a cutting board and cut to size manually. Basically like the length you let the spaghetti and fettuccini get to.
2. More liquid and or as someone else mentioned, a little oil on the die. The tearing causing those ridges is from the pasta getting stuck to the die. So either too dry or too sticky.
4. 1/4" is about what I expect the wide side of fet to be(which is what that looked like). But that looks like its too thick on the thin dimension of the fet so when its cook it just looks like fat spaghetti.That could possibly also be caused by the pasta being too dry and/or sticky I suppose.
Still, overall it looked very simple to use. Once you tweak it a bit I could see using that fairly often.
Echoing what everyone else in the comments said. The problem with following recipes strictly with baking is that the humidity of the air matters a lot (this is my objection to the use of kitchen scales in baking). You're in Vegas, which means that your flour is definitely dryer than the norm. It's best to watch the dough and get a sense of what consistency looks 'right', and drizzle water in slow until you get there. Some oil might help, as well. This is obviously something that it takes a bit of experience to get a feel for.
For anyone who is new to using one of these, here's a really useful tip for cleaning. Let the dough actually dry out in the dies, because then you can usually just tap the die on the countertop and the bits that are left in the die will usually just pop right out. If any bits still remain, you can use the cleaning tool to just lightly press against the opening and the remaining ones will easily drop out.
The second thing is that dough consistency is key to success. You'll see in his last run for the linguini, he got the dough way too dry. To wet and things will clog up. Too dry and you'll overtax the motor and the die will become really hot during use, exactly as he noted. Follow the instructions they provide closely and you should be okay... but watch the mix as it's worked. You'll want to get small pea sized bits inside the machine. Also, when you first start extruding the pasta, the first few inches are always kind of defective looking till the auger that's feeding the dough into the die gets fully loaded with dough. So cut off those first few defective bits, turn off the machine, open the lid, and toss those first few inches back inside to get re-processed.
One thing that you'll notice is that extruded pasta has rough edges compared to cut pasta. That's actually a good thing, because those rough edges are great for capturing sauces.
Thanks for that reply. I've been watching and wondering if the rough edges were a bug or a feature.
We've had the original version (it's the larger version that cost ~$300 back 8+ years ago). It's still going strong and we've got many different dies for it that we've bought over the years. A couple points for our machine:
1) Make sure that the egg/water mixes well with the flour
2) After the initial extrusion and backup step, we stop the machine (it's not worth the time for the small amount that may come out after). This is at roughly 9 min total
3) I shake the machine and tilt it foward to aid in the flour reaching the auger at the front. Opening the lid and pushing it by hand helps with clumps that form
Overall, it's marvelous and we have had very few issues making pasta. If you are feeding more than 1 person, get the bigger unit. This one shown is great for single serve sizing.
I do have a funny story. Years ago, my M-I-L insisted her 2 daughters-in-law take turns fixing meals for the family when my husband's brother's family visited from out of state. I thought it would be fun to bring over my Popeil Pasta Maker for my turn. I made such a huge mess in her kitchen (she's a neat freak) that she never asked me to do that again. It was so worth what I paid for that machine!
FETTUCINE is generally a narrow pasta. Since you live in DRY Nevada you may need to adjust your liquid to flour ratio to get your pasta texture correct.
Fettuccine is a flat noodle. So it's thicker than spaghetti but it's flat. I think you're thinking of linguine which is about the same width as spaghetti but instead of being a round noodle it is a flatter noodle
Yes, dryer areas need more liquid in doughs
Why did you capitalize the words FETTUCCINE and DRY??? 🥴
I like the notches on the pasta as they will grab the sause
If you have a KitchenAid mixer, you might want to try their pasta extruder attachment. That way you can mix and knead the dough with more control and then push it through a die in a similar manner as your machine.
Do you know if that attachment works on all KitchenAid mixers? I’d love to get one if I knew it was gonna work with it.
I have one of those and yes, it does work. In fact, my cousin just gave me some duck eggs and that will make really good egg noodles.
I have an old Takka electric pasta machine that makes very good pasta. I just don't like cleaning it. I now use my KitchenAid mixer. I make the dough in the mixer, then attach an off brand pasta attachment to roll out the pasta sheet to the desired thickness and put the sheet in the spaghetti attachment to cut it. I use the flat sheet to make lasagna or ravioli. The attachment works great. Much easier to clean too.
@@brichter4669 I have the set of pasta rollers for my KitchenAid mixer and they do work very well. But, if you want to make macaroni and spaghetti, there's also an extruder. I just don't know if I will ever eat that much pasta.
