A Bit More

September 10, 2020 5:29 AM

Tom Warren wishes all tech products were designed like the Breville Die-Case 2-Slice Smart Toaster(TM), with dedicated buttons for “A Quick Look” and “A Bit More”. Related: John Siracusa reviews toasters.
posted by adrianhon (91 comments total)

Sadly the version sold in the US doesn't have a "CRUMPET" button.
posted by octothorpe at 5:36 AM on September 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

I recently acquired a new toaster, after finally deciding to ditch a bargain basic toaster that was older than my marriage and my teenage son. The new toaster does not have cute "a quick look" or "a bit more" buttons but it DOES have a defrost feature (that actually works) and a bagel setting, and I did not realize how much I needed those things in my life until I had them. A defrosting toaster is a MIRACLE of OUR AGE.
posted by BlueJae at 5:49 AM on September 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

I love that my Chilean bought toaster has a "bagel" setting even though there's like 0.1 bagels for sale in Chile.
posted by signal at 5:54 AM on September 10, 2020 [10 favorites]

John Siracusa reviews toasters.

These are all toaster ovens, which, in my experience, make substandard toast. (The Breville Smart Oven series aren’t too bad.)
posted by zamboni at 6:03 AM on September 10, 2020 [9 favorites]

These are all toaster ovens, which, in my experience, make substandard toast.

On the other hand, they are perfect for when you want a sandwich that involves a quick trip under a broiler so you can melt the cheese.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:06 AM on September 10, 2020 [3 favorites]

My husband eats a truly unreasonable amount of toast, so for Christmas last year I got him a fancy-ass, ridiculously expensive Breville toaster with the snazzy buttons. Although I got him the 4-slice version, because -- and I cannot emphasize this enough -- he eats a truly unreasonable amount of toast.

He loves that damn toaster.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:10 AM on September 10, 2020 [18 favorites]

When I discovered Mitsubishi Electric's TO-ST1-T on amazon.co.jp earlier this year I had to get it; it makes pretty good toast but the toasting's not perfectly even and at any rate not $300-toaster good.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 6:13 AM on September 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

Our house sort of needs a toaster (I say "sort of" because we mostly get by with a toaster oven), but I just can't bring myself to buy one these days after watching the Technology Connections video linked in the article on how all new toasters pale in comparison to a 70 year-old toaster.

He really loves these toasters. He's made (at least) two follow-up videos: 1 2
posted by Betelgeuse at 6:26 AM on September 10, 2020 [14 favorites]

Having trouble reconcilling "This is how you design a product for humans" and "I toast bagels like a monster", but pushing past that... this is a terrible comparison. Look, if a lot of Americans see a "crumpet" button they're going to ask "what the hell does crumpetting do?" My point being that the toaster, besides being much simpler than most tech, also has the advantage of the user having a tremendous amount of generational domain knowledge built in.

Your parents or grandparents probably demonstrated using a toaster for you. You knew what it was for and its capabilities before you opened the box. I'm sure once setting up streaming services on your VR headset is a thing that people have been doing for multiple generations, it will be look seamless and intuitive as well. It's instructive to go back and look at the dizzying array of dumb ways people managed to kill themselves with toasters when electricity was new.

one of my dumbest hobbies is browsing digikey's "specialty IC" section and they do carry purpose-made toaster control ICs. alas they no longer carry the ones that with a dedicated "BAGEL" pin.
posted by phooky at 6:26 AM on September 10, 2020 [10 favorites]

I recently bought a tiny adorable mini toaster oven that I will never use to make toast, because toaster ovens make terrible toast and also, I have a real toaster. But I will use it to make individual chocolate chip cookies and also cook single serving portions of things so I don't have to heat up my whole apartment by turning on the oven.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:31 AM on September 10, 2020 [3 favorites]

These are all toaster ovens, which, in my experience, make substandard toast. (The Breville Smart Oven series aren’t too bad.)

On the other hand, they are perfect for when you want a sandwich that involves a quick trip under a broiler so you can melt the cheese.

We have a Breville Smart Oven, and it is indeed a very poor toaster. So much so that my wife recently suggested that we buy a plain toaster and ditch the toaster oven. Except that we mainly use it as a secondary oven (oh, how I miss the double wall ovens we used to have in our old house). Now, I will probably be compelled to go drop $130 on this Breville toaster, to go along with the Smart Oven and the Breville food processor we just bought.
posted by briank at 6:39 AM on September 10, 2020

I'm a Dualit evangelist:

