Bread makers

[Maurice Hood]

Want to buy a bread making machine. Any pointers in what to look for ? Any brand best/best avoided?

[Lee]

We have a Panasonic, which seems good. One tip we found, from asking friends/rellies with bread machines, was if you want to use wholemeal flour, don't pick a machine with a poor quality/weak motor ;)

Lee

[Ian Stirling]

What for? Of the 5 breadmakers I have tried, (two seperate models, two purchases,

3 warranty claims), all have made 50 (or so) loaves, "as new". As time goes on, the non-stick wears off some bits, and slop gets into the mechanism, meaning that at 100 loaves they are a bit hard to get out of the pan, and need shaking, as well as cleaning the rotor being annoying.

Somewhere between 100 and 200 loaves, they will suffer a catastrophic failure, but before this, the seal at the bottom will leak enough that you can't use timer mode, but have to start immediately. Total failure is generally collapse of the main bearing on the pan, though on one the main bearing on the breadmaker side went.

For 1-2 loaves a month, they'll last 'forever'. For daily breadmaking, buying flour in sacks, not bags, they won't stand up to it long. These are the ones at the bottom end of the market, with the loaf baked in a removable pan with a stirrer at the bottom. I'm unconvinced that this style can be made to last long.

On the slightly higher up models, you can get spare pans, but it'd probably be cheaper in most cases to simply find an entry-level model with a 3 year guarantee.

3 years/55 quid = 15 quid/year. Admittedly, if returning stuff multiple times isn't for you, you may want to look further up the scale. I'd prefer one that stirred the loaf from the top, as that way there is no seal that has to take ground up bread and 200C, a combination which isn't going to be cheap to get right.

[EricP]

Mine is a Morphy Richards. 3 years old. No trouble at all.

They are a bit of a 9 day wonder, although you will really enjoy the 9 days. They all seem to have the same generic inside. I would get a double one though, you will probably get a bit enthusiastic at first.

Fresh bread for breakfast is quite a pleasure. Enjoy

[Peter Stockdale]

Regards Pete

[John]

I would avoid one with a window in the top. We had one and the bread seemed to get ruined by condensation. Had a 20% success rate and received conflicting advice from help line.

Took it back and exchanged it for a Panasonic (more cost) and have had a

100% success. (no glass window - they are un-necessary anyway).

[bof]

Not my experience at all, our Panasonic with bottom stirrer has been making a daily loaf with wholemeal four for 3, maybe 4 years. The loaves still drop out without a problem and the stirrer still stirs . . . and the bread's great.

[Andrew Gabriel]

There was an identical thread a year or two back. Concensus was the Panasonic ones are excellent. Mine has been baking around 2 loaves a week for 6 years now, plus some dough making for other things, and extra loads around Christmas. Still works as well as it did when brand new.

Many of the other makes were reported to have much short lives.

[Andy Dingley]

Get the Panasonic.

Experiment a lot with flour brands.

[Anthony Frost]

Or more generally, treat the recipes as suggested starting points. Play about with the quantities of ingredients until you get your ideal loaf, and be prepared to repeat the process if you switch to different flour.

With my Panasonic machine I find the recipes have too much water, yeast and sugar, and not enough salt. The dough rises too fast and you end up with huge bubbles at the top, making it a bit drier helps keep the bubbles where they form, and using less yeast and sugar and a bit more salt (it acts as an inhibitor) gives a much more even finish.

Anthony

[Andrew Gabriel]

Exactly same experience here too.

Protein content of the flour makes quite a difference too -- it's normally given on the packaging. As flour ages, there seems to be some effect as though the protein content reduces (I don't know if that is actually what happens or if something else changes in the flour giving the same effect). IME, wholemeal bread flour needs to be quite fresh, and can start producing poor loafs long before its 'best before' date, whereas white bread flour seems to be much less susceptable to aging and can still work fine well after its 'best before' date. As someone who tends to buy in bulk when special offers are on to tide one over to the next time a special offer is on, this is something I need to consider.

[ritchieaber]

Agree about the Panasonic, warm the milk as well...