@@jenniferwellman5311 Yes all the attachments that use the hub will fit on all the Kitchenaid mixers.
The easiest way to clean the disks is to leave them out in the air and allow the pas t a to dry and harden. Then take a toothpick and poke out the dry bits
I used a way more expensive extruder like this at a restaurant I worked at years ago now and we were probably 50 to 100lbs of each type of pasta we had a day. We used semolina flour as well. The one we had did have brass inserts too. Also, I wanted to add if you noticed at 4:42 the pasta is coming out smoother and more uniform it is because the insert where the pasta is coming out from is getting hot. I don't know if you can get the attachment for this one. Still, there is an attachment we had where if we were making rigatoni noodles it was a blade that was spinning around and that we could set the speed to and it would cut the pasta for you while you are working the sauté station or something. Pasta maker La Fattorina is pretty much the exact one we used if you want to google it.
Looks like a decent deal for the price. My husband just got me a kitchen aid and the pasta maker attachment, I’m in love. Just made homemade egg noodles and saved so much time
Hello Herr Fraken, James if you prefer (I'm also a Jamesian) Back in the 1970s a close friend of mine had a machine very similar to this one. To help out I would do a lot of the cooking and I remember both of us wrasslin with this mechanical demon. Your testing brought back unpleasant memories of our results half a century ago. Acceptable but thin spaghetti, much too thin and curley tublets and fetucininininini. Also it was a pain in the tuchus to clean. Some things never change. Thanks for this drag down memory lane Jacques Mexico retired....
My mom used to make her own pasta and sauce (think pot of tomatoes simmering all day). She would have pasta laying all over the kitchen to dry. Chairs, cupboard doors, counters, you name it. Pasta was everywhere.😂
Who'd have ever thought there were so many home made pasta experts watching this channel
I have had mine for 30 years and I love it, kids love using and watching it just like you. It is oddly satisfying
I’ll say these comments are very helpful with this machine! I’ve never made pasta homemade but have always been interested in it. And I’ve come to learn that pasta making is truly an art. It takes a lot of trial and error to perfect your recipe for sure
Throw the first stuff back into bender - probably dry due to flour getting into extruder before liquid
I guess that is exactly what happens in big pasta factories. No dough gets wasted, everything is returned into the process.
was thinking same thing.
Depending on the flour you use it might need more or less liquid. Some flour needs more liquid and some flour needs less liquid. They absorb the water differently so when making products with flour the gluten formation is affected by the protein content and the amount of liquid you use. It's difficult to recognize how much water is needed unless you have the eye for it after making bread or using flour enough times. It also helps to use one brand and then learn how much water it needs to be to get a certain outcome. Otherwise it can come out dry or it might not form correctly.
Suggested dough hydration for pasta is 42%. That's 420g of water per 1000g of flour. Adjust according to recipes.
Edit: seems like the recipe shows a 40% hydration, 80g(liquid) / 200g flour. Too dry.
Edit2: Semolina flour hydration in the recipe is at 37.5% it's dryer because semolina needs less water. but I think it's still too dry for this machine.
hi one of the reason for the "riges" isn't really the reciepie, it's the extrusion trough a plastic dye, there is too much friction and it breaks up the pasta surface, industrial dyes are made out of bronze to combat that exact issue =)
I have a Phillips with built in scale. You fill upp with free amount of flour, put on your lid and it tells you how much liquid to add. There are two settings. One for only water and one egg noodles. I read about the trick adding olive oil to your dough and oil the nozzle. Never tried this. But will definitely do it next time I make pasta
Then you'll need to come back with a reply as to how it worked. Lol. Inquiring minds wanna know 😂
@ I will
I have an older version of the Philips pasta maker and love it. My older version looks to be better built than this current version. Mine also came with more selections of pasta shapes. A good tip is to take the first rough looking pasta that comes out and relend it back into the machine. Also exact measurement is important.
Italian grandmas may bill Philips for emergency room apoplectic breakdowns
I’ve had a pasta maker exactly like this for 30+ year, still works great.shows there’s no reason to change something simple that works
For those of you saying that the dough is too dry, these machines can’t handle a much wetter dough. Generally, extruded pasta is much less hydrated than hand rolled pasta. Anything much wetter than the texture of sand will come out gummy or be too firm to go through the extruder and it will automatically turn off to not burn out the motor.
That being said, when I make Asian noodles like ramen, udon, somen, or soba, I do use different flours and I let the dough hydrate a for like 10 minutes before I extrude. I then extrude the doughy once, chop the noodles into 1/4 inch pieces and then put them back in the machine to mix and extrude again. This makes for a much bouncier texture seen in some Asian noodles. I don’t know if this technique is necessary for Italian pasta, since I did buy my machine for Asian noodles primarily.
