What is the best Breadmaker to buy?

maisie_cat

Sandtree said:

Elisheba said:

Take note of the hidden costs.  Just looked up a Panasonic on Argos and it was 550w.  Standard new tariff for electricity seems to be 21p/kwh*.  A cycle normally runs for about 2 1/2 hours.  So thats about 29p in electricity, and I think that is before tax which is 5%, so about 32p for a loaf.  Add the 20p for flour, and a few pence - say 3p for yeast, sugar, oil and salt, that's 55p a loaf.  Not bad and its decent bread, but your cheapest shop loaf is about 55p and you will be able to get the slices thinner so it will go further - so you are barely breaking even and the machine will never pay for itself.

Also electricity costs will be going up in April, and that's with the cheapest flour which may go up as well.  So it may not even break even soon enough.

*figures are all rounded up to nearest penny so this is not exact

A good call however I would be concerned if the breadmaker is running at full power for 2.5 hours! Proving should be a tiny fraction of its maximum power but represent a notable amount of the time.

As to the overall question... personally found it a toy that didnt get used much (ours was Kenwood) and hence was donated. I bake bread probably 1-2 times a month (now not WFH all the time) and have much more flexibility of what we bake by using a mixer and oven than a breadmaker. 

I've had 3 breadmakers and currently have a Sage custom loaf which we use 3-4x a week, the limiting factor we found was getting spares and replacing the tin or paddle. When we bought this one we bought extra paddles and tins and we've just changed over after 4-5 years.
We previously had a morphy richards that I loved but couldn't get a replacement tin, it was chosen because it had a folding paddle so that you don't get the hole in the bottom of the loaf.
My breadmaker has 2 proves of 10 minutes each at 35 degrees and a bake at 135 degrees for 45-50 minutes so less than a KWH.
I reckon the standard bread we make is £1 all in for a 1kg loaf, you can buy cheap cheap bread for less but it does not compare at all. The cheapest farmhouse loaf 1kg equivalent in Tesco is £1.50 including additives! but the nearest taste wise in my opinion is around £2.

goldfinches

Effician said:

I would say invest a little time in learning to make it by hand, we use a heated gardening propagator for a proofer as we have one anyway but there are other ways .

Once you have the hang of it it becomes easy to knock up a loaf or buns/rolls or even pizza bases with the same basic recipe.

I generally agree with this comment for several reasons the main one being that breadmakers are necessarily limited in the types of bread that they can produce as well as the size of the dough they can handle and I like to make a wide variety of breads.
I also think that the quality of the flour you use for your bread greatly affects the flavour of the end result and so I find that I prefer to buy better quality and eat less bread overall. I'm now wondering if there won't be such a big increase in price for flour from specialist mills like Shipton for instance as transport is a much smaller part of their total costs whereas the value ranges from the big supermarkets have transport as a much bigger percentage of theirs.

I occasionally make a loaf of soda bread and that goes straight into the oven as soon as you've mixed it up so that is one way you can cut down on time and energy used to make bread plus you don't need bread flour so you can use the same flour that you're buying for pastry and cakes which might help save some pennies.

Wraithlady

Elisheba said:

Take note of the hidden costs.  Just looked up a Panasonic on Argos and it was 550w.  Standard new tariff for electricity seems to be 21p/kwh*.  A cycle normally runs for about 2 1/2 hours.  So thats about 29p in electricity, and I think that is before tax which is 5%, so about 32p for a loaf.  Add the 20p for flour, and a few pence - say 3p for yeast, sugar, oil and salt, that's 55p a loaf.  Not bad and its decent bread, but your cheapest shop loaf is about 55p and you will be able to get the slices thinner so it will go further - so you are barely breaking even and the machine will never pay for itself.

Also electricity costs will be going up in April, and that's with the cheapest flour which may go up as well.  So it may not even break even soon enough.

*figures are all rounded up to nearest penny so this is not exact

Firstly, I looked up the usage of my (Morphy Richards) breadmaker - 0.41 kwh. As others have said, it does not burn electricity for the entirety of the program, so your electricity calculations don't seem right.

