Warning: My stand mixer almost caught fire from old grease

I was making a double batch of chocolate chip cookies last Saturday and about 5 minutes into mixing the dough I smelled something burning. At first I thought it was the oven preheating but then I saw smoke coming from the back of my KitchenAid. I shut it off real quick and unplugged it. Opened up the top cover and found this thick black crust of old grease that had dried up and was literally smoldering. Had to take the whole thing apart and clean it out with degreaser which took like 3 hours. Never even thought about maintaining the motor before. Has anyone else had their mixer overheat like that or am I just lucky?

3 comments

3 Comments

lily571mo ago

Oh man, I had this exact same thing happen with my old Kenmore mixer last year. I was making bread dough and it started smelling like burnt toast, then the motor just stopped working. I took it apart and found this hard, crusty grease that looked like tar. I used a can of electrical contact cleaner and a toothbrush to scrub it all off, then regreased the gears with food grade grease I ordered online. It took me a whole afternoon but the mixer runs quieter now than when I got it. Did you have to replace any parts or just clean it?

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taraross1mo ago

Respectfully, I see it differently. That tar-like gunk is usually just old grease that got hot and crusted up, and while cleaning it helps, it's often a sign the motor bearings are shot too. If the thing was smelling like burnt toast and just stopped, you probably got lucky just cleaning it, but I've seen plenty of motors that needed replacing after that smell.

river9521mo ago

@lily57 same here, took like 4 hours to clean all that crusty tar off my gearbox.