We've had the same toaster for 15 years now -- used daily by a family of four -- the engineering is simple enough that I've been able to cheaply replace both the timer and one of the heating elements with only the screwdriver on my Swiss army knife. It's very easy to clean. The fact that the mechanism for getting the toast out is a simple lever means that it doesn't need a 'quick look' button (much quicker than the mechanism in the OPs video). The fact that the timer is a simple dial means it doesn't need a 'bit more' button. There is no specific bagel mode but I've never had any complaints about the way my bagels are toasted. It wasn't cheap (though not much more than the 4-slot version of the 'smart' toaster) -- and on the basis of it's countertop footprint I was against it when my wife suggested we get one -- but the size means it's robust and repairable and I fully expect this toaster to last me the rest of my life so over that period it's a bargain. That's how I wish more tech products were designed.
posted by tomp at 6:40 AM on September 10, 2020 [12 favorites]

The best thing about this article is the link to this video about the Sunbeam toaster. My grandparents had one, and we all thought it was spooky how the bread just slowly decended and then silently ascended again perfectly toasted. Knowing how elegant the design of the insides is, though... wow, that just takes the cake.
posted by rikschell at 6:43 AM on September 10, 2020 [6 favorites]

One other good thing he doesn't mention is that the "quick look" button is labeled "A QUICK LOOK" instead of some newly invented pictogram that only makes sense in retrospect. I'm thinking maybe a stopwatch next to an eyeball.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 6:47 AM on September 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

"I toast bagels like a monster"

Toasting bagels is acceptable as long as they're day olds and/or substandard to begin with; as such, most bagels eaten at home fall into this category.

With that note aside, ooooohhh, that's what the bagel button does (only toasts on one side).
posted by damayanti at 6:47 AM on September 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

We also have a Breville Smart Oven and as we don't have a regular oven, or a regular toaster, it does all these things, and pretty darn well. The only real gotcha is that when you're using it as an oven you need to add like 25% to the recipe time for whatever reason. But the cookies and pizzas and toast are browned quite evenly. If it died, I'd buy another one just like it and hope the quality didn't drop. I don't hesitate to recommend it to friends. My only complaint is the knob's rotary encoder sampling interval is far too infrequent and changing numerical values is a bit dodgy.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:47 AM on September 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

Technology Connections is a real hidden gem on Youtube. His Rice Cooker one is equally good.
posted by bonehead at 6:47 AM on September 10, 2020 [7 favorites]

I mean, if you're willing to spend 5x what the average person spends on an appliance, yeah, it's going to be well-engineered with all the features you want. Most of us don't have $130 to spend on a toaster, and most toasters are designed to be sold to folks who have about $25 to spend on a toaster.
posted by explosion at 6:52 AM on September 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

"Sage" in the UK is the same as "Breville" in the US, so the picture of the "Sage" toaster with the "Crumpet" button can be thought of as the translated version.

We have this toaster and largely like it -- but it's only about seven years old and
1) The "bar" indicator lights up whenever there's movement near the toaster, which is annoying.
2) The "bar" indicator has somehow gotten out-of-sync with the lever so it's about 1 full stop lower. Trial-and-error suggests that the lever is the one to pay attention to, but... really?
posted by Slothrup at 7:07 AM on September 10, 2020

If you haven't got a toaster, use an iron.

(Warning : the converse does not work nearly so well.)
posted by Cardinal Fang at 7:07 AM on September 10, 2020 [6 favorites]

I, too, am on team Dualit, but I suspect there is some sentimentality in my allegiance. I have had mine for 30 plus years and I have replace a timer and the elements and I like that it is built to be maintained.
The actual toasting quality, to be honest, is "good, not great." New ones are expensive. I still recommend them, because I optimize around durability and servicability.
posted by Glomar response at 7:18 AM on September 10, 2020

I mean, if you're willing to spend 5x what the average person spends on an appliance, yeah, it's going to be well-engineered with all the features you want.

No. The whole Siracusa Reviews Toasters schtick exists because (at least in his opinion) most toaster ovens are poorly engineered, with lots of features, but not necessarily the ones you need. The $130 toaster will, like as not, be a $25 toaster, chopped up to fit a computer and then shoved in a fancy looking but non-ergonomic box.
posted by wotsac at 7:21 AM on September 10, 2020 [3 favorites]

Some people think that toasting bagels is bad? What... what the hell?
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:29 AM on September 10, 2020 [5 favorites]

A quick look button, huh. What kind of neurotic life are people living where they need to check the status of their toast? Do people really need to micromanage bread getting heated?
posted by Foci for Analysis at 7:39 AM on September 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

but I just can't bring myself to buy one these days after watching the Technology Connections video linked in the article yt on how all new toasters pale in comparison to a 70 year-old toaster

I knew without looking exactly which toaster that was going to be. My parents have one which has worked flawlessly every day since they got it for a wedding present in 1968. Meanwhile I've been through at least four toasters in my adult life. At this point I'm expecting to inherit theirs and it will probably outlive me too.
posted by Daily Alice at 7:46 AM on September 10, 2020 [4 favorites]

"What kind of neurotic life are people living where they need to check the status of their toast? "

There's an art to timing toast.
Never try to guess:
Just toast until it smokes,
Then twenty seconds less.

