Chase, the one I'm looking at is compact so that's a plus, but cleaning does look to be a pain. I'm guessing all the parts could go in the dishwasher.

Not electric, but the Marcato 8320 Atlas is a manual on Amazon that has seven different attachments that you can buy separately for the different types of pasta. IIRC this brand has been recommended on here previously.

" I'm guessing all the parts could go in the dishwasher."

Maybe...but my experience is that extruders are a real PIA to clean.

We also use the Marcato Atlas. There is an attachment that we could buy for my KitchenAid mixer but we just use the Atlas.

I have two hand crank ones I never use. I have the Kitchen Aid roller and cutter and two stand mixers so handy to make and roll and cut the pasta. If I recall you do not put the Kitchen Aid attachements though the dishwasher , you brush them off I think. Same with the hand crank ones. I love the Kitchen Aid because it is much easier, I have shoulder problems and there is no way I can crank the other ones. I ued to do it all by hand, only make noodles and they are not the long, long ones, but mid to smallish in size and are dried over night on the table. Oh, it is not the extruder kind. I would not want one like you show us a picture of. My roller and cutter stores in it's own box. My mixers have a table of their own and are always out. I only use all purpose flour, no water, no oil, just eggs and the flour.

Sue

I had one years ago. I used it twice. The first time I didn't use special flour, which according to directions was optional. I carefully measured out the amounts, started it mixing, and the use the machine to slowly extruded the fettuccine noodles out through the die, and then hung them up to dry. It was about an hours work plus about an hours cleanup, for about a pound of pasta that when cooked was flabby and mushy.

I tried again later using special pasta flour. It was about the same amount of work and cleanup, and the pasta was somewhat better, but still not as good as you can get for a couple of bucks at a store.

I agree with bob. One of our favorite restaurants is an upscale Italian restaurant. One of their specialty dishes has in-house made fettuccine noodles. They have their act together whether by recipe or trial and error and the fettuccine has a nice consistency. But so too do all the other pastas they serve, always cooked to al dente and not more.

Taste-wise, pasta is pasta to me, they're all just the correct type of flour and water, I'm not sure what there is to add or subtract that would make a difference. Store-bought pasta from Italy, cooked properly, fills the bill for me. What the pasta is combined with matters much more.

Not all pasta is made with just flour and water, eggs are important in many, I do not put water at all in my noodle dough. Eggs, or egg yolks and flour and salt if you like.

Sue

I have a philips pasta maker. I use a scale to measure the flour. I do not clean the machine until the left over bits have dried some what, then it is easy to poke out of the dies. The machine parts are very non-stick, making cleaning easy. You can use any type of flour - even white bean as long as you add an egg to the water to give the dough some strength. Dried spice powder can be added to the flour to make pasta that is good to eat with butter.If you weigh the flour and put the egg in the provided cup first - then add the water or veg juice to the line marked on the cup, pasta comes out very nice.

I'm sure people use egg noodles for many different kinds of food but I don't think Italian dishes call for egg noodles very often. We use the standard imported flour and water kind at home and don't otherwise eat noodles. I've seen egg noodles in the store too, along with whole wheat noodes (which we've purchased a few times).

My main point was that I couldn't tell a taste or texture difference between what the restaurant made and what they bought. So why bother with the mess, which was why I said I agree with bob.

Sue is correct. The way one cleans a pasta roller/cutter machine is by brushing. If they get wet, they trap small amounts of water which cause rust over time. The chance of an egg being contaminated is 1 in 20,000 according to the egg board, but if you're worried about contaminating your machine you can pasteurize your eggs.

Extruders are a different animal. For that you really do need a pasta maker. Those should disassemble easily for cleaning, but it depends on the brand and your definition of "easy". Old fashioned brass dies are the best for flavor. They have tiny imperfections and grooves that lend fine texture to the surface of the pasta, which makes the sauce stick. Cheap extruders tend to be disappointing because of the way the disks are machined. They're smooth and so is the pasta. I suppose you could use a fine file to rough them up but I don't know if that would give you the right kind of not smooth. :)

I've heard a lot of good things about the roller/cutter attachment for the KitchenAid mixers, and they use them on TV cooking competitions and seem to make a good job of it. KA also has an extruder but I don't know how good it may or may not be.

