Slowcooker or breadmaker cheaper to run

wedzac

Apologies if this in the wrong category,  its my 1st post and I couldn't work out where it best fitted. I have a slow cooker and a panasonic breadmaker. I have just successfully cooked a small loaf in slow cooker, just took 2 hours, then 10 mins in oven to brown the crust. (Although next time i may just flip the loaf over and cook it for 15 more mins in slow cooker as the bottom came out crusty and brown anyway.) Can someone tell me which would be cheaper to cook bread in? I am still waiting for a smart meter. I sort of assume the bread maker is more expensive as it is on for 4 to 5 hrs, or overnight if on a timer. 

DullGreyGuy

Best bet would be to buy a plug meter so you can tell definitively rather than guesstimating. 

Gut reaction would be that the slow cooker but not sure your extra 15 minutes on the otherside will be sufficient and its probably fairly close.

The 4-5hrs of a breadmaker will be significantly about the time to prove the dough which should be at a lot lower energy consumption given it'll be 30C or below.

How are you kneading the bread for the slow cooker method? If its in a mixer then my guess would flip as the kneading arm in the breadmaker is much lower powered than a Kitcheaide (for example)

ariarnia

the 10 mins in the oven might add a lot. depending on the size of the oven and the temp it gets to in that 10 mins. i wouldn't put the oven on myself specially just to brown one loaf. 

armistice

OP, you don't give the model of your breadmaker but I found this panasonic review :   https://www.expertreviews.co.uk/home-appliances/bread-makers/1404712/panasonic-sd-zb2512-review-our-best-buy-bread-maker

which states Energy used for white loaf 0.41kWh

Your slow cooker is probably around 200w so 0.4kwh for 2 hours.
oven for 10 mins (probably 3kw for 10 mins ~ 0.5kwh)
Total 0.9 kwh

QrizB

I much prefer my breadmaker bread to a regular sliced loaf.

The local artisanal bakery does some very nice bread but at £2.50 a loaf it's definitely more expensive than my breadmaker.

My biggest problem with beadmaker or bakery bread is that I always end up eating more of it than I would if it was Sainsbury's sliced!

ariarnia

QrizB said:

I much prefer my breadmaker bread to a regular sliced loaf.

The local artisanal bakery does some very nice bread but at £2.50 a loaf it's definitely more expensive than my breadmaker.

My biggest problem with beadmaker or bakery bread is that I always end up eating more of it than I would if it was Sainsbury's sliced!

thats why i only make us a loaf a week. when its gone its gone! otherwise we'd be having bread/toast everyday.

Alnat1

Might be a similar thing, I prefer marg/spread on my chip butty over proper butter. Always butter for toast though.

Maybe it's a childhood comfort memory?

ariarnia

naff white bread for bacon butties always. and it makes the best cinnamon/eggy toast. definitely treat weekend territory. 

EssexHebridean

wittynamegoeshere said:

It's probably cheaper to buy a loaf rather than pay for the flour and power.

And that's after ignoring the cost of buying the machine.

This of course ignores whether it's better than bought bread, which it may or may not be.  Also it's fresher.

It definitely isn’t cheaper to buy a loaf of the same quality you can turn out in a breadmaker, even given the now increasing cost of both ingredients and power. We’ve done the sums many times over the years. We’re on breadmaker 3.5 now (the .5 being the charity shop one picked up for a fiver!) and all the previous ones well and truly paid for themselves inside a surprisingly short space of time - the current one hasn’t yet because it was only bought relatively recently, and is a rather more pricey Panasonic model - it’s predecessors were all cheaper brands. It’s one of the items in our kitchen which we replace immediately one goes wrong though - for both cost saving and quality reasons. For us - it’s usually a couple of batches of dough then oven baked into rolls, and either 2/3 loaves each fortnight. 

Returning to the original question - I was aware that you could make bread in a slow cooker - and I honestly can’t imagine that there would be too much difference in the cost overall? 

MattMattMattUK

I agree EssexHebridean, one can buy cheap bread for cheaper than one can make it at home, but have no desire to eat that cheap bread. I mix by hand or use my stand mixer and bake in the oven on a banking stone. I generally bake bread directly after cooking something else so the oven is already hot and the stone can be heated through.

I know that there is a cost associated with it but to get something similar I would be paying £3-5 and I know my costs are well below that. 

MattMattMattUK

wittynamegoeshere said:

I would think that 95%+ of the population would never pay anything like £3-5 for a loaf of bread so that's something of an enthusiastic justification.

It's a luxury, not money saving.  If you think it's worthwhile then great, perhaps good value if compared against the "Saw You Coming" artisan bread shop that most people definitely wouldn't bother with.  But it's probably not something for us plebs who just want something to make a Monster Munch sandwich with.

A bog standard loaf is pretty tasteless, mass produced, steam risen, some of it would not even qualify as bread under the old bread laws. Monster Munch are not to be eaten in a sandwich, they are to be poured from the packet directly into the mouth when one is suffering from a world ending hangover.

All in the cost of making a loaf, depending on exactly what I make and how I make it will be £1.00-1.50 for something far better than what is sold in most supermarkets. It also will not be filled with most of the extra random ingredients that get added to commercial loaves. In winter the heat from the oven also warms my home so it is not wasted either (although some of it is in summer). When a bog standard white load from Aldi is £0.69 and a bog standard Hovis loaf is £1.20-1.40 then backing one's own for similar costs and getting a far superior product is a money saving choice.