February 15, 2010 - 5:12am
why use a bread machine?
just wondered if you have a bread maker? do you use it for everyday use large families or just personal use?
thanks
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just wondered if you have a bread maker? do you use it for everyday use large families or just personal use?
thanks
=== just wondered if you have a bread maker? do you use it for everyday use large families or just personal use? ===
My family prefers soft sandwich loaves for everday eating, particularly during the school year. So we use the overnight timer to have a fresh loaf ready in the morning once-twice per week.
Then depending on my Sunday schedule and what type of bread I am making I will sometimes use it for mixing/kneading (and first rise if that receipe is OK with a warm rise). Good bread machines do an excellent job of kneading for many doughs without any added flour.
sPh
When it's just too hot to turn on the oven in the summer, I resort to the bread machine. It makes an edible loaf without raising the temperature in my kitchen.
If I didn't have a Kitchen Aid Mixer, I would use it all the time for doughs. It does a nice job and bread machines are very reasonably priced. But I don't need it with the KA.
I use my bread machine to knead and proof my bread. I can put all my ingredients in the machine turn it on and walk away. I bake the bread in my oven, I just prefer it that way.
As for the hot summers...I live in Texas and it gets really hot here and stays that way for a good part of the year. Because of the heat I have an oven in my garage. I bought an oven at a scratch and dent store that had a pretty ugly dent in it. The dent looks bad but it doesn't affect the performance of the oven and I got it for a song. I can't take credit for the idea, we always had a second oven in the garage when I was growing up to keep from heating up the house when baking. A lot of the people I grew up with did the same.
I use my bread machine when I want to make several different types of bread in one day. I can have one in the bread machine, one in the KitchenAid and one on the counter all working at the same time, and time them so they are all rising and baking simultaneously. It's a lot of work getting everything measured and ready to go ahead of time for 3 or 4 different types of bread, but it is worth it at the end of the day when everything has finished baking and the whole house smells like freshly baked bread for days.
I make only sourdough bread, so my methods are probably not applicable across the board with breads using commercial yeasts, but I have no need of a bread machine or a mixer! The initial loose hand-mix is a quick task and not labour-intensive or physically demanding, and I stretch-and-fold instead of kneading. Thus, there is no need for any sort of electrically powered assistance.
I used to knead, but I find the S&F method far superior, both in terms of time and convenience - and most importantly, final results.
Hi AS Prior,
Good to see your doing more research from your original posting the other day.
I use my bread machine just for my wife and myself so I guess its personal. My machine is only used for kneading. I make a 24 hour pre ferment starter (12 hrs at room temperature/ 12hrs in fridge, then back to room temp') which is then kneaded into the next lot of ingredients in my breadmaker. The dough is then divided into 10 small rolls, baked, cooled and indvidually frozen for my wife to grab and take to work daily with a salad etc. The rest of the dough becomes one larger loaf either folded and shaped by hand or is baked in a loaf tin depending on how I feel. It is safe to say I feel it does a better knead job than me.
This will happen about 3 times in a 14 day period on average.
I still say there must be a market for a mix, knead and proof only machine !!!
Hope this helps...............Pete
thanks Aussie pete think i will try and look into just the mixing kneading and proofing machine dont no if theres one out there already? might need to look into that. If you have any other ideas that could make bread making easier or more efficient let us no!!!
thanks A.S Prior
For years I made my challah and whole wheat doughs in the bread machine, baking them afterward in the oven. That was before I became a sourdough convert. I still make my challah that way - with commercial yeast - and still searching for a good sourdough challah recipe. (Well, I actually have a few, but I haven't tried them yet.) For all that I love long fermentation periods, it is super convenient to get home at 4 p.m. on Friday afternoons and have a challah ready for Friday night dinner.
With working full time, it would be good to have a challah recipe with an overnight rise, refrigeration during the day, and straight-from-fridge-to-oven baking. That's the wish list. No recipes like that yet.
