Back in the eighties when I was a design conscious youngster I coveted one of them and finally forked out the massive amount of money for the iconic Morris Minor shaped chrome and bakelite thing. It looked nice enough but took up a lot of space and it drove me half insane. Maybe I am irritable at breakfast but this is why:
You needed to warm the thing up before you used it. The build was such that when you switched it on it wouldn't toast anything because all the heat was being lost into the body of the toaster. After a minute the middle elements which were back to back became good and hot but the outer elements remained cool so a piece of bread inserted at this stage was toasted on one side only. If you took it out and looked at it, turned it round an put it back in then it was quickly toasted on one side and burned on the other, all four elements being operational on the third cycle.
You couldn't set the toasting time. The dial was like an old kitchen timer marked with numbers (that bore no relation to any recognised convention)
0-6. So you had to remember what number and decimal corresponded to your preferred toastedness, advance the dial carefully to that number (not beyond, because you couldn't reverse the dial) release it and let it TICK TICK TICK TICK TICK TICK down to zero.
TICK TICK TICK TICK TICK TICK TICK TICK TICK TICK TICK TICK It was noisy as heck. I couldn't hear the Today Program over the noise of that toaster.
You didn't know when it stopped. Despite the 20dB ticking non reversing rotary control knob there was no audible signal that your toast was ready. You might think the ticking would stop but it didn't. The elements were turned off as the knob approached zero but the ticking continued for some time afterwards. Not just for a couple of seconds; for long enough to make sure that your toast was no longer in optimum condition - a bit cooler and a bit drier. The Dualit of course doesn't 'pop up'.
It's one redeeming feature was that you could replace broken elements, but even this could be annoying. After a few years the elements failed, inevitably because they were only made to 1920s standards. Four elements in the toaster - so you were disassembling the thing every twelve months or more often even, just to keep it going. And those elements - They were made of mica, real translucent mineral mica and cost a packet every time they are probably 25 quid each by now, more than the price of a whole toaster in the CoOp and a fiddle to replace.
Anyway, it is rusting at the back of the garage now and I get through my breakfast happy, relaxed and in peace. An nice retro styled modern machine with a very small footprint does the job quite adequately and when it goes phut I just buy another. Wasteful I know, but I have to think of my sanity too.
I've never done that, it always seems to toast fine.
I can't see that it makes any difference whether it's marked in time, or numbers or what. You need to learn what setting you need for your toast preference. do toasters normally have a time marking anyway, surely they normally just use a number or something? As it happens our knob has marking up to 3 or so, each numeral is about 1 minute.
i'm pretty sure ours only runs on for about 3 seconds or so, but anyway mine makes a fairly loud click when it turns off the power, loud enough to be heard the neighbouring room.
Which is one of the things I like about it. no toaster I've ever used is entirely consistent - for one thing bread varies so much (type, freshness, moisture level, etc.) so it is easy to check on the toasting by just lifting it up.
I've never yet replaced an element in ours (14 years) - they coast about £8-10 each, though have had to replace the timer.
but yes, you could just buy a new toaster for that it's true.
I had hoped that someone could produce a reasonable toaster for £50. I'm not expecting a "rolls-royce" just something that works. After all toasters are not particularly complex.
Looks like I will have to pursuade SWMBO to pay more.
You just need to learn. Mine is perfect, the optimum position on the dial corresponds with the most comfortable angle to twist the wrist when setting it.
Of course not, not popping up keeps the toast warm. And mine makes a load clunk when the timer switches off.
I don't mind uneven cooking - but toasters always seem to dry the bread out. I find the best slices are ones carefully skewered on a fork and slowly turned above one of the burners on the cooker.
Smooth on the inside, crunchy on the outside, like an armadillo ;)
Had a Tefal Avanti Delux for about 10 years or so. Does four slices in two batches of two. Has browness controls for each half, plus reheat and frozen bread settings. Seems to do its job. The only failure being the extra set of knobs that are supposed to life small items (crumpets etc) higher out of the slots to make them easy to grab seem to have ceased to function. Toasts well enough from the first slice.
Conicidentally, the Antiques Roadshow episode featuring the man with
70-odd toasters is showing today on Yesterday (Freeview channel 12). Starts 11pm. the toasters are about 35 minutes in. Some of the turning mechanisms are not to be missed.
> Takes about ten minutes to warm up, and will produce streams of evenly
Ahh this is the breed one often encounters at Premier Inns / similar Motels where the previous user being either too dense or fancying a giggle tweeks the speed knob down somewhat, & retires to a safe distance to watch the next sleepy user cremate or set light to several following slices ! hahah.
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