I have a cheap Fantes hand crank machine. I have to make more pasta to upgrade. You can buy a motor attachment for the Atlas, as well as a few other better quality roller/cutters. You can probably get a plain old DIY type motor to work for a lot less money if you're handy that way, but the ones they sell are far more elegrant.

In general, fresh Italian pastas contain eggs. Dried tend to be just flours and water.

Yikes, I'll get myself an editor and proofreader to satisfy those who read with a microscope.

I know there's a difference between fresh and dried pasta. Is there not also a difference between "regular" pasta and egg noodles? I know from taste, texture and appearance that this fettuccine I mention is not a variety of egg noodles that I'm familiar with. Have I observed them making them - no. Could there be some egg in it for handling purposes? Yes. Enough to be a type of egg noodles - no I don't think so. And I'll stick with - pasta in Italian cooking isn't often egg noodles.

Some northern Italian pastas are made with eggs and other ingredients that are not used in the south. There are not many because pasta used to be dried for winter and eggs could cause problems. One of the regional differences that make food so interesting. Edited to add that at the small store that is near where the older Italians live they do sell pasta that has eggs as part of their ingredients from Italy. I have always found them interesting but the flour that they are dusted with imparts a look of being moldy. No mold taste and the flour disappears quickly.

I noticed the machine only listed three types of pasta extruders, "Includes shaping discs for spaghetti, penne and fettuccine". Which is fine if those are the ones you want but I think of extruded pasta as the types that can not be cut from a flat sheet and penne is the only one of those listed. I would research how much the other disks would cost if they actually make other disks.

I agree with Malfleur on the shapes. I'm sure those three are it because they're the most popular, and round spaghetti is nicer than square, but you need an extruder for tubes, and there are buccatini, ditallini, macaroni, ziti, just to name a few small hole tubes with different diameters inside and out. There may be additional dies available, but it's important to factor in the additional cost.

I've been making our own pasta for many years. I use a CTC Pasta Express that I've had for at least 15 years. It's an electric machine that mixes and extrudes the pasta. There are about 15 different dies that are included with the machine. I have spaghetti, angel hair, linguini, 3 different widths of fettuccini, rigatoni, 2 sizes of macaroni, lasagna, manicotti and a few others I can't think of!

It is very easy to use and has worked flawlessly for years. Unfortunately, they are no longer manufactured--BUT you can find them like new on Ebay. I just bought one for my brother as a gift, it arrived in perfect condition and looked brand new. The machine, with shipping, was about $70.00.

Here's a link for one currently available:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Pasta-Express-X2000-by-CTC-Pasta-Maker/192994984593?hash=item2cef65c291:g:cewAAOSwkpxdLSUe

It might seem strange to buy a used machine from Ebay, but I'd buy another in a heartbeat!

Edited to add: 1. It's not at all difficult to clean, although I don't put any of the parts in the dishwasher.

2. I use 2/3 semolina flour and 1/3 unbleached flour, and just 1 egg plus water.

When I make pasta i use 100g flour to an egg. But, I usually only make it for ravioli. My daughter finds home made pasta easier to digest than dried.

Do you already have a manual pasta maker that you use often? I think the electric would be a nice upgrade. I use an Atlas 150 myself but not very often. Mostly for sheets of pasta for ravioli. My family and I find a big difference in homemade vs. store bought pasta. I do use an egg in mine. I find rolling pasta to be very soothing, but then I like to cook.

I too have been making both pasta and egg noodles for a very long time. I use a hand crank - the Atlas Marcato Wellness. I make the dough in a food processor which takes me no longer than 5 minutes from adding the ingredients to forming a ball with my hands and wrapping it to let it rest. BTW, hand 'crank' is misleading as it sounds as if you are working hard. Nope. It's easy to run pasta through the hand crank. Kneading is done on the pasta machine at the thickest setting, 2-3 runs, then you begin making thinner and thinner dough, depending on what you are making. For 2 batches of dough, enough for 4 - 6 people or servings, it takes me a total of 15-20 minutes to knead, stretch, run through the cutters, and hang on my trees and chopsticks. It's fast and easy. The only additional time is the 30 minute rest (outside the fridge, never in), which I use for other things such as sauces, and to quickly set up my machine. On the Atlas, the cutters are just in front of the rollers, so I roll, then run through the cutter, swapping the crank handle to one then the other.