-Piet Hein
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:51 AM on September 10, 2020 [30 favorites]

Some people think that toasting bagels is bad? What... what the hell?

some people are just bad.
posted by philip-random at 7:54 AM on September 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

There is a genuine market for a 1968 toaster remake.

I would pay top dollar for an old sixties Sunbeam like the one I bought at a yard sale when I was young, poor, and in need of toast. When that bastard (broken filament) finally died I nearly cried (because it was also my fault. I killed it. I killed that lovely thing, and for no reason. Just too hasty with a fork. God forgive me.)

...I confess, I have considered trying to build my own toaster.

Wait, that's a genius idea -- BYO toaster kit! Sturdy filaments, indestructible case, the whole nine yards.

The liability prospects terrify me, but it might be worth it (in part, hence the BYO bit -- we sold you a kit of parts, you're the one that fucked up the grounding and set it on fire?)
posted by aramaic at 7:55 AM on September 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

It is SO HARD to get a decent toaster. An elegant device, but I can't afford an expensive one. Why are they so poorly designed normally?
posted by tiny frying pan at 7:57 AM on September 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

Idk. Our decade-old, $15 Canadian Tire special has a defrost setting (useful!) and a bagel function (horrible! though I suspect that my disgust at food with perceptible variations in temperature, such as hot fudge sundaes or, say, bagel halves that are toasted on one side and cold on the other, is not universally felt).

I am, however, precisely the kind of neurotic who checks their toast and puts it back in, sometimes more than once in a toasting cycle. But our cheap toaster already has an eject button, and I can't imagine spending $130 for the privilege of having my bread Phantom-of-the-Opera up and down for the duration of some anonymous product engineer's own notion of "a bit more", when I'm going to be standing there vigilant for any signs of burning, anyway.
posted by wreckingball at 7:58 AM on September 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

Some people think that toasting bagels is bad?

These people intersect strongly with the There Are No Good Bagels Outside of [NYC|Montreal|Wherever]. Under the No True Scotsman Bagel rule, the rest of us are merely toasting BSOs (Bagel Shaped Objects) and the Bagel Purists have no grounds for objection.
posted by zamboni at 8:00 AM on September 10, 2020 [15 favorites]

some people are just bad.

Also, some people can't get even a semi-decent freezer bagel any more. Not even Lenders. It's basically round bread with a hole nowadays, may as well toast it so at least you get some kind of texture out of it.

(also, what zamboni said)
posted by aramaic at 8:01 AM on September 10, 2020

I'm a fan of the Breville Smart Oven, but it's slow when it comes to toast, and if you want your toast well-done, you have to toast the bread longer than the longest preset time for toast.

Other than that, the BSO does toast very well. The bread is evenly toasted, and -- this is important -- if you have the internal light, you can visually monitor the progress, allowing you to get the exact perfect degree of doneness. My advice is to get the version with the light, just for that reason.

Beyond that, the BSO works great as a small oven. I almost never use my large kitchen oven anymore. I use it for storage instead.
posted by mikeand1 at 8:05 AM on September 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

I use a toaster oven for occasional toast but mostly as for cooking small things that don't justify heating up my full-size oven. Since work-from-home began, I have taken to making and freezing batches of chocolate chip cookie dough, and then baking a few cookies in the toaster oven each day at lunch. Unable to handle the strain, apparently, my mediocre Black & Decker finally cried "uncle." I gulped, hesitated, harrumphed, agonized, and eventually spent an absurd amount of money on one of the Breville toaster ovens. I can happily report my cookie game is stronger than ever now, and I am shopping for wedding rings for the Breville.
posted by PhineasGage at 8:11 AM on September 10, 2020 [4 favorites]

So what kind of person clicks the "quick look" button? Toasters are set and forget, that's what's good about them. Who is micromanaging their toast (ok, lots of people for the first week after purchase)? But bread is super cheap. It's ok if a couple turn into crutons, I'm trying to eat salad anyways.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:16 AM on September 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

*I* am micromanaging my toast. Perfect toast in one of my favorite small pleasures in life.
posted by tiny frying pan at 8:19 AM on September 10, 2020 [7 favorites]

I bought my toaster for $10 from Walmart 23 years ago as a college freshman to make Poptarts in my dorm room (and later, for the brief glorious period they were available, Toaster Breaks pizzas). It may get a little too enthusiastic when it's done, often popping up toast so high that it comes back down on a different side or occasionally, winding up on the kitchen floor, but it's aces at making the perfect toast. Sometimes I think about replacing it with a fancy Breville, but after reading this thread, you can pry my vintage Rival model from my cold, dead hands.
posted by Fuego at 8:22 AM on September 10, 2020 [3 favorites]

I think having a button called "a bit more" is kind of admitting defeat. A toaster which I need to prod occasionally to basically do its job is nothing to admire or aspire to.
posted by niicholas at 8:26 AM on September 10, 2020 [4 favorites]

*I* am micromanaging my toast.
posted by tiny frying pan at 8:19 AM


For perfect toast, you should try making it in a...no never mind.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:37 AM on September 10, 2020 [5 favorites]

I toast bagels like a monster

Using his fiery breath?
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:42 AM on September 10, 2020 [4 favorites]

I've been using the same 1940s chrome-and-bakelite General Electric toaster for the past thirty years, and like my brass-bladed electric fans, manual typewriters, 1940s mixer, 1940s blender, and similar bits of old clonk, I have no reason to doubt they will survive me.

