Keep the glass bowl, you'll find you need two bowls more often than you realize, right now. If the old mixer is falling apart, just throw it in the trash, they can't fix it, and it cost them money to dispose of all the junk they get. Enjoy

cotehele - I only use the Zo for mixing/kneading - it replaces what my hands used to do. I used to slowly add the flour into the liquid ingredients, and beat the mixture by-hand using a Danish Dough Whisk, and using as many as 500-700 strokes to develop as much gluten as possible while the dough was in the bowl. This cut down on kneading time and made a finer bread. When making dough by hand, properly mixing the ingredients is an important step people tend to rush through and not do a good job. If a shaggy lump of dough is tossed on the counter for kneading, then there wasn't enough time spent incorporating the flour into the liquid ingredients, and not enough gluten was developed before beginning the kneading. When it comes to using the bread machine, I rarely allow the dough to rise in the bread machine, preferring to use a dough-rising bucket so I can make sure the dough doesn't over-proof. Dough doesn't tell time, and all the rises are according to time on the machines. Dough ACTUALLY rises based on the ambient temperature, humidity, amount of sugar/sweetener in the dough, and the strength of the yeast. A timed rise is just a good (or bad) guess. It's especially important when using 100% whole wheat flour to keep the dough to just UNDER "double" for the rise. Whole wheat doesn't have the extensibility bleached and unbleached flour does, so allowing the dough to rise to double is actually over-proofing it. If I'm not getting a good oven-spring, that means the dough was over-proofed during one or both of the rises and the yeast was spent before it hit the oven - which seems to happen when I leave the dough in the bread machine to rise. When I use the QUICK DOUGH cycle, I can have dough in about 30 minutes. This includes pre-heating, mixing and kneading. There is also an add-in beep (about 25-minutes into the cycle) so you can add raisins, multi-grain cereal, etc. Placing dough in a dough-rising bucket is a perfect little environment for it, normally taking anywhere from 20-45 minutes to rise (depending on the ambient temperature and the type of dough). I may decide to toss it in the refrigerator for a nice long, slow, cool rise to really develop the flavors. It's nice to have options. If using the BASIC DOUGH SETTING, it takes 67-minutes for 2 rises (45-minutes for the first, stir down, and 22-minutes for the second) for a total of 1:50 for the entire cycle. So I save a lot of time there. I can cut that time by 45-minutes to an hour. Not that speed is everything, it's not, unless you are trying to get out several recipes in a 5-hour bake-a-thon. I also never make less than 2 to 2-1/2+ pounds of dough at a time. I can make 2-3 small loaves, or divide the dough for 1 loaf, 6 sticky pecan rolls, and a pan of dinner rolls (or 6 hamburger buns, or 6 hot dog buns) - all from one recipe of dough. I can program my Zo, but I never have (I hate messing with electronics). I generally use the QUICK DOUGH setting - no rising in the bread machine. That's the nice thing about a Zo, you can use it however you like, personalize the cycles to suit your recipes, and use whatever cycle works out best for you. I have a friend who programs hers for specific breads she makes. She sells her breads, so she has using the Zo down to a fine art. Choose to use the dough cycles or bake the loaf in it. Different strokes, different folks. I do an overnight sponge for our "Everyday Bread", so the Quick Dough Cycle is perfect because most of the work was done overnight in the sponge. The flavors developed, the acidic kefir (or buttermilk) provide lactic acid to break down complex starches and irritating tannins in the wholegrain flour, and make the finished loaf easier to digest. Soaking also increases vitamin content and makes all the nutrients in grains more available. The sponge also makes the bread lighter in texture and color and I get a nice high rise not typical to loaves of 100% whole wheat bread when made with a fast mixing method associated with most of today's recipes and methods incorporated when using a bread machine. The Zo X-20 has a Sourdough cycle, but once again, it's timed and I'd never use it for rising the dough. All starters are different. Some are stronger than others, so 120-minutes for a rise may be too long, or not long enough. So for naturally-leavened breads, I use the bread machine for mixing and kneading, but never for the rise. -Grainlady

plumbly22, 1000kwh/month drop? Wow! That's the equivalent of running an electric dryer 8 hrs/day, every day of the month. For those estimates, I assume you must be doing a lot of laundry and heating water with electricity? Possibly a lot of hot loads, maybe even warm rinses?, and heated with electricity? I'm still not sure I can total 1000 kwh. It's definitely difficult to draw conclusions, and I can't compare, since your stated difference from the appliance change is 2-plus to 4 times my total electric use, and I have an electric dryer, 30 year old topload washer, electric stove, etc. Actually, water savings should be far easier to calculate than electric. Take the amount of the top load and subtract the amount of water in the frontload, and include all extra rinses, not just the wash amount. Probably about 20 gallons per load difference? (I have no idea.) Then multiply that by the number of loads you use. Then times the gallon rate for water.

What a great thread - I have the original white, lift bowl Model K 5A. And I have to confess that many times over the years I've been tempted by the siren call of those glorious cobalt, pistachio and and chrome machines. But I have a strong sentimental attachment to my Kitchen Aid and I still remember the day my husband and I purchased it. While waiting to have the tires changed on our 1971 Plymouth Duster we wandered across the parking lot to a Best Products store. He spied me eyeing the mixer and encouraged me to buy it. I thought it was too extravagant - we were living on one income and he still had 2 more years of med school. But we had been scrimping and watching every penny and DH was working in the lab on weekends so he bought it for me. I still have the receipt, I use it as a bookmark inside my Joy of Cooking. That was 11/20/1976 and I paid $164.89 for it. And it's also the first thing I look for when I check a bridal registry - it's my favorite gift. Maire