Philips HR2375/06 Large Pasta and Noodle Maker Plus - Automatic Dough Kneading & Fresh Pasta Extruder for Homemade Spaghetti, Fettuccine, Lasagna - Perfect for Italian Cuisine, Family Dinners & Restaurant-Style Meals at Home

Okay, after reading a few bad reviews, I was a little hesitant to purchase this. But now I'm ever so glad I did! We used a scale for the gram weight of both flours and liquid, a beaten egg plus water. (My scale zeroes out when the bowl is on it when turned on. So we measured the weight of the egg first, quickly beat it with a fork, and then added water carefully until we attained the proper liquid weight.) We used semolina and all-purpose flour, measured precisely. There was nothing to it! We had perfect spaghetti, and I didn't think it was too thick, either. In short, I think this machine is amazing. I will update as I go along to keep you posted.Now for the BAD reviews I've read.PLASTIC BITS IN THE PASTA I read about this complaint several times in reviews. When I opened my pasta maker box and got the machine out, I looked it over carefully to see where it might chip off sharp pieces of plastic. I could find nothing to explain why others found slivers of sharp plastic in their noodles. Then I examined the pasta molds/shapers, which were, to my mind, the only possible culprit. Yes, we found a loose bit of plastic on one mold. I would recommend that one should scrub the molds with a brush before using them. They are manufactured, after all, and the loose bits of plastic that may cling to them should be removed prior to making dough and putting it through the extruder. SIMPLE FIX.THE NIGHTMARE TO CLEAN COMPLAINT is more difficult for me to figure out. I left my pasta maker on the counter overnight and didn't clean it until morning. It was EZ-PZ. In fact, I was amazed by how simple it is to take the machine apart, and the actual washing was a breeze. I soaked my parts in warm, soapy water while I wiped down my counters and stove. The parts came clean, no problem.BROKEN PARTS: I bought this pasta machine despite the reports that Philips doesn't offer replacement parts. My machine being brand new, I haven't deal with this issue yet and hope I never do, but my thought is that all of us should write letters to Philips requesting that they change this policy immediately and make replacement parts available. If the company wishes to maintain a solid reputation, not offering replacement parts for a fairly expensive piece of kitchen equipment is a good way to lose their foothold in the marketplace. The squeaky wheel theory, folks! Let's make a little noise to get this problem rectified!Update: I'm still shy of owning this pasta maker for a whole month, so bear in mind that I'm a newbie. But I am still in LOVE with this machine. So remember that as you read about my disasters. Giggle. I wanted to make lasagna sheets to create homemade ravioli. I expected the lasagna sheets to magically extrude from the machine, just as spaghetti and linguine does. NOT! I couldn't for the life of me get the ratio of flour and water correct. I started on Thursday. I had three fails that day. I saved the last batch of dough to roll it out myself, rather than just toss it. On Friday, which was yesterday, I arose from bed on fire to conquer that darned pasta machine. Hmm. I turned it into a science project. Would one more tsp of water fix the problem? I had two more fails. Then I went Internet searching for others who'd experienced the same problem. I finally hit pay dirt right here, in an Amazon review. A person in here said to stop all the weighing and craziness in favor of a simple 3 to 1 ratio of flour to water. Translated, I mean 3 cups of flour to one cup of water. Or, for a small batch, 1 1/2 cups of flour to 1/2 cup of water. Hear trumpets blaring! Envision me pumping a victory fist in the air. My machine started spitting out lasagna sheets! That last batch was as perfect as it's going to get. With all the hand rolling of failed pasta dough and that last amazing batch of lasagna sheets, I made 92 ravioli! For dinner, I ate twelve of them. I gently boiled them in salty water, lifted them with a slotted spoon, and drizzled a little Classico pasta sauce over the top with sprinkles of grated parmesan. My eyes nearly rolled back in my head. The ravioli was perfect. It tasted like something from a high-end restaurant. (I took my dogs for a long walk, hoping to burn off a few of the calories.) For regular pasta, I will probably still follow the booklet instructions, because my noodles were perfect straight from the recipes in the cookbook, but the next time I wish to cut out and press ravioli, I'll use the 3 to 1 ratio.WANTING MORE PASTA SHAPES? I see a lot of reviewers wishing