I love the clarity of labeling and function on this modern toaster, and I love that there is a fruit loaf setting, but I am pessimistic about its long-term chances.

My 70+ year-old toaster coasts along on a little repair or preventative maintenance once a decade, and its function is more of a manual process than, say, the four-slice modern computerized toaster I bought for my gentleman caller's home to handle the daily toastload for a family of three, but attention is the bulk of good cooking, so I'm content. As I ponder the details of cohabitation after so long, I harbor the foolish fear that my toaster will be lonesome, if it is not already, sitting on a shelf in my beloved apartment I abandoned at lockdown, where the only stirring is of my robot vacuum who roams the dark floors at night, cleaning for a return that does not come.

Fortunately, my toaster possesses no awareness of this; just clockworks and wiring, waiting without impatience or interest in the matters of my life, stalwart but without concern.

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white,

Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.
posted by sonascope at 8:44 AM on September 10, 2020 [16 favorites]

A toaster which I need to prod occasionally to basically do its job is nothing to admire or aspire to.

Breville toasters are learning at an exponential rate, each time their users press the button. Just wait for v2.0.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 8:46 AM on September 10, 2020 [4 favorites]

Am I the only one who, upon seeing "Quick Look", figured this "tech product" was part of the ludicrous internet of things with a built in camera accessible through some phone app?
posted by Ahmad Khani at 8:46 AM on September 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

micromanaging my toast.

it is worth noting that some of us, for whatever reason, don't buy a brand of bread that is chemically EXACTLY the same from loaf to loaf. Or maybe it's just a little more dry today than it was yesterday. Or maybe we go with different kinds of bread altogether from day-to-day, week to week. Setting our toasting heat at an exact setting and expecting the exact same results every time just isn't going to work.

So you may call it micromanaging. I just call it managing.
posted by philip-random at 8:47 AM on September 10, 2020 [11 favorites]

I'd like to get a toaster oven. I was going to do an Ask about this but it seems all the toasties are here. What should I get? A Breville?
posted by medusa at 8:52 AM on September 10, 2020

*
I am micromanaging my toast.
posted by tiny frying pan at 8:19 AM


For perfect toast, you should try making it in a...no never mind.
posted by The_Vegetables at 10:37 AM

I feel like you're making a joke at me but have no idea what you're on about, honestly.
posted by tiny frying pan at 8:53 AM on September 10, 2020 [3 favorites]

I bought my father the Wirecutter's recommended large tosaster oven a few years ago and he has never stopped singing its praises.
posted by mmascolino at 8:56 AM on September 10, 2020

We bought us the Wirecutter's recommended small toaster oven and it's mostly really good but doesn't have a broil function which detracts. We've found that [newt] mowstly [/newt] you can get the results you're looking for from broil with a brief sojourn at 500 on top of the tray.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:04 AM on September 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

I feel like you're making a joke at me

No, not at you, at your user name as a way to make perfect toast and the eponysterical thing (where the username and the comment support each other).
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:05 AM on September 10, 2020

Ffs, it was a joke, eat your bagel however you want.
posted by phooky at 9:07 AM on September 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

phillip-random, bread variety is one of the things making the 1960s Sunbeam toaster such utter genius. I’m pretty sure its bread-only temperature sensor is effectively monitoring the stage of the Maillard reaction at the bread surface, which is what I actually want to set.
posted by clew at 9:07 AM on September 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

Thanks to a whack of inherited Air Miles and nothing better to do with them we have the 4-slice version of this toaster, and it is indeed a wonder. But its precocious eagerness to please does seem a bit sad, like Marvin the Paranoid Android in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy("Give me a brain the size of a planet and what do they do? Tell me to go see who's at the door."): probably enough computing power to land a spacecraft on the moon, maybe even run Doom, and all we ask it to do is toast bread reasonably well.
The other day there was a brief power cut and going into the kitchen all the clocks were blinking 12:00, and for some reason even the toaster was getting in on it, letting me know, with its LED bar lit up in red, that something had gone wrong but not to worry, the toast would be fine.
posted by Flashman at 9:19 AM on September 10, 2020 [7 favorites]

