I'm fed up with my wife complaining about her breadmaker !!

[John Stumbles]

Then get a new one ;-)

[Andrew Gabriel]

As someone else already said, Panasonic is the only one worth having. The others generally don't last anywhere near as long (although yours seems to at 10 years - depends how often it's used), and can be variable quality. My Panasonic is 12 years old, probably 2 loaves a week, and sometimes used additionally just for kneeding dough.

Temperature - the bread machine should get that right. For fast bake programmes, I preheat the water in the microwave.

Salt - only affects taste, not baking (unless you chucked in so much it killed the yeast).

Too much yeast or too much water can in theory cause the bread to over-rise, and very likely collapse after baking finished. These should be accurately measured, along with the flour. I have deliberately varied yeast and water to see what the effect is, but never had your problem happen. Too little water makes it too hard for the breadmaker to kneed the bread, and less yeast makes a smaller denser loaf.

The fat is another variable (usually butter, but can be olive oil for some breads). It affects taste and texture and how long the loaf lasts before it goes stale. The amount does not seem to be critical IME.

Someone mentioned vitamin C. Some bread making yeast contains it. My current one doesn't, and I haven't needed to add any. The one I used to use did, and I didn't notice any difference.

I haven't tried varying sugar. It feeds the yeast, but I suspect the flour might too to some extent so it might not be critical. If I'm varying yeast (e.g. to make a dense loaf, then I reduce sugar by same amount.

If you are making wholemeal bread, make sure the flour is fresh. IME, the quality of loaf drops well before the flour gets to its use-by date, and can cause the top to collapse. White flour seems to be more forgiving, and works well past its date. Make sure it's bread flour too (needs to be at least 11g protein per 100g flour, which should be stated on the packet). If you're mixing in something like rye flour for taste, then you really do need high protein base flour as the rye flour will dilute it down.

The only failures I've had from my Panasonic are when I've done something wrong, e.g. forgotten to put in the yeast (you end up with a solid lump of dough), forgotten to put in the kneeding paddle (gets to the end and looks like a puddle of stodge), forgotten to put in the salt (looks fine, tastes of absolutely nothing and I couldn't eat it).

[Frank Erskine]

All these problems seem to be a result of certain persons' desires (for some obscure reason) to completely ditch any reference to traditional units of measurement -purely- for the sake of conforming to a French "system".

[Clive Page]

puzzled me for some time, so maybe some expert here can answer it.

I normally use my (Panasonic) breadmaker on one of its fast bake programmes (2 hrs white, or 3 hrs wholemeal). But to use the timer one has to use one of the regular programmes, and these always start with a long rest period, in which nothing at all appears to happen for an hour or so. I presume this allows the ingredients to reach the same temperature, but mixing them up would seem to be a good way of doing that, and the fast bake seems to work well without any rest period. So does anyone understand what is going on during the initial rest period?

[Usenet Nutter]

My Panny gives the flour measures in grammes and the water in mils .The sugar ,yeast , salt and olive oil are in tsp's using the supplied measure for them.

[Zhang Dawei]

Very good question, and one that has always puzzled me.

[Dave]

That is the right way to do it. I go on a bread making site and that is what I have learned from there.

Dave

[John]

Please share!!

John

[Andrew Gabriel]

Just tried it. My kitchen is 17C, and the heater comes on very briefly periodically. I think it's raising the temperature to

20C, but I forgot to go back and check before it actually started trying to knead the dough (although machine was empty).

[Dave]

alt.bread.recipes It's a news group.

It is mainly a US / Canadian site, but does have a few posters from the UK and the antipodes. Look out for cshenk. Carol is slightly disabled, but knows a lot about automatic bread making machines. I have learned a lot from her. She will answer any questions you have about ABM's

Dave

[Andrew Gabriel]

Retested, and it's actually heating up to nearer 30C, which is near the ideal yeast growing temperature.

When I do a fast programme, I pre-heat the water, so the dough mixture works out at 30-35C when mixed together (another good use for an infra-red thermometer;-). I only pour the yeast in when it has done an initial mix, as the water alone is hotter, and I thought it might kill some of the yeast before it is cooled by mixing with the (cooler) flour. (However, I don't actually know how hot the yeast can go without damaging it.)

[Old Git]

After taking note of the recommends in this thread, I had an SD255 delivered today. Just finished eating the crust on my first loaf and what a success, beats our old Morphy Richards hands down. Thanks for the heads up folks.

[Tim Streater]

We have a 254 and are entirely satisfied. The reasons it's better are:

1) Much thicker pan, means better more even baking 2) No "viewing window" that also contributes to even heating.

[robgraham]

Thanks for that, OG - H-I-D did solve the problem by adding a small amount of Vit C and putting the yeast in with the water - in total contradiction to Morphy Richards instructions, and as advised here.

Anyhow having read out your enthusiastic posting, she's going to head off to Lewis's to look at the Panasonic one.

Rob

[Mike Clarke]

I was wondering if anyone here has had any problems with the nut dispenser tray on the 255. I seem to remember having read some review where the user complained about it sometimes getting stuck. We're thinking of getting a Panasonic breadmaker but if the nut dispenser is going to be a problem then the cheaper 254 might be a better buy.

[robgraham]

Mike - the 3rd post gives a bread maker forum link; might be worth having a look there. Certainly I will possibly check there now that you've raised that concern.

Rob

[Will]

I don't bother with the nut dispenser - I just put the nuts/seeds in with the yeast at the bottom of the pan. Works fine.

[Andrew Gabriel]

My SD-206 (currently 10 minutes away from finishing a loaf for lunch), well predates the models with nut dispenser. I add them by hand. It has a nut program which beeps at what it thinks is the right time, but in reality, adding things during kneading is more complicated than that IME.

Sunflower seeds benefit from being added to the water right at the beginning (and during the standing time if it's a full length programme). Some other things like dried fruit are better later in the kneading phase, and olives need to go in the last couple of minutes of kneading or they all get smashed to pieces. Not sure the nut tray would actually handle all the options, or that it would hold the quantities I sometimes use.