for different pasta molds. Guess what? I found a wealth of them, including a pasta sheet disc for thin dough (.6 ml) in two widths, 95ml and 125 ml, plus molds for different types of pasta. Gnocchi. Conch shell. Extra large shells, as well. The sky is nearly the limit. These Philips friendly molds are made in Viet Nam and take a while to arrive, but the manufacturer has a sterling reputation in pasta making groups, and he even posts in them. His business depends upon his fair dealing with customers, so I trust him. You can even buy molds for kids. Little Mickey Mouse noodles, hippos, kitties, minions. Just go to Etsy and search for Philips Pasta discs. You'll find them. Note: If you order a mold set, you can then sometimes order a different insert for that mold housing to make other pasta shapes or other thicknesses, and that reduces your cost for a different extruder shape by 50%. So don't forget that and order a whole new housing and insert. I didn't know this with my first order.UPDATE: I am STILL love with this pasta maker. I figured out how my dough should look as I add liquids. Tonight, my son went out to change irrigation and asked me to have noodles made before he got back for his gourmet pasta dish. No big. Within ten minutes, I had them on a cookie sheet, sprinkled with potato starch to keep them from sticking together. Covered them with plastic wrap to keep them from drying out. Had the entire machine cleaned as well, except for the die, which I leave sitting out all night to dry, making for EASY die cleaning. I just poke around with the cleaning tool, the dry dough pops out, and leaves the extruding die almost spotless. A quick brush and scrub. All clean! For homemade fresh pasta, it could not be simpler. It is still AMAZING. I never featured myself as a fresh, homemade pasta queen, but now I am. I would recommend this machine to my best friend--if he/she wished to make fresh, homemade pasta.MY LAST UPDATE: My family has become so spoiled by homemade pasta that I honestly think they might throw rotten tomatoes at me if I tried to serve them the store-bought stuff. Last weekend, we were going on a camping trip. My son, an incredible chef. had made demi-glas for pasta, and though we were all ready to go, I'd forgotten to make the pasta! He said, "How long, Mom, to make two double batches?" We were going to be gone four days. I said, "Fifteen minutes to make two double batches and five to clean up." I am not a person who can walk away from a mess in my kitchen, and he knows it. So, I and his girlfriend made two double batches of pasta. His favorite is similar to linguini, only much thicker and wider. I can't remember the actual name of it, only that with a lovely sauce, it is absolutely AMAZING. So I and his girlfriend ran into my kitchen and whipped up four batches, actually two doubles. In twenty minutes, my kitchen was spotless, and we had two gallon freezer bags filled with fresh, homemade, incredible pasta for our camping trip. If lightly sprinkled with flour and tossed, it keeps beautifully in the fridge for cooking later, so we enjoyed fresh, homemade pasta for four days, out in the middle of a woodland. (Please note that I do not leave my kitchen dribbled with flour or an appliance that isn't spotless.) Who else can do that--unless they own a top-of-the-line Philips pasta machine? Over our camping trip, we dined like people ordering expensive pasta dishes at a five-star restaurant.Full confession: I'd never tasted homemade pasta, not even at a five-star restaurant. I'd only ever eaten packaged. My first experience was pleasurable with homemade, but I kept thinking the pasta wasn't cooked enough. It was very al dente. I enjoyed it, but I wasn't completely sold. We were cooking that thick pasta for only four minutes at first, and I felt that it wasn't quite cooked enough. Still, it was beyond delicious, better than any packaged crap I've ever bought at almost four bucks a pop. Now we cook the thick, wide pasta for six minutes. PERFECT. It is still al dente, which literally means "for the tooth." In Italy, they realize that you want a little bit of chewy to your pasta for true satisfaction. You haven't experienced "real" pasta until you eat homemade. It's a little chewy. A lot delicious. Once you try it, you will never go back to pasta in plastic packages. And I think about that now every time I whip up a batch of homemade pasta, because we didn't really eat much pasta before I got this machine. That stuff sort of slides down my throat and doesn't really excite my taste buds. PLUS, it costs! Now my pasta costs pennies. All I need is white flour and water, and that doesn't cost much. Adding an egg to a recipe doesn't cost much more. Why pay four