After years of not really wanting a toaster oven I do kind of want one now, for a few reasons: (1) our "long slot" toaster, which supposedly is a four slice model, won't actually fit four slices of supermarket bread (two English muffins or two bagels, yes, but none of the Sliced Bread™ we buy); (2) I'd like more even browning of the glaze on certain Pop-Tarts, don't judge me; (3) I make bagels at home and the best way to preserve and reheat a bagel is to freeze them whole (preferably within two hours of baking) and then bake them intact so the crust crisps up again while the crumb gets warm without drying out. Whenever I'm freezing bagels I slice a couple for emergency toasting (defrost on 2, bagel on 4) but it would be nice not to have to turn the oven on and wait for it to preheat. I know from office break room experience that with a toaster oven I can heat up a whole bagel from frozen in the time it takes me to make coffee.
posted by fedward at 9:23 AM on September 10, 2020

I inherited this 1952 Toastmaster toaster. Read the ad copy! I used it when I was a kid, and it still works perfectly now. It's about a year older than me. (And I actually bought another one on ebay 20 years ago when my parents were still using this one. I was tired of breaking ugly toasters every few years.)

The ad shows $23 in 1952. Inflation calculators say that's $225 now. Appliances were expensive, but usually built to last.
posted by jjj606 at 9:31 AM on September 10, 2020 [5 favorites]

I have the typical too-small NYC apartment kitchen and all I want is a toaster oven - just about every week I find myself wishing I had one for something I'm cooking, but i wanted a KitchenAid mixer, so all we have is a $25 Black and Decker toaster oven that fits in a cabinet when we're not using it. Which isn't a big deal, because we don't toast things all that often (which may be a chicken-and-egg thing). I was intrigued to learn that the bagel setting only toasts one side - no wonder I can never get an even them toast evenly.

It's instructive to go back and look at the dizzying array of dumb ways people managed to kill themselves with toasters when electricity was new.

Why go back?
posted by Mchelly at 9:41 AM on September 10, 2020

One strange problem with toaster ovens, and this may only affect me, is that practically none of the manufacturers can tell me what the size of their product is.

...and even when they can tell me, they give me incorrect information. For example, they'll say it's 17x11x15 -- but they won't say what those represent. Or they'll confuse depth with height. Or they'll say it's 17 inches deep, but that happens to exclude the non-removable rear standoffs that are 3" long so the ACTUAL depth is effectively 20".

I'm trying to put the damn thing in a very specific location, and I need very specific dimensions from them, and yet none of the major manufacturers can tell me! I've even contacted them, and I get answers like:

Me: "how large is it front to back?"
Them: "it's 17 inches deep"
Me: "does it have any standoffs in back?"
Them: "It doesn't say, but the ad photo might be showing some"
Me: "OK, do you have any idea how big the standoffs are?"
Them: "wait, maybe it's 17 inches tall, not deep, I can't tell. There's definitely a 17 though."
Me: "(head explodes)"
posted by aramaic at 9:47 AM on September 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

I don't have a Breville toaster, but I do have a Breville pressure cooker, and it's a little counterintuitive to use. It has 3 parameters: cook pressure, cook duration, release mode. Plus it has a bunch of presets, so effectively 4 degrees of freedom. It uses 3 knobs and a button for control, and (crucially) one of the knobs also acts as a button, although you need to already know that to make it work.

I look at appliances like this, a microwave, a washing machine. They all have different UI paradigms and most of them are not great. It makes me think that there might be a business opportunity for a company to make a controller module that has roughly the same touchscreen and computing power as a first-generation iPhone, with enough relay contacts to handle whatever appliance manufacturers would throw at it. The appliance maker would just slot it in, burn an EEPROM with some HTML for the display and a parameter file to handle the backend and be done.
posted by adamrice at 9:50 AM on September 10, 2020

Eventually phone screens will be powerful enough that you can just open a toaster app, place your phone on top of your bread, and wait a few minutes.
posted by oulipian at 10:30 AM on September 10, 2020 [6 favorites]

I think having a button called "a bit more" is kind of admitting defeat.

These go to 11.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 10:39 AM on September 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

The idea of a vintage toaster is tempting but toasters cause nearly 800 deaths annually (electrocution and fires) and most of those are modern units with safety cutouts and proper insulation.
Early electrical appliances do not have a good safety record. Those old toasters by Sunbeam and Toastmaster would never pass modern safety regs.
The first generation of Dualits in the 1940's had an open design which had quite a reputation for inflicting serious burns.
posted by Lanark at 10:42 AM on September 10, 2020

I find it weird that the Anglo-world has completely abandoned the flat-bed toaster. My parents had one as a wedding present from some Scottish "aunties" back in 1965, and it worked their whole lives. None of us wanted to inherit it because we all had our own. They are really cheap, safe and indestructible. Great for bagels and buns, I think they have survived here because a popular breakfast food is krydderboller (spiced buns), which are too thick to go into the toasters with the slits. Also rundstykker (another breakfast favorite similar to German Brötchen or Simmlen) should be bought the same morning and thus not need toasting, but people keep them in the freezer for convenience. Toaster ovens are fine, but use far more energy than a good flat-bed.
posted by mumimor at 10:48 AM on September 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

I think having a button called "a bit more" is kind of admitting defeat. A toaster which I need to prod occasionally to basically do its job is nothing to admire or aspire to.