Reminds me of the Ronco Pasta Maker from 20 years ago. It looks like you could have used a bit more water in every recipe because the pasta looked to be too dry as they came out and gave it that weird crumbly looking texture.
As many comments said, it needs adjusting, making pasta is an art and just like any automatic machine and recipe, it's always going to need adjusting and a learning curve. If you do notice that your pasta stick together while cooking, you can actually let it dry out naturally just by letting it sit for a little bit on the counter. Flouring the sticky pasta would just change the ratio and that's not what you want.
P.S. True italians know that semolina is what you use to roll pizza dough over because it gives it texture and no ap flour taste :).
When we made hand made pasta noodles we alway stuck the noodles on hangers and let them dry hanging of the cupboard nobs.
I have the old Ronco or Popeil or whatever one. It's right here in the box, but I haven't used it in years. The pasta came out okay when I used it and tasted better than store bought dry pasta (my recipe called for salt too) and it's novel, but going through all that to make something I can buy in the store for a buck or two seemed over the top. Maybe I'll break it out again now that you inspired me!
I’ve been watching your videos for a very long time a very long time. You didn’t used to repeat things as frequently but lately you’ve been repeating yourself nearly 4 times a minute, 4 times a minute. Keep up the great work James
I wish I didn't read this comment because now I can't stop noticing how often he repeats himself
@@mtndewhero Ive come back after a few years and I was like "Has he always been like this?"
I am glad that I was not the only one who noticed this continual repetition. Oh it's working..it's working now, she is working...
Not this bad. This video was hard ti watch. Over and over and over. Same words @@monkeyfeed908
I guess he didn't know what else to say. This review could have been 30 seconds long
Just from the previews alone I can see it's too dry lol.
Wrong color as well.
@@mrmurphy172 Based on the Italians in the shorts that I've watched, the pasta being pale is the correct color. The darker yellow pasta is lower quality. Dunno how accurate that is but I'm gonna trust the Italians from Italy.
@@Igmusthe color shows the quality when buying pasta from the grocery store. And what it shows is how it's produced. How quick it's dried, how quick it passed through the nozzle and if your nozzle is bronze or not.
And the main rule is the paler the better. A pale pasta is better to absorb your sauce and leaves more starch in the water.
In this case there is a dough containing egg and in the last recipe semolina flour. This leaves you with a yellow coloured pasta.
@@Taxi58thanks for the insight.
@ watching Vincenzo’s plate teaches you a lot
The penne pasta has a rougher texture on the outer surface. It looks like it could hold on to sauce well.
I'm not an Italian granny, but there are two steps I always do when making homemade pasta that they don't do, and I wonder how much of an effect that would have on the final product. One: I knead my pasta until it's smooth and elastic. Two: I then rest my dough for at least 20 minutes. I use attachments to my Kitchenaid mixer to shape it. As others have said, their recipe seems to call for less liquid than I'd expect for good pasta. Id be interested in seeing you test this again with a different recipe.
Had mine for years, tok a few attempts to get it right, now i cant live without it. So easy for a quick pasta meal
We have a more expensive model and we are quite pleased with it. A small learning curve, but once you get it, very satisfying.
I've had a machine like this for years. I've always used a combination of all-purpose flour and pasta flour, and I had to get used to the cooking time difference between what comes out of the machine and dry pasta.
Since it uses plastic discs, it didn't surprise me that the pasta sometimes comes out a little rough. When dealing with flour in recipes, sometimes you need less or more liquid.
The recipe was definitely the culprit. With pasta and breads, it's all about the feel of the dough, which is why you see most chefs make a well and add flour a little at a time. Depending on the moisture in your environment, some flous is more hydrated than others. I typically start out with 2/3 rds the liquid a recipe calls for and then go by feel. With a machine, that is almost impossible unless you learn your environment and flour hydration. Keep experimenting and I bet that machine will work wonders for you
In Italy, they made a law that only Durum wheat flour can be used for pasta making.
My bread teacher says that not all flours are the same, even if they’re the same type. They vary from one brand to another in how much liquid they will absorb. When you find the right combo, stick with those brands.
Take a drink every time the pasta maker starts and stops 🤣
I’m game, let’s go lol
Take a drink everything he repeats the same words over and over and over😅
We'd be toasted 😂
Can't you add the first bits back in the machine until the consistency is right?