dollars for a package of noodles when you can make them for almost nothing with this machine? And it is a sturdy machine. I realize mechanical failure can occur or that parts may break, but this thing is built like a little tank. In the morning, I must make four double batches of pasta for a 4th of July campout. I'll let the machine cool a bit in between batches. I could probably just make it work hard without worrying, but I love this thing. So I am going to protect it. That said, it will probably last me for many years if I treat it right, and when it breaks, I will definitely buy another one. I would recommend--and have been recommending this machine to friends. Oh, another thing. I now use a digital scale to weigh my flour and liquid. No more mistakes. No more fails. I just measure the flour, water, and sometimes an egg into the machine, and I just trust it. My faith in it has been rewarded with perfect pasta every single time now. If you're on the fence, I think you will never regret buying this machine.I hesitated getting this Philips pasta maker because my family owned their first model decades ago, and cleaning it was part of my traumatic childhood memories. We kids were given toothpicks to poke out all the bits of dough from inside the machine and from the disks. That experience makes me amazed about how easy this is to clean. But even more impressive is how quickly and reliably it works to mix and automatically extrude dough. I had my first fresh pasta ready to go a mere 30 minutes after receiving this -- and that included washing and drying all the parts before use. If the directions were a little more clear, it would be even easier. Skip to below for tips for success.First, how it works: you measure flour into the bin, start the paddles, and add liquid through the lid. In three minutes, after mixing, the pasta starts to come out of the disk. You cut to desired length. That's it. Having made rolled-and-cut pasta before buying this, I was a little leery about the lack of a rest period, but the pasta comes out exactly as it should, with proper hydration despite the crumbly look of the dough inside the machine.Next, the instructions: All the recipes in the included book are for 2-3 servings, or 1/2 pound of pasta. I bought the large machine because I wanted to make a full pound at one go. What the directions fail to say is that, yes, it can make a 1-pound batch by doubling the recipes. For more than that, the instructions say to wait 15 minutes -- and in another part, wait 45 minutes -- between batches. The product page says that the parts are dishwasher-safe, but that isn't mentioned anywhere. Instead, it advises to "rinse with water." Does that mean I shouldn't use soap? I followed the directions for cleaning the unit afterward, and THEN saw at the end of the directions that the spaghetti disk needs to dry 2-4 hours before the dough can be pushed out. Fortunately, despite the sometimes contradictory instructions, everything is easy to use and clean by hand. Nothing sticks inside the machine, and the included cleaning tools pop the dough out with ease. No more traumatic toothpick cleaning!Next, tips for success: I weigh everything instead of measuring by volume to make sure the ratio of liquid to flour remains correct. The dough WILL be crumbly, but the machine will extrude it without effort, as long as you strictly keep to the correct amounts. Using semolina flour helps a lot with extruded pasta, even though it's not as essential with rolled-and-cut ones, but it doesn't result in the silky texture you'd expect in homemade papparadelle or ravioli. Philips recommends a combination of semolina and all-purpose, but I found that all semolina works well. You CAN use other flours as well as higher egg-based dough for that silky texture, but I recommend starting with semolina until you know the process better. I find that the included pasta cutting tool works well as long as I sweep it over the disk firmly and fairly quickly. Use a sharp knife if you have trouble. You can open the lid during mixing to push dough adhering to the sides; the machine will automatically stop for safety but will start up again when you press the start button. Although some bits get left behind, it's not a lot.The recipe book: the multi-lingual charts detail 12 different kinds of pasta, from traditional durum/semolina to udon to dumpling/ravioli to chickpea. The only thing missing is egg noodles since Philips' recipe never add more than a single egg. Three recipes are gluten-free, and eight are vegan. The ramen noodle chart makes no mention of kansui or baked baking soda; you might have to look elsewhere for a better recipe. The charts also don't list the best disks to use for each. After