On the other hand, if a product is designed with absolute confidence that it will get everything correct and that confidence proves to be misplaced, a lack of manual input can make that extra infuriating. If you judge it based on the presence of controls, you risk companies removing the controls as a perfomative show of confidence without much to back it up.
posted by RobotHero at 11:01 AM on September 10, 2020

I have strong feelings for on toasters. Whether I have bought an expensive toaster or a cheap toaster, after usage I only have toast. Toast is a great denominator, because it can be graded as 'acceptable' or 'WTF' and while there is a slight delineation on personal preference, bread products for a toaster oven are commoditized enough that with rare exception we all know how bakery products can and should perform in a toaster. With that said, no AI, no fuzzy logic, no machine learning, no photograph or temperature sensor analyzed through a neural network is going to provide me with a substantially better piece of toast such that I can justify the cost of a smart toaster. If I learn through a $25 4 slicer that the left side browns slightly too much - what do I do? I turn the element down. And guess what? The next time I use it - it isn't overly brown.

And, when it breaks - there is just the heating element or the mechanical spring that there is to break which could affect the outcome of my toast. I'm not happy about it - but it happens and I can accept it. If I spent an ungodly amount on a toaster ( read: anything OVER $35 (and that $35 toaster better pick up kids from the carpool)) and the same thing happens - or the additional features fail - I am not out more than I am willing to spend on toast for a given year. If that second $25 toaster dies? I'll never buy that brand toaster again. There are a cornucopia of manufacturers who make cheap four slice toasters.
posted by Nanukthedog at 11:01 AM on September 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

We have this toaster. It toasts wonderfully, the "a bit more" button can be very useful (I think the "a bit more time" is even based on how dark you have it set to), and the progress bar has LEDs that count down how much time is left. However, the review doesn't mention that the toaster beeps when it's finished! To me, this is even more important than the extra buttons because you usually want to butter a piece of toast (or a bagel) when it's still hot. I think the beep is is a regular Breville thing because we also have their tea maker and it does the same thing, but with a slightly different beep so you know which machine is calling you.
posted by PatchesPal at 11:04 AM on September 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

And here I am thinking that one of the best features of the Breville toaster is that I can turn off the beep!
posted by stopgap at 11:10 AM on September 10, 2020

I HATE THE BEEP. A toaster already makes a noise when done. Mine beeps when you put the toast DOWN as well as when it pops up. It's enough to make you weep.
posted by tiny frying pan at 11:11 AM on September 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

I have never seen or heard of a flat bed toaster and am amazed. The first side doesn’t get cool while the second side toasts? And how can it be more efficient when the heat is less enclosed?

I have a one-and-a-half electric oven, a standard slide-in with a shallow oven on top instead of a warming tray drawer on the bottom, and it is the best for lavish quantities of toast exposed both sides to a powerful radiant element at close range. Eyebrows McGee, if your current extravagant toaster ever fails, there is a step beyond.
posted by clew at 11:38 AM on September 10, 2020

I don't want a toaster, I want a stove like my Nanny used to have, with a separate gas fired broiling/toasting compartment.

- It had multiple small gas jets so you didn't have to wait 5 minutes for the single large electric element to warm up unlike the pathetic "broiler" in my over.
- The opening was mere inches, so you didn't waste time heating air and all that heat was focused on your cheese.
- No door, so you could see what was happening second by second so as to remove the bread at the optimal time.
- At eye level, so you can keep an eye on things while arranging your other toast supplies.
- Not inconveniently hidden behind the blender or that bread machine you really need to remember to take down to Goodwill.

Basically, a salamander but scaled down for home kitchen duties. Any toaster or toaster over pales by comparison.
posted by madajb at 12:28 PM on September 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

I have never seen or heard of a flat bed toaster and am amazed. The first side doesn’t get cool while the second side toasts? And how can it be more efficient when the heat is less enclosed?

I don't know how the efficiency works but it is measurable. Maybe it's because the other toasters and the toaster ovens have so many functions?
Obviously the first side cools a bit, so you need to spread your butter on the second side, but it is a tiny difference. If a young person in my family who isn't obsessive about toast forgets to butter the second side, they won't notice. We often freeze slice bread, because I love baking and the young people buy a lot of last sale day bread. Heating the frozen bread slices on the flat bed is genius, you can do it just like you want. And of course the best thing is the buns.
posted by mumimor at 12:41 PM on September 10, 2020

It reminds me of the Talkie Toaster from Red Dwarf.
posted by Dr Ew at 12:54 PM on September 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

practically none of the manufacturers can tell me what the size of their product is.