Seriously, without the bread machine I do not believe I ever would have considered making bread. It seemed like a mysterious, difficult process, far beyond me. But the bread machine gave me familiarity with the ingredients, the texture of dough, baking times, and the pleasure of fresh bread. All of that and my children were willing to eat a kind of bread beyond awful supermarket potato bread.
I have been on a kick to develop a good croissant recipe and found that the best mixing happens within a few minutes in a bread machine. Maybe new machines can have a mix-only cycle.
My wife and I generally used bread machines to bake sandwich bread for the two of us. For large family gathering, we usually buy what we needed from bakeries for variety and quantity. In rare cases, we have used the Dough cycle to knead the dough and then put it in the oven to bake, generally during colder months. With some practice, it has been easy to get a bread that can be fresher than what you what you can pick up from a bakery.
Mixing dough, kneading or S&F, rest, repeat, shape, let rest in fridge if sourdough, then bake in oven takes a lot more time. With proper time management and reminders, you can fit that around your schedule to an extent. It's better when you are able to work from home. However, it takes a lot more work and equipment to match the controlled temperature a good bread machine can provide during the proofing cycles of your bread dough.
I do both type of baking and find a break machine a worthwhile investment.
Hi All,
Just got a Hamilton Beach "Artisan Bread Maker" !
It cost about $70 w/free shipping from a number of online vendors as of Dec 2023.
It turns out a very impressive loaf. I started with all white flour and graduated to a loaf with 100% whole wheat.
I've tried all AP, all Bread Flour, half AP/half Bread, varying abount of whole wheat and today I used 100% whole wheat. (Bob's Stone Ground) 2 eggs, olive oil sugar salt and instant yeast. (Grocery store brands of flours and nice olive oil)
The Hamilton Beach turned out loaves that are excellent in flavor and aroma, crumb, doneness and crust.
(With the exception of no fat or sugar "French Bread." The crust was sickly pale although the crumb was ok - it wasn't french bread. So I didn't pursue this setting or any mix without oil and sugar.)
It takes about 10 minutes to add the ingredients and 3 hours later it's done. So quick as well. Weighing the ingredients not only takes the guesswork out of it, with this small a loaf it is crucial to be exact for consistent results.
(As soon as I can figure out how to post pictures I will)
Next I will try to make a NY style deli rye using the recipe from The Rye Baker by Stanley Ginsberg. This is a fantastic easy to make bread and it's def old school. For previous posts on this bread search for "Tzitzle" - that's the cornmeal on the crust of this bread.
A bread machine is simply a small electric oven and a mixer in a box with temperature sensors and a computer capable of monitoring/controlling them. Most of them use thin sheet-aluminum bread pans with "non-stick" coatings that vary in quality. Other than that, they differ widely!
Most of them are: pretty good at mixing and kneading; ferment/proof at high temps to reduce process time; are mediocre bakers (300ºF and below); and provide little or no ability to alter the programs, timing, or temperature to suit your needs. So you're stuck using their recommended recipes, or recipes that conform to their preprogrammed processes.
If that's OK with you, then you have a large number of choices.
If you want to use a breadmaker as part of your creative baking process from start to finish, the ones that are good at everything are very few. I have 15 BM's here right now. And have parted with that many or more over the last year. Just sold my last Zojirushi a few days ago. Nice machine but mediocre baker.
So be clear about your expectations and research carefully before diving in. I've only found one that checks all the important boxes.
Why do I use them? a) Handling dough (or cement or anything similar) dries out the skin on my hands, forming painful cracks; b) they're wonderfully efficient; and c) the best ones are very good!
Don't leave us in suspense! Which one is it?
In the USA/Canada, it's the SD-R2550.
In the EU and elsewhere, it's the SD-YR2550.
Mechanically, they are the same machine.
The latter has more "programs". This has led some to view the USA model as a "crippled" version for more $$$. And I totally agree. Panasonic USA marketing should be ashamed.
