Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

First, let me say that I have been making home made ravioli every New Years of my adult life. First with my grandmother, then I personally took over the tradition about 20 years ago. I normally have eager (hungry) family and friends around waiting to jump in and help me prepare the New Years Eve meal. Well, with my grandmother in her 90's, my parents not medically capable of standing on their feet for hours at a time now, I was facing New Years Eve meal preparation alone! The thought of doing all of that alone, struck fear in my heart! I did some research and found this attachment was available for the KitchenAid. So, a professional 600 series kitchenAid was ordered along with this attachment. Thank you Amazon for your same day delivery service. Let me start out by saying that this review could have gone either way. Like many other reviewers, I was ready to throw this attachment in the garbage about halfway through my first attempted use! Keep in mind, I have used an atlas to roll out my dough for years so I have a good feel for dough for machine preparation. I cannot imagine attempting to use this attachment having had zero experience in dough for machine preparation. I would recommend that anyone who purchases this attachment not only read the instructions, TWICE! I also recommend you going to youtube and watching videos on it's use. After about an hour of learning, and half a batch of dough, I finally got the feel for the proper way to use this attachment. Up to that point, I was certain that I could have prepared them the old fashion way much more quickly. However, when I had my first successful batch run through the machine, I was convinced that I could have never made three dozen ravioli the old fashioned way in just a few minutes. I pushed on and was able to successfully make over 150 ravioli in the next hour. I could have never done that with a press and rolling pin! So, let me share a few things that any person attempting to use this attachment needs to know: 1) Do not roll the dough any thinner than a 3 on your kitchenAid Pasta Roller - This attachment stretches the dough as it pulls it through and if you go any thinner, your dough will certainly tear. 2) Do not attempt to use overly wet (sticky) dough with this attachment. If it has a hard time making it through your KitchenAid Pasta Roller, it will be impossible to make it through this attachment. If it is too dry, it will crack and break using this attachment, You need to make certain that the dough easily goes through the Pasta Roller Attachment. 3) I saw several written and even video recommendations for making all of the dough first and storing it for use in this attachment. I tried many of them and what I found worked best for me was prepare the dough with the pasta roller, remove the pasta roller and mount this attachment, use the freshly prepared dough (put a little flour on both sides before use) to make a batch of ravioli. 4) Depending on your filling, mine was a meat and spinach filling, given the size of the ravioli produced by this machine, the filling would have never made it into the dough. I ground the filling using the smallest die available with my (same day delivered) KitchenAid grinder. The second thing that I learned was the fact that you cannot assume that your filling will just drop into place as you turn the crank, you literally have to go slow and push the filling into each and every ravioli being careful not to over stuff them and tear the ravioli. Yes, this is a tedious task when using thicker fillings. 5) Don't assume that your dough will feed through this attachment, even though it has rollers on both sides, save yourself a lot of frustration and manually push the dough in on both sides before you turn the handle. I hope that this saves a few KitchenAid Ravioli attachments from the same fate that many others have suffered due to dissatisfied owners. This is a wonderful attachment when used properly. Please be patient and enjoy your new ravioli maker. It was a sound investment if you have to make ravioli all by yourself!