Find the item you're interested in on Amazon, and post a question about what the specific dimensions are (including standoffs etc.). Hopefully someone who owns one will answer and give you the right measurements.
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:04 PM on September 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

Find the item you're interested in on Amazon, and post a question

Alas, what frequently happens is I get answers like (I am not kidding): "I don't know, mine broke when I dropped it". I also not infrequently get detailed information on the size of the box the product comes in, and of course the ever-popular "it's a good size".

Or, my personal all-time favorite "I don't know, I don't have one."

In fairness, for about half of the models I'm interested in I'm able to get semi-accurate answers eventually, but even so the people who post irrelevant "answers" on Amazon need to be fired into the sun.
posted by aramaic at 1:28 PM on September 10, 2020 [12 favorites]

the people who post irrelevant "answers" on Amazon need to be fired into the sun.
Amazon's 'engagement-building' way they prompt people for these questions is at least half the issue, I think. They're very keen on making it sound like *you in particular* are being asked this question by *someone else in particular*, and as you note it's not exclusively "I have this product, so I'm being targeted by this question" but also "I looked at this product and others like it long enough it thinks I'm a free expert on the subject?"

So combine that and irrelevant responses are just an irritated email reply away!
posted by CrystalDave at 1:41 PM on September 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

I have the 4 slice version (for about 10 years now, albeit with not too heavy use) and think it’s great. Since I’m in the U.S. I have the “bagel” button; I wonder if “crumpet” works the same way?
posted by TedW at 4:07 PM on September 10, 2020

Fun article. I'd love that toaster. I feel compelled, also, to plug their electric kettle. Great if you don't want to think of the water temperature for French Press coffee or different teas. I've had one for 6 years and works like a champ.
posted by JoeXIII007 at 5:31 PM on September 10, 2020

Sounds like the "quick look" button would make it easy to toast sliced veggies too:

Sweet Potato Toast
posted by Sheydem-tants at 7:15 PM on September 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

I like my little Breville oven quite a bit, and feel that it makes perfect toast.
posted by aspersioncast at 10:30 PM on September 10, 2020

Ours toasts GF bread really well. Put some garlic oil and grated cheese on that toast, broil it for a couple minutes, and it is wonderful.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:27 PM on September 10, 2020

I HATE THE BEEP. A toaster already makes a noise when done. Mine beeps when you put the toast DOWN as well as when it pops up.

They're currently working on one which beeps when you bite into the toast.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 12:03 AM on September 11, 2020

I recently bought a sage waffle maker, and they’ve used lots of the same features - browning control, and an A Bit More button. The things that really sold me on it were the relative speed, size of waffles (so thick!) and the enormous non-stick waffle moat.

I became a convert to them after buying a refurb espresso machine and finding it at least ten times better than the del’onghi ones I had been buying and wearing out for 2/3 of the price. So when we thought we’d bought a luxury waffle maker for £30 and it was slow and rubbish, AND had some spare money from not being able to anything all summer AND a discount, we bought the monster. And it is really great.

It made me think of that post the other day about how having nicer things makes you less happy, because now I look at my microwave and it’s incomprehensible hieroglyphs, and squeaky door, and realise I can’t afford to buy any more of the shiny steel items. For now...
posted by fizban at 12:08 AM on September 11, 2020 [1 favorite]

Some people think that toasting bagels is bad?

Ah, well, there are bagels and there are bagels. In my experience mass-market and franchise bagels, and small-batch bagels designed in imitation of those products are made to be toasted, and bagels catering to the tastes of east coast Jews are not.

I don't want to yuck anyone's yum, and toroidal lightly-crisped bread with cinnamon and/or studded with fruit isn't bad, but it's a somewhat different creature than a dense-but-not-hard, soft,sided bread torus with seeds or savory mixins like garlic and onion. They have different textures, different suitable toppings, and, yeah, apparently you toast the former.
posted by jackbishop at 5:54 AM on September 11, 2020

In my experience mass-market and franchise bagels, and small-batch bagels designed in imitation of those products are made to be toasted, and bagels catering to the tastes of east coast Jews are not.

This New Yorker happily consumes her H&H-bagel-with-schmear toasted. Because, see, if you toast it first, the cream cheese goes all oozy and melty and that's always a good thing.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:57 AM on September 11, 2020 [1 favorite]

wreckingball: having my bread Phantom-of-the-Opera up and down

I’ve had a long and tiring week, am feeling somewhat down, and this particular snippet made me laugh uncontrollably for about five minutes straight. Thank you!
posted by Morfil Ffyrnig at 12:31 PM on September 11, 2020 [2 favorites]

One of the best sci-fi reads that crossed my eyeballs this summer was a dystopian short story about toaster hackers.

