OT: Toasters

Or make one that takes the size of bread actually sold rather than some imaginary small square.

Dualit.

And not the "Dualit Lite" - I had one. Burnt out an element. Unlike the ledgendary proper Dualits, this was a cheap piece of unrepairable chinese crap.

Or Lincat if you're not a middle-class fogey.

This one does a good job:-

Possibly a bit over the top for the average family, though.

Ouch, yes. I forgot to mention that SWMBO won't pay over £50 for one! A 2-slice basic toaster would be fine.

yup, friends of mine had one of those. A different beast to the proper one we have. Ours is coming up for 14 years old and still going strong, though did have to replace the timer a couple of years ago.

compared to all the other toasters i use at places still think it is the best.

Still burns repeat slices when set to the same time as the first slices.

I don't think there is an automatic toaster than can produce consistent toast over multiple serially inserted slices. Conveyor type toasters excepted.

Buy that cheap and you'll replace it many times. Buy something that is properly designed and manufactured and it will damn near last a lifetime at just twice that price.

So it basically boils down to British manufactured Dualit, or chinese manufactured s*it that repeatedly breaks down and is for all practical purposes completely unrepairable and thus disposable every few years.

Her choice.

You have contradictory requirements.

Our Dualit has been in regular use for > 10 years. Worth every penny compared to the useless pieces of fragile junk that preceded it.

And not just because they're good toasters, but because you can get parts to replace the elements when they do eventually go. Ours is about

You'd need to have some sort of toast colour sensor to do that. Not impossible but doesn't exist AFAIK.

So don't set it to the same time! At least you get the choice.

The best toaster I ever saw was in India and consisted of about

All the conveyor toasters I've ever used (in hotels) have been useless and require the toast to be put through at least twice. While you gaze in despair at your rapidly cooling eggy-bacon.

The key is to set them correctly, and then superglue the controls.

The ones on the P&O ferries are usually set just right. Nicely browned toast after one pass. Have another go for that beautiful black, crispy version, and hope the fire alarm's been turned down.

Or, make your toast before you get your bacon from the buffet, and blow the queueing system. This has been a free-of-charge public service announcement.

Conveyor toasters are, it seems, good at turning out 100 slices of pure carbon per minute, or some warm dry bread, with no intermediate stage of toasty goodness.

They're pretty good about spares for everything. They sent us a new lid for our coffee percolator because the handle broke and the new design of handle didn't fit the original lid. Even though the percolator is years out of warranty and gets used every single day.

Well, obviously that's what I do now. I was just trying to be humorous.