I'm assuming that 0.41 is fairly standard across the range, so going on that, the highest rate I can find is 20.2p/kwh for 2021 = 8.29p, +VAT=8.7p. Call it 9p. Cheapish bread flour 60p per 1.5kg - 3 loaves per bag is 20p per loaf, oil etc call it 3p as above. 
Total is 32p per loaf. Obviously, if you use more expensive bread flour, this will go up.

Secondly, I'm not sure you're comparing 'apples with apples' - yes, the cheapest shop bread is 55p, but what you get with a breadmaker is more equivalent to the 800g 'in-store bakery' loaves which are more like £1.15 - £1.20, rather than the mass-produced, pre-sliced, additive-rich product you are proposing.

Also, although I really don't have time to cost them out - you also have the facility to do speciality breads on the dough program, such as focaccia, brioche, ciabatta or challah (the latter is eye-wateringly expensive in the shops) so having a bread-maker would be more cost-effective if these are made regularly, even more so if you are coeliac I would imagine.

So, average 1 ordinary white loaf a week, over 2 years comes out at 0.32 x 52 x 2  = £33.28 (on today's prices, all other things being equal) as opposed to a supermarket £1.15  loaf = £119.60, difference £86.32. So your average mid-range breadmaker would have 'paid for itself' in something under 2 years, as opposed to your assertion of  'never'.

Sorry - I work with figures, it's Pavlovian.

Wraithlady

To the OP - breadmakers are really good for 'chuck in ingredients and leave it to get on with it' - either overnight or whilst you WFH/do housework/yoga/watch tv/whatever

May be worth asking around to see if anyone has one they want rid of - a lot of people got one in the early throes of lockdown and just never used them. 

Farway

Wraithlady said:

To the OP - breadmakers are really good for 'chuck in ingredients and leave it to get on with it' - either overnight or whilst you WFH/do housework/yoga/watch tv/whatever

May be worth asking around to see if anyone has one they want rid of - a lot of people got one in the early throes of lockdown and just never used them. 

That is one big non monetary plus, just bung it all in a get on with your life, mine, Panasonic, has a timer and I guess most do, so not even restricted to being in at the time

Martin_the_Unjust

https://www.bakedbyanintrovert.com/slow-cooker-bread/

Elisheba

Wraithlady said:

Firstly, I looked up the usage of my (Morphy Richards) breadmaker - 0.41 kwh. As others have said, it does not burn electricity for the entirety of the program, so your electricity calculations don't seem right.

I'm assuming that 0.41 is fairly standard across the range, so going on that, the highest rate I can find is 20.2p/kwh for 2021 = 8.29p, +VAT=8.7p. Call it 9p. Cheapish bread flour 60p per 1.5kg - 3 loaves per bag is 20p per loaf, oil etc call it 3p as above. 
Total is 32p per loaf. Obviously, if you use more expensive bread flour, this will go up.

Secondly, I'm not sure you're comparing 'apples with apples' - yes, the cheapest shop bread is 55p, but what you get with a breadmaker is more equivalent to the 800g 'in-store bakery' loaves which are more like £1.15 - £1.20, rather than the mass-produced, pre-sliced, additive-rich product you are proposing.

Also, although I really don't have time to cost them out - you also have the facility to do speciality breads on the dough program, such as focaccia, brioche, ciabatta or challah (the latter is eye-wateringly expensive in the shops) so having a bread-maker would be more cost-effective if these are made regularly, even more so if you are coeliac I would imagine.

So, average 1 ordinary white loaf a week, over 2 years comes out at 0.32 x 52 x 2  = £33.28 (on today's prices, all other things being equal) as opposed to a supermarket £1.15  loaf = £119.60, difference £86.32. So your average mid-range breadmaker would have 'paid for itself' in something under 2 years, as opposed to your assertion of  'never'.

Sorry - I work with figures, it's Pavlovian.

Hi @wraithlady I did my calculations based on 0.5kwh an hour rather than 0.41kwh but doesn't change much. I've looked at my breadmaker and its 0.58kwh.  It does depend on how long it actually uses electricity for and everyone is right in saying it wont be solidly for 2.5 hours. Probably more likely 1 hours which will come out at 9p a loaf as you say. Could go up to 15p depending in the bread-maker and how much power it used when not in oven or mix mode, but much cheaper than I calculated.

I do agree it makes a much nicer loaf that your 55p variety.  I'm thinking of using my breadmaker again now I know it is economical!