I want a Panasonic bread maker. Tell me your pros and cons

[twiddlingthumbs69]

After having just bought a loaf of bread today and opening it to find it’s already quite stale, I pretty much decided enough is enough and thinking of buying a bread maker

DH is saying no. The initial outlay (down from £159 to £109) is too much. I understand his point and there are only two of us in the house so these are my questions:

shall I get one anyway. If he’s so against it, not let him have any and he can carry on eating shop bought?
how often do you use yours?
how long does the bread stay fresh for?
is it one of those things that end up in a cupboard not being used (his words, not mine)?
overall, is it worth it?

dont want it to make anything fancy, just a white loaf is fine by me. Might experiment when I get used to it.

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I've had panasonic breadmakers for 25 years. The first one after buying a cheaper model which was no good at all. My mum bought an alternative make too, which didn't perform either.
my second Panasonic was second hand from ebay for £11 10 years ago (I gave my first one to my daughter and it's still going!)
For me it would be Panasonic or nothing , or watch bake with Jack on YouTube who de-mystifies bread making by hand.
i wrap my loaves in foil which helps keep it fresh, but like all bread it's best eaten the day you make it!

I bought mine in lockdown for several reasons. Couldn’t bulk buy bread as freezer wasn’t big enough, wanted to reduce UPF and nostalgia from having one growing up (they were a thing in the 90s).

It’s in use a couple of times a week. The go to loaf is 5 seeded white loaf because that is palatable to the kids. Found the whole meal a bit dense.

Because I am too lazy to measure the butter, I’ve got into the habit of glugging in 15ml of olive oil instead. Takes me 3-4 mins to load it up including 5 tablespoons of different seeds.

I often use the timer so I wake up to freshly baked bread smell but as PP said, it can make a noise when releasing the yeast or seeds.

I wouldn’t be without it.

I’m impressed by how many people use their bread maker so often. We’ve had two (both Panasonic) and - after an initial burst of enthusiasm - didn’t really use them much and rapidly got fed up with having another massive appliance on the counter.
They do make nice bread, but they are huge!

We just weren’t using it enough to make it worth it. Have a look on Facebook marketplace or Freecycle, there’s often ones going cheap/free (at least near me there are - clearly it’s an area of non-dedicated bakers).

I make bread a couple times a week. The machine saves my hands from kneading and I can let the loaf finish in the machine or bake it in the oven. I can also make things like brioche, different kinds of bread, and pizza dough for homemade pizzas. Mine has a timer so if the loaf doesn't have dairy, I can set up the ingredients overnight and it goes on in the morning. My loaves have about a 3 day shelf life and I do slice and freeze if it looks like it might not get eaten. Yes to having a routine so it just gets done certain days.

It's also a great way to make your house smell good.

Yes I second all of this. There are only 2