But both versions do the important things well: have nice thick cast aluminum bread pans, have full manual modes (separate mix/knead, ferment/proof, and bake programs); and can bake at a temperature useful for more than just sandwich bread (360ºF).
Does the manual mention the temperatures for fermentation and proofing?
Yippee
85ºF
I am surprised you mention the Panasonic SD-YR2550 as a viable purchase for the bread home baker.
All Panasonic have this huge fault, they lack a custom program.
All Panasonic have a "knead-only" mode and a "bake-only" mode, but that's not what I mean.
For "custom program" I mean an entire bread-making cycle for which every phase is decided by the user.
E.g.: 2 minutes kneading, 10 minutes pause, 20 minutes kneading, add ingredients near the end of this, 90 minutes fermentation, 15" degassing, 90 minutes fermentation, 15" degassing, 90 minutes fermentation, 1h baking, no "keep warm".
Panasonic's machines would be, for what I understand, capable machines but their marketing departments is probably run by idiots and dictates that a "custom mode" would confuse the user an affect his trust in the machine, so they only have the stupid preset programs (which every bread machine has, and which are, after all, useless if you have a custom program).
When you buy a bread maker, you only need to know whether it has a custom cycle, and whether that is versatile enough. With that custom program you can execute all sort of recipes, including those "stolen" by other bread makers' instruction manuals, or devised by yourself. Lacking that, you can only bake the pre-set recipes, hoping that the flour you have at hand is the same that the manufacturer has in his country (not necessarily the case).
Just say no to bread makers without custom cycles, IMHO.
It has better than custom cycles. It has full manual mode - separate cycles for the desired operations. No need to mess with programming. Just select the operation and do it.
In the YR2550, menu # 30 is Bread Kneading. Menu #31 is Rise (ferment), up to 2 hours. If you need longer than that, use #23 (up to 24 hours). And baking is menu #26.
For my creative bakiing, I highly prefer this to programming.
I understand that Panasonics have the "rise only" program, the "ferment only" program, and the "cook only" program. All bread makers have those. But the question is: can you concatenate them?
In other words, can I program 2 hours rising, 15" degassing, 2 hours rising, 15" degassing, 2 hours rising, 1 hour baking, and go to bed, and get up the morning after and extract the baked bread from the machine?
You see, a bread machine is of interest because it allows you to concatenate automated baking phases, and you can go to sleep, or to walk the dog, without being there to apply manual commands. Panasonic machines cannot do that. That's very unfortunate, because I do understand they are very capable machines and they have a good reputation. But I find they are logically flawed. When I buy a car, I want a car which has gear, clutch, accelerator, breaks. I don't want a car which has "go to school", "go to workplace", "go to the park", "go to pizzeria" programs. I don't need those. I am in the driver's seat and I want to drive. To paraphrase a Pirelli slogan: "bread machine programs are nothing without control".
that are unrelated. What you are describing is automation, unattended operation. What I'm describing is a creative tool. As I wrote a few posts back:
"If you want to use a breadmaker as part of your creative baking process from start to finish..."
I will agree that, historically, Panasonic has been very reluctant to give the user any control over their machines. They, like you, have been attached to the "automatic breadmaker" concept. After all, they invented it, for the consumer market, anyway.
But this new series of machines changes that.
There is not a single type of bread that I bake that is suitable for "load, press go, and come back to a finished loaf". I haven't used a BM in that way in years... decades, really.
Some of your other statements are not true, but it's not worth arguing about. If that's the kind of unit you want, other choices exist, each with tradeoffs of their own.
That's the point. If I have to use a machine as a kneader, and then as a fermenting chamber, and then as an oven, and be there all the time, I know I can do that.
But I don't understand why and how Panasonic is the only maker who simply doesn't have in all its offering, not even in the most expensive models, this possibility, a custom cycle. And I feel this is entirely a true statement!