Not sure if your instructions said to soak the die in hot water, but the one I have does. I also let the dough dry in the die dry out and it sorta pops out if you bang it on the counter. Then use a toothpick if anything is left. A splash of olive oil couldn't hurt
Heating up the die is pretty useless for plastic dies. They cool down faster than the dough gets ready to be extruded. It is crucial for bronze dies, though.
I like the fact that you always read the directions first!!!
I’ve seen other reviewers of appliances completely ignore directions. Their reviews are thus useless.
Hi, the disks works better when warm - so I throw the fist noodles back to the dough or warm the disk in hit water
Thanks for the tip! I have a more heavy duty version of this machine and will have to try that
not only does it work better it also helps dry the pasta a bit , as some noodles will melt in hot water if they are not dried first. this is why in Italian households , pasta making is a whole day activity. make and dry then cook. Grew up in an Italian household , i remember this all too well.
Did you use semolina flour? That is typically what is used for pasta noodles & can make a big difference. It has a different texture & consistency.
Try using the 60g water then add egg and teaspoon of olive oil to the 200g flour. Due to flour can need more water, run machine. If to dry turn off and 1 teaspoon more water and let remix. Some flour can be more dry than others and always us room temperature flours.😊
The extruder dies has a hard time at the start because they get clogged by dry flour that dropped in during initial mixing. Speed "picks up" once all of that flour has been purged.
Ideally, you'd have a high-flow nozzle (perhaps the penne one without the inner die) to run the whole batch through quickly to purge the extruder of poorly mixed product, then put the whole batch back in for re-mix and re-extrusion for more uniform result without the batch uniformity problems.
Your flour may have been drier than what was used to establish recipe proportions. If you have 4g less moisture in your flour, you end up with 4g more flour and 4g less water than the 75-80g of add-on liquids was intended for. If you try double-extrusion, you will need a few extra grams to offset evaporation between the two passes too.
The fettuccine looks like some kind of new breed of ocean creature LOL.
I was thinking Pasta...by Cthulu!
I was thinking, instead of Angel Hair, it’s Monster Hair pasta.
I love homemade pasta and really used my machines. I owned 3 different pasta makers in the past (been awhile), and the plastic parts break pretty easy.
I use the KitchenAid pasta roller and cutter attachment and have never had a problem making perfect Fettuccine and Spaghetti every time.
The ridges on that linguine are gonna hold sauce real good. As long as the texture is good and the waste isn't too bad, I think it's a winner.
The "penne" is really just large macaroni, which is wonderful because I love to make goulash.
My man's beard game is on point!
I use our stand mixer to make pasta, works fantastic
To get the dough out of the little holes, let it dry and then take the white cutting tool that has two metal sticks on both ends of it. One is wider that the other. Using the right size stick poke the dry dough out. You can also use a toothpick or a plastic dental floss tool that looks like slingshot. Hope this helps.
I bought one a couple of years ago and use it frequently. I bought several more plates too.
Looking forward to a followup video on this
They only give you three shaping discs? I bought a Pasta Express pasta maker like that about 30 years ago and it came with eleven different shaping discs. (and you could upgrade it to twenty three total.)
You said it was too narrow.. it can't come out any wider than the openings that are cut for it.
Yeah I think with pasta, it's tricky to just follow a recipe especially when it comes to liquid. With all three, it seems like it needed more liquid. That said, those craggy edges are wonderful for making the sauce adhere ❤️ this is REALLY making me want to buy it 😂❤
I Love Freakin' Reviews Videos 💗💗
I considered trying one of them, my daughter loves pasta and cooks it all the time but we use the dry stuff.
Could you throw the messed up part back into the mixer to be used
Can you check out ceiling fan filters? Do these things work? Thanks love the channel!
fettuccine is fairly narrow.
Shouldn't the dough rest before extruding?
Can you throw in the starting bit to remix with the rest of the dough?
Didn't Ronco have a similar machine in the 90s? Although the Ronco machine had a little lever attached to the machine to cut off the pasta.
I love all the great suggestions in the comments. I hope James took some notes to try with his follow-up uses that we’ll hear about when he does the update video for this one.
I've had one of these little machines for years. The best way to get faster extrusions and more uniformity, is to put the die in hot water with a little oil in it before you make the pasta. Also, as far as cleaning out the die.... If you put it in the freezer until it's hard frozen and then smack it on the counter top, all the little pieces of dough will pop out
If you soak it hot water, the penne will come out straighter.
It's so easy to clean the shaping disks. Just toss them in the freezer then hit them on the counter. The frozen left overs just fall. Other way os leave them dirty for 24 hours, the residue will dry and fall off, then you wash.