the charts, the book goes on to flavored/colored pastas, sauces, andspecialty pastas such as dumplings and ravioli.The pasta maker has an "extrude only" function for those who like to mix their dough separately and let it rest. This isn't described at all in the booklet. In fact, there's an automatic button that I couldn't figure out first when to use. The instructions say that if the machine isn't on automatic, press that button before pressing start. How would I know? I finally figured out that you probably use that button when you've previously used the extrude-only function and want to return to automatic.The pasta maker comes with four extrusion disks: spaghetti, fettucini, penne, and lasagne/dumpling. Philips sells additional sets of disks to cover a large range of shapes. I love that there's a storage drawer underneath the unit that holds the cleaning tools and five disks. A sixth disk is stored in place, ready to extrude. I've bought extra sets of disks that cannot all be stored in the box, so I've placed my most-used there. I only wish that Philips made a bucatini disk.Everything about this pasta maker is built to last. It has metal parts where it counts, and plastic where it doesn't. The surfaces are largely nonstick, which means cleaning a breeze, and it assembles/disassembles with ease. Although the additional disks can be expensive, they are well-worth the purchase to be able to make as many shapes as possible. Since I plan to use this machine at least once a week, I want to have everything available to me. Now I just have to figure out what to do with all the dried pasta in my pantry.-- Debbie Lee WesselmannFor the first 3 months, this machine worked well. However, at this point the flour got jammed in the extrusion disc and one of the arms that secures the machine broke off. Luckily, as we were still within the first year after initial purchase, we were able to get a replacement machine from Philips. However, if this was past the one year mark, I'm not sure what would happen. I imagine we'd be SOL.As a result of this incident, we only use a mix of semolina flour and white flour now and no longer make pasta with 100% white flour.As for the pasta itself, it's good. It certainly tastes better than the store bought dry pasta. I don't imagine we'd ever buy that again aside from getting the funny shaped pasta (bowtie, rotini, etc.) for my daughter.la première, je n'ai pas réussi à rien faire même après 3 essais. Je l'ai retourné à ¨Philips¨ qui m'en a envoyé une autre. Premier essais.... je suis capable de faire des pâtes style spag. Je décide de réessayer... mais avec un autre disque.... ça tout pogné ensemble. J'ai eu de la difficulté à séparer les morceaux. Très difficile à nettoyer. Je vais continuer à les faire à la main! J'ai retourné la 2e à AmazonCompré este producto porque intento llevar una dieta mucho más balanceada y con menos químicos y conservadores; me sorprendí porque el costo de preparar pasta con el producto en casa es mucho menor a los paquetes del supermercado, estoy en un proceso de adaptación y estoy aprendiendo a usarlo, no obstante, me agrada lo que puedo hacer, es versátil, interesante y sobre todo hace accesible experimentar en casa.I purchased this machine two weeks ago, and it has made the best pasta. Recipes are simple easy to use, best of all easy to measure. It worked right out of the box and I have ordered additional disc's for it. I would say that is the only thing wrong with this item, not enough disc They should add angel hair pasta a long with macaroni , Shells, Paccheri, Rigatoni, along with the ones it comes with. I purchased another brand and had to take it back the next day, This Philips Pasta Maker is a keeper, it is sturdy and I am sure will last me years.This is my second pasta maker. The first one’s central mixing part was broken (plastic ). I saw the same thing happened to other users, but Philips said no replacement part available. So I bought the second, for the new one, the things till now I found are the measuring cup’s scale marks are not clear enough to show how much water in the cup for one or two cups of flour, so I have to use my first water measurement cup which is more remarkable. Another thing is I see some steamed water on the upper part of the pasta shaping disc, where I guess it might because of the rotation produced some heat inside the machine, this was not seen from my first machine. Hopefully this new one can be used longer. And also because some plastic parts are used, you have to be carefully not over use, I mean don’t make too many pastas at the same time, clean the jammed dough at the shaping disc after you make two cups of pasta. It is a great machine which has brought us much convenience.