I really find it stupid that somebody tries to sell me something and is "reluctant to give me [the user] control over "their" machine". I want control, and I think it would cost nothing to Panasonic to give it to the user. It's a weird behaviour, and it's basically unique in the industry among the "big guys" who produce serious bread machines. Imagine a microwave oven which only gives you "programs" and doesn't let you define manually energy, time, plate rotation etc. I know better!
Regarding the "put the ingredient press the button" philosophy, I am like you: I bake wholemeal bread and I don't find it is possible to obtain a good result without a user intervention during the initial phases (hydration, kneading).
But the raising and cooking phases absolutely could be left to the machine, and with Panasonic this is not possible.
Maybe we just use the "manual mode" attribute differently. To me, "manual mode" means I decide myself the cycle.
Nothing here to argue about. I hope you find somethiing that suits you.
when you measured Zojirushi's temperature? I had mine hanging halfway up from the bottom while making my panettone. The thermometer mostly hovered in the 350s to 360s range. At one point, it even shot up to 370°F, but I missed capturing that spike.
Yippee
as pan temp, not air temp (**). Such a small air mass is going to have wild temp swings. Zo gives theirs accurately in the manual, as 256-294º. That's what both of the ones I measured topped out at.
EDIT: The "probe" is an infrared thermometer, aimed at exposed surface inside the pan, in a corner opposite of where the heater coils enter the chamber. I get the best correlation with manufacturer data that way.
** Confirmed by tech support at Zoji, Panasonic, Saki.
Thanks!
Yippee
that we've been thinking wrong about heat transfer inside a BM oven chamber, concentrating on air temp. That's convection-mode thinking. Only, in this case, without much air movement. The mass of the volume of air inside the chamber is teeny compared to a breadpan with dough in it.
I think the major transfer mode is radiant. The oven walls are made to be reflective. That's how they insulate. Imagine the radiation (it moves in straight lines) bouncing its way from the heating coil(s) up the chamber between the bread pan and walls, a little weaker with each reflection.
Some of the earlier BM's were extreme in their approach to maximizing reflectivity, using polished stainless steel inside the chamber. Nowadays they give up a few % of reflectivity and use the cheaper brushed aluminum or even galvanized steel for the chamber walls. And they had no viewing window, which are like an open door for radiant, for best top crust browning.
And that's also why pan blackening works. It doesn't couple better to the air; it's a better infrared sponge.
Your tips worked wonders for my bread machine panettone! Huge thanks!
before after
Yippee
Glad it was helpful!
The blonde strip down the middle is caused by the Zo's big viewing window... covering the outside of the window with the shiney side of aluminum foil will help it a little... but it really needs to be inside to make a difference. Knowing how clever you are, you'll come up with something to cover it ! :)
The later Zo's deal with it by putting a heating element in the lid, which radiates onto the top of the loaf. Kind of a king kong approach...
But those models also have a serious flaw; shutting off the mixing motors when the lid is opened! What were they thinking? That was a deal-breaker for me.
BTW, Yippee, the link attached to your photos above is a dead link...
Yippee,
How did you cover the viewing window without it falling when the lid was closed?
Is covering the window from the outside enough?
Thanks!
Hi Jo_en,
The viewing window glass is snugly set in a frame on the back of the grey metal inner part, and enclosed by the white plastic outer lid,, so you don't have to worry about it slipping out when you close the lid.
I'm afraid sealing it from the outside is not as effective.
You only need to remove 4 screws 🪛🪛🪛 to take it apart, you can do it !
Yippee
Well I hope I don't ruin my machine but I will try. It will be so worth it.
I guess Precaud was right. You did find a way!!
Thanks!
The crumb on a piece of toast from this machine is amazing in it's crunchiness.
At this point I've turned out excellent loaves in the Hamilton Beach.
The latest are a cracked wheat loaf and Stanley Ginsberg's Old School NY Deli Rye.
Both turned out great.
Can't say enough about how easy this machine is.