I have to keep an eye on my toaster

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yello

Guest
(The 2nd encounter in my household appliances' saga)

The dial should probably control time or heat or some such, wouldn't you think? Well, if one rtfm it probably says as much, I don't know. I mean, who consults the manual for a toaster? They should 'just work' no? If you have to read a manual to operate a toaster then.... well, I don't know. Perhaps, in fairness, you get some pretty snazzy IoT toasters these days with connected apps and everything (I shudder to think). But that's another topic for another time perhaps.

The point here is that my toaster does not, I think I can fairly say, fall into that category. Without disrespecting Argos, it was probably bought from such a place. Or maybe Morrisons, I really don't remember now. It's a toaster. With a plungery thing to lower the bread down between the grill things. You know, a common or garden toaster. With a dial. What more can one say?

Well, for starters, one could say that the dial probably doesn't operate as intended. Or perhaps has a built in chaos factor. A randomness generator. That may even be intended, for all I know. Perhaps if I rtfm, I would find out. Now that would make me smile; a random toast dial. I'd love the entertainment value of such things in my world. But I digress. Let us assume that it wasn't a toaster designed by Salvador Dali or whoever, and that the dial should actually work in some predictable way and not like the dial on my toaster.

If I stand by it and watch, the chances are that the toaster will behave itself and produce a couple of bits of toast done to my preference, or thereabouts anyway. If I move away - say, I dunno, to attend to my wonderful kettle (see part 1 of the saga*) - then it'll start acting up and catapult incinerated bread (I'd baulk at calling it toast) across the kitchen. Or ker-ching up some warmed bread slices. Confounding. So I assess the dial position and adjust it for next time. Why? I've no idea. Experience has taught me that this only seems to result in yet another unfavourable outcome. And don't get me started on the defrost button. No, the only way I have found to guarantee the perfect slice of toast is to watch what the toaster is doing.

(*I think I may have mentioned my fridge in passing too. It has a ghostly self-opening door)
 
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Many years ago, when I was still with my ex, we had a "cool Wall" toaster

Hence it had thick side walls that started an inch or so up from the base

I found that if you put the toast in and then carefully balanced it so that it was at an angle and leaning on the start of the "cool wall" then when the toast popped up it would be thrown right out of the toaster and land perfectly on a properly positioned plate

Great way to get a grumpy 9/10 year old to eat toast for breakfast
although it did use a lot of energy as I had to do the toast one slice at a time

Anyway - to actually follow the topic
We have just retired a toaster as it tripped the house electrics as part of its "toasting experience"
It had a graduated level of toasting feature
the first slice could be made at our desired level of brown-ness by turning the dial to half way
However, if you left the dial at the same point and did another slice then the brown-ness of the new slice would be much darker than the first slice
presumably because the element was already hot

How hard can it actually be to make a toaster that actually does the same thing every time?????
 

Electric_Andy

Heavy Metal Fan
Location
Plymouth
In another thread I said that all toasters are equal (or at least I've nver found the need to buy an expensive one when a cheap one does the same job). But I'm taking that back. Our toaster is a cheap jobby, and a slice of normal bread (I'm using Hovis white medium for reference) does not even fit in the thing! So you do get perfectly toasted bread, but only 3/4 of the slice. The top bit sticking out remains untoasted.

I cannot believe that a toaster, which has ONE job, does not even fit a full slice in. And it's too narrow to put the bread in landscape mode. I am furious
 

Sterlo

Early Retirement Planning
In another thread I said that all toasters are equal (or at least I've nver found the need to buy an expensive one when a cheap one does the same job). But I'm taking that back. Our toaster is a cheap jobby, and a slice of normal bread (I'm using Hovis white medium for reference) does not even fit in the thing! So you do get perfectly toasted bread, but only 3/4 of the slice. The top bit sticking out remains untoasted.

I cannot believe that a toaster, which has ONE job, does not even fit a full slice in. And it's too narrow to put the bread in landscape mode. I am furious

MEDIUM!!!!! Burn the heretic, toast has to be thick.
 

Tenkaykev

Guru
Location
Poole
Our Dualit 2 slice toaster is 20 years old and still going strong. It's got a lever that lifts the bread out for a mid toast inspection, and a pointer type symbol on the mechanical dial. I took it apart the other day as I noticed a chunk of crust lodged in an inaccessible place. Surprisingly simple at first glance, but some clever touches on further inspection. You can still get spares including replacement elements.
 

grldtnr

Senior Member
Ever thought of getting a "Talkie" toaster?
( as of 'Red Dwarf ')
 

presta

Guru
Toasters are pointless.

The cooking time depends on the moisture content of the bread, so there's no 'correct' setting that will always give you what you want without keep removing the bread to check its progress, and if you're going to do that you might just as well use the grill. The timer on the one I had ~40 years ago was a bimetallic strip, so the time varied according to how warm the strip was to start with as well: the first batch cooked for longer than the subsequent batches. As others have commented, it also wasn't deep enough to toast the whole slice without leaving a white bit at the top.
 
I have had similar experiences; worse, German bread doesn't even fit so you either have to cut it in half and put each half into the toaster or have it half in and half out adding, you will appreciate, a whole new set of variables to the scenarios outlined above.

My solution is to use the grill: five minutes for the first side and 1 min 30 seconds for the reverse does the job, with the added advantage in a small one room apartment that it warms me up nicely with the leftover heat.

German supermarkets do sell a substance called "toast bread". It isn't.
 
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