Inspired by the recent thread on pepper grinders , I thought of asking all of you for advice on where I can find a high-quality manual (non-electric) egg beater. My mother had a great one (40 years ago) and I have been looking for years without success. Everything I’ve found has been very cheaply made.
I’d prefer flat blades (rather than the heavy wire blades) but would consider anything that has a sturdy gear mechanism, a sturdy handle that won’t fall apart, and has no sharp edges on the blades.
Try eBay, I searched for egg beater and got 5 pages of stuff and a lot of it looks like what you’re interested in. Some of them are collectible antiques and seem to go in excess of $40 but many of them just look like good old workhorses and go for maybe $15.
But the problem is the quality is uncertain. I want something that’s sure to be well made and will last forever. I don’t want to take a chance on just getting another piece of junk!
This thread is amazing. Yes, an amazing thread on egg beaters, hoodathunkit?
No really, they must be different in the US to here. Expensive egg beaters? Collectible antiques??
I think of them in the way I think of can openers. A manual egg beater is a thing you get from the supermarket for about, I dunno, seven bucks. They are all of more or less the same build quality. Not great, not bad either. Flat blades, all steel construction, except for the little nylon sprockets and the plastic handles. I think of them as marginally disposable items. You might get three or four years out of one, until the handle breaks. Even then you can use it (the mechanism itself seems quite sturdy) but it becomes hard on the fingers, so no biggie, you just pick up another one at the store without a thought, just like you’d pick up a carton of eggs. I don’t know if I’ve ever even seen a manual egg beater of noticeably better or worse quality.
Well, mine is almost an antique I guess. I think it used to belong to my nanna, and I inherited it along with a box of kitchen goodies when I moved out of home for the first time.
So, there’s no plastic in mine…it’s got a dinkum patent ball drive and wooden handle and it’s brilliant. It’s even got it’s own proper name…Swift Whip.
Do not, I repeat, do not put manual beaters into your younger sister’s hair while turning the crank.
My mother had to cut them out of her hair. It was one of the 5 or 6 times she spanked me.
If it was made 100 years ago, and made with quality and style, someone will think it worthy to collect. In this case, if all the new products are cheap plastic and last 3-4 years, an old bulletproof version is something special.
Don’t count ebay out just yet, if you can’t find a brand new model that’s quality, used may be the only way you can go and ebay is likely the only place you’ll find one. You can always go to flea markets and garage sales, but they’re very hit or miss.
I did go and check out eBay, and there are a couple that seem good, so if nobody comes forth to recommend a good quality new beater, I think I’ll try one of the eBay egg beaters. Thanks for the recommendation!
I found my excellent egg beater at our local hardware store; the old-fashioned one downtown, with wooden floors, that is exactly like the hardware stores of your youth. It has a kitchen section with great stuff, and is where I always go for good-quality kitchen wares. I just bought a pastry blender with metal blades instead of wires! It’s so great!
My point, I suppose, is that really sturdy egg beaters are available; you just have to know where to look, and that place is not at Target. I paid about $20 for mine, I think, but it might have been a bit more. I chose the middle-range one they had, and it’s strong.
You might try looking for a good kitchen store. Or if you have a great hardware store, look there. Good luck!
Yeah, I used to have one of those. The handle was hard to use, the gears slipped, most of it was plastic, and in general it was just a piece of junk.
My new eggbeater is tough, easy to use, and it will last me the rest of my life, unless I whack it with a hammer or something. I can whip egg whites into a lovely stiff merengue in a couple of minutes. If I used a whisk (or, heaven help me, a fork), it would take forever. Is it even possible to whip things properly with a fork??
The quality must differ markedly from one country to another. The egg beater I bought twenty years ago when I first moved out of home (made of metal, from the local supermarket, for a price then of about $2) is still working fine.
I think that 20 years ago, you could still find a good eggbeater pretty easily around here (California, that is). I know that my mom was surprised that I had to go look for one. Slightly specialized kitchen wares like that seem to be harder to find these days–I’ve been looking for a simple biscuit cutter, and I think I’ll have to go back to the hardware store for it. (My old one is really old, older than I am, and DangerDad doesn’t like rusty kitchen wares and complains loudly about them. It’s just a little rusty, no harm in it!)
Why is that, American Dopers? Why is it easy to buy table wares and muffin tins, but not a solid item like a good eggbeater or a decent spoon rest?