For anyone else in the overlapping toaster/sci-fi fandom Venn circles, I present Cory Doctorow‘s Unauthorized Bread.
posted by FallibleHuman at 3:46 PM on September 11, 2020 [2 favorites]

Most toasters usually have perfectly reasonable controls.

On the other hand, I've seen a lot of terrible microwave controls. When you use an unfamiliar microwave, it's always a guessing game of what to push first.

On mine, it's "Power Level" and then the display changes to "100." If you push "Power Level" again, it changes to "90" and so on. The more you push "Power Level" the less power it has. Then, once you've got the correct "Power Level" push numbers for how many seconds it should run. If you try to push numbers before pushing "Power Level" it will just do nothing.

If you use any other microwave, it will be something completely different.

Bags of microwave popcorn literally say on them, don't use the popcorn setting. So they come up with these "one button" solutions but you apparently can't trust them.

One microwave I used once, it was ancient but I remember it fondly because it had dials. One for power, one for time.
posted by RobotHero at 7:07 PM on September 11, 2020

Wow. I had been meaning to pick up a toaster and the links to the Sunbeam Radiant Contol videos made up my mind. I found a Canadian T-48 for sale on Etsy a few hours away and now it's in the mail. It turns out they kept making them until about 20 years ago. The one I'm getting looks like it's from the 80s, so I'm going to assume CSA ratings haven’t changed markedly in that time. Thanks again Metafilter.
posted by bonobothegreat at 11:27 AM on September 12, 2020

Out KitchenAid toaster lets you lift the handle to peek at the toast, without cancelling the timer.
posted by inpHilltr8r at 6:18 PM on September 12, 2020

One microwave I used once, it was ancient but I remember it fondly because it had dials. One for power, one for time.

This is my dream microwave. I check what’s available every so often, and it seems that only countertop models have this setup, and they are either hideously ugly commercial microwaves or lower-than-bottom-of-the-line consumer microwaves. The one exception (apropos to this link), is the Breville microwaves which are only slightly more complicated but also countertop-only models. There aren’t any over-the-range options.

My current microwave has a dial for setting the time, but you can’t just press “Start” after spinning it to the correct time. For some reason, you have to first press the “Time” button, then spin the dial, then press in the dial itself to click it, then press start (or press in the dial a second time). So many unnecessary steps! Ideally, it would turn on automatically after you stop spinning the dial (or even the moment you start spinning), but I would accept the requirement to press a button once. The only models that work that simply are the fully analog commercial microwaves where the dial slowly turns back to zero like a kitchen timer.
posted by stopgap at 10:38 PM on September 12, 2020

Yes, I think that's what this ancient one was doing. I don't remember now if it still required a "start" button. I realize now my dishwasher does the "start as soon as you turn it" and it feels a little impatient to me. I would prefer it to wait for a clear "I'm done setting the dial" signal. The clothes washer has "pull dial out to turn, push it back in to start" which is nice, though I suppose there's a small initial hurdle of figuring out the process.

I do like dials for inputting timers and other continuous values. I suppose it might bother someone who was set on entering precisely 3:00 minutes.

Is there some regulatory requirement for a minimum number of arbitrary steps required to start a microwave for safety reasons? But they thankfully haven't applied this criteria to stove tops, I've never seen one of those that couldn't be turned on by spinning a dial.
posted by RobotHero at 7:15 AM on September 13, 2020

The first microwaves used mechanical timer dials. You'd spin the dial and a motor would slowly spin it back while the oven was on.

Now my vague vague understanding is that there was some patent encumbrance around digital rotary panel encoders (I believe held by the DaVinci corporation?? so fuzzy) in the 70s and 80s which kept them from being used in anything at all except that company's products. That's why the simple user interface of "spin to set a time for a digital countdown" never became any kind of standard. Once the patent lapsed everyone was already used to membrane key panels (which are cheaper anyway) so very few manufacturers bothered to introduce them.

DaVinci also held a patent on active pushbuttons, I understand, that would pop up only when it was useful to press them. But i could be making that up? I had a friend a long time ago who used to work for them and would, with very little prompting, rail about how much digital tactile data entry technology was patent encumbered by this one shitty company.

Anyway my current microwave has membrane buttons for 1 through 6 minute instant start, plus an add 30 seconds instant start button, and that essentially covers everything we want to cook with 1 or 2 button presses.
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:18 AM on September 13, 2020 [1 favorite]

We have a microwave with one mechanical dial for time and no turntable inside -- I think it is sold as a corner-store microwave, we bought it because it has a rep for lasting a long time. IIRC it was more expensive than a cheap microwave but less expensive than a lot of `designy' microwaves.

I like the simplicity. It doesn't burn the food in spots despite not having a turntable. For at least a month, though, when the microwave noise was happening, I hallucinated the food beginning to turn when I peered into the microwave.
posted by clew at 1:43 PM on September 13, 2020