Plllog is correct, you do not wash pasta machines. They will rust at some point and clog your machine with dried glue-dough. Your dough should not require an extra dusting of flour when putting it through any machine, hand crank or electric. A simple soft pastry brush will dust off any small excess, while a soft cloth is used to rub away any smudges of olive oil. Waxed paper can be doubled and run through the cutters for best cleaning. No water is used to clean them. You should not have dough anywhere using these methods.

Egg noodles are wider and tend to have more egg in them. I add an egg yolk or two to my flour mixture and use only wheat flour, oil, water, and a bit of salt (you can go salt-free). You can add rice flour which will add to the stretch, though I almost never do. I add it only to potsticker doughs and such. Italian Pasta (my neighbor was from Sicily and very particular about pasta) uses a mixture of semolina flour, wheat flour, whole egg, oil, water, and a pinch of salt. I use less semolina than my neighbor did as I have a hard time with the dryer dough breaking off as it's drying. Both have eggs, it's the amount of egg.

Freshly made noodles require a slightly short cooking time. Otherwise, you dry your noodles (of whatever thickness and width your wish for your specific dishes) on chopsticks weighted and hanging over a counters, on pasta trees, or whatever you can make up. For egg noodles in chicken soup I will place them on a very lightly dusted flour cookie sheet - and once dried, dump the whole lot into a freezer bag, then add the whole lot to my stock - the small bit of extra flour tends to give a very slight body to the chicken and noodles stock. Otherwise, extra flour is not ever needed. One day drying is often sufficient. The noodles can then be places in a sealed bag and frozen. You boil them (egg or pasta noodles) from frozen, never thawing them or they will be gummy. If you choose to freeze, they still have the homemade taste and quality of fresh made noodles. Not like store bought. There is a difference. The different doughs have nothing to do with what part of the US you live in. I live in the South East. Dough differences have to do with preferences, or egg vs. Italian.

Many pastas are also hand formed. That is time-consuming, and a labor of love, but often worth it as they hold sauces nicely.

I'm no pasta machine snob, other than I don't want those nasty grayish streaks in my pasta (coming off poor quality metals). Electric or hand, either works fine. Both have various cutters. Whichever you get, enjoy! Adding beet juice, fresh herbs to the dough as you process or mix it adds lovely flavor when desired.

Using the Philips extruder in the OP is very different that rolling pasta. I both roll pasta and extrude it, and can't go back to store-bought pasta.

I only use eggs in pasta dough with rolled pasta. Extruded pasta is semolina and liquid only—no eggs otherwise the noodles cook up thick with a less-pleasant rubbery texture.

I have the Kitchenaid extruder mixer attachment and use it at least once a week. 330 grams of flour to 150 ml of water. I can mix up the liquid as well, for example, 120 ml of water and 30ml of squid ink makes a wonderfully black pasta that goes beautifully with shrimp, butter and garlic.

Extruding is quicker for me than rolling. Once the dough is together, there's no need to let it rest as one must for rolling. Cleaning the dies is a bit of a pain, but not too bad once you've gotten used to it.

I have an old Simac pasta machine, probably 30 years old. I use it about 6 times a year and I am very happy with it. It was made in Italy and uses brass dies. I have many die shapes, more than 10. You likely can find the machine on ebay as they are no longer made. Also, you likely can find additional die shapes on ebay. I also have a newer version manufactured about 15 years ago. It works fine but I like the older version better, I think it is better quality.

I find the best way to clean the machine is to take it apart immediately after use and allow all the parts to dry overnight. The next morning I chip off the dough, then put the pieces in the dishwasher (except the main machine, of course).

MJ

RE: cleaning the dies of an extruder type machine. I just let the dies sit for a day until the remaining dough is dried, then a sharp rap on the counter or sink--all of the dried dough falls out. Easy-peasy every time!

tvq1,

Exactly what I do, too!

MJ

Some of you are much more adventurous than me. This sounded like a potentially fun appliance. When I was a kid my mom made egg noodles. She'd hang them over the back of the kitchen chairs to dry. I wouldn't be adding eggs to my pasta. Like Joe, I'd use semolina flour and water.

Still thinking.

I haven't used mine for years, but I remember instructions to run soft, slightly wadded up bread through the machine to clean it after making the pasta.

I've had the pain of one of those automatic machines... they were a pain to clean. Perhaps some of these tips would help, but there are a lot of parts. I've switched to a hand crank for sheets and long pasta.