I would say the semolina flour is more traditional and does make a better pasta. I would be curious how the Emeril Ligase pasta maker really does. It looked pretty good on the infomercial when I saw it a while back ago. I don't recall what all types of pasta shapes it does though. Maybe try and locate one and do that as a comparison video?
I don't know what you're talking about it is so easy to clean this pasta machine I ever had
Yeah i definitely think more moisture is needed for the pasta dough. Also i think the die for Fettuccine was purposely compromised to allow the machine to make more of it at once, resulting in smaller pasta.
I have a more premium version they make with more dies and it automatically weighs the ingredients etc and it's superb. Sometimes the first few pieces a little dry so break them off and just pop them back in the machine and they'll remix.
FYI, don’t try to wash the discs. Leave some of the dough attached and let it dry out overnight. You can pop the dough out and it should take out most of the other little bits and pieces with it. You can then use the brush to clean whatever is left. I would only wash your discs after you’ve gotten the dough off them. This process makes the cleaning much easier!
The main thing you learn when using these machines is that with the first bit of pasta that comes out poorly is to take it and toss that bit back into the machine to be reformed so there's no waste.
Wow, only 3 dies in this model? I have an old Ronco pasta machine, and it came with 18 different dies, I think. This is made very similarly. I remember they suggested letting the dough dry (or put in the freezer for a short time) and it will just fall off the parts and then you can easily wash it. Unless you really enjoy making your own pasta or have allergies & need or want to make specialty pasta, it's easier just to buy it.
Eh.. I dunno. This thing looks pretty solid to me actually. It's very similar to the Ron Popiel pasta maker that was around when I was a little kid. Like you said, I think it just depends more on the pasta recipe.
The mixture seems to be off or not completely mized. It seems to shape the pasta fine.
I find that if you mix it the 3 min. Stop the machine and let the dough rest for 15-20 minutes. Then set the machine to auto and let it mix then extrude. This avoids the dry crumbly edges.
I live in the sam dry climate like your's... and I 'always' have to add extra liquid. Seems like the pasta was too dry. I would try it again with a little extra liquid or olive oil. Also, yes, you do need to use semolina four (or 0.0 flour). :)
My favorite pasta video James did was the “Pasta & More”
I've been eyeing this for almost a decade now, but never pulled the trigger. Cleaning and durability are my concerns that owners actually experience
As @bm1co said, pasta is a very exacting yet vague process. How has your flour need stored? Has it absorbed moisture or dried out? What kind of flour did you use (there are a lot) and is it American or European which are completely different . What about your water? The water in different areas has different chemicals in it an can change to pasta. You will never just dump the ingredients in and get good pasta. You will have to work to get the right combo. But when you do! The machine really need an extrude button. Keep it mixing as you watch and you can adjust the mixture if it looks to wet or dry before it started extruding.
I use my old Ronco (?) machine for gluten-free pasta, and it works great. It tastes so much better than store-bought chickpea,...pasta that's also *very* expensive.
If we weren't gluten free (celiac), we'd probably just buy dry pasta and call it a day. 🤷♀️
it will be good for making those high protein lentil etc pastas that are usually quite expensive
it looks good.might thave to tinker with it.but i might as well buy the speggeti or what i wants for 89 up to 3 dollars at walmart.good vid.
It seems like a pretty good machine at that price, after dialing in the hydration for your dough.
Great review as always. Something to note, flour is abrasive and will quickly wear out the screw and die. You want metal parts for making pasta.
I watched this video with the idea of buying one of these machines because my friends and I get together once a year for Noodle Day. We make egg noodles and use an attachment for my Kitchen Aid mixer to flatten and cut into shape (spaghetti or fettuccine). After watching your review, I'll be staying with how we make it. Sometimes simple is better. Thanks for saving me some money and disappointment.
Curious does it do soba noodles with buckwheat
I have this machine an only like it for angel hair pasta and it is to die for! Nothing like creamy homemade pasta
I bought the very first model pasta maker from Philips in 2016. It looks sturdier and better than this model. And it works very well. In addition to pasta, I also make noodles and lasagna sheets in it.
Top device. From Dutch company.
You have the patience of Jobe to make four batches for us to see..... would you say it makes enough for a family of four or would 2 batches have to be run? Thanks for all your reviews James, very helpful. 👍😎
It's possible that if the dough is too moist it may strain the motor to extrude it. Sure adding oil and or water would help the dough but it may strain the motor and burn it out
Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. ✌️
You too. ✌️
You too 🙌🏻
Traeger kicked the boot but of course now is working
are any of the options low-carb? Any recipes for other flours?
There are variations in flour because its natural.
You need to get your eye in when adding liquids in bread and pasta/noodle making.