[Steph Peters]

Our Panasonic is also fine after 2 and a half years making 3 loaves a week, some wholemeal some not. The non stick inside of the pan is scratched, but the bread still drops out so it's non stick enough to work. I'm glad we chose the one with nut/seed dispenser in the top; I'm sure I'd be lazy and not bother making the fancier loaves if I had to go and put the bits in by hand part way through the process.

-- Life... is like a grapefruit. It's orange and squishy, and has a few pips in it, and some folks have half a one for breakfast. Douglas Adams Steph Peters delete invalid from [e-mail] Tatting, lace & stitching page

[Steph Peters]

It's worth looking a bit further than the supermarket. The flour I buy from The Flour Bin in Chesterfield makes better bread; I think it has higher gluten content. There's a good variety of flour styles too.

-- Life... is like a grapefruit. It's orange and squishy, and has a few pips in it, and some folks have half a one for breakfast. Douglas Adams Steph Peters delete invalid from [e-mail] Tatting, lace & stitching page

[Anthony Frost]

In message Steph Peters wrote: > Our Panasonic is also fine after 2 and a half years making 3 loaves a week, > some wholemeal some not. The non stick inside of the pan is scratched, but > the bread still drops out so it's non stick enough to work.

That would be another handy tip, don't wash the pan unless you really have to. Just wipe it clean afterwards and the non-stickiness lasts a lot longer.

With my previous machine I just dumped everything in at the start. I've tried it both ways with the Panasonic and there seems very little difference between using the dispenser and dropping everything in.

Anthony

[Mary Fisher]

We've had two, the non-stick has never been affected.

I never used the 'future' setting but the leaky seal was a pain, goodness knows what metal parts were leaching into the bread. Grey bits were evident around the paddle hole in the loaf.

The main reason I first got one was because I could no longer knead satisfactorily because of arthritic hands. The main reason I gave up was because we eat a lot of bread and one loaf at a time was just silly. I bought a Kenwood Major which can make dough for six loaves at a time and I'm in complete control of all stages, I don't have to make sure that I'm in when the damned machine finishes and the loaf goes soggy if left in the breadmaker.

Mary

[Mary Fisher]

That was the other reason I didn't like the breadmakers we had, the instructions insisted that the recipes had to be followed stringently. They produced bread which was far too sweet and rich (I don't use fat or sugar in most of my bread) and far more yeast was asked for than is necessary.

I suppose if you like commercial bread the recipes are fine but we prefer a robust bread with its own flavour, not that of additions.

We always uses organic flour, mostly wholemeal, yeast, salt and water. Recipes do say that salt is a yeast inhibitor but you need an awful lot to kill the yeast or even reduce its activity. Over more than forty years I've tried - either deliberately or accidentally. Too much salt or no salt makes the bread not good to eat, that's all.

The breadmake was no good at rye bread, in my experience, and we like that a lot. We also enjoy oat additions and spelt bread.

Mary

Mary

Mary

[Andrew Gabriel]

Well, I certainly don't. They are a starting point for a loaf that will work, but I then adjust the parameters to get a loaf I like.

Yes -- I forgot the salt once, and the loaf was inedible, although it looked fine. I wouldn't have thought salt could have made so much difference.

Rye flour has a low protein content, so you have to make sure it is mixed with a high protein content flour or you end up with a small brick, and the organic flours sometimes don't have a high protein content. However, I do make rye bread successfully in a machine.

[Mary Fisher]

Not if you have my long experience! The problem with rye is that it tends to be sticky, not that it has low gluten. I haven't made a brick for decades and it wasn't with rye.

I've never had a problem with any organic flour. I occasionally even use 'soft' flours for bread. It works - if you know what you're doing.

Mary

[Steph Peters]

I've had mixed results with rye in my machine - sometimes it works, sometimes I get something the shape and density of a housebrick. Makes good savoury bread and butter pudding though. Can I have your recipe please so I can have another try.

-- No more things should be presumed to exist than are absolutely necessary. William of Occam Steph Peters delete invalid from [e-mail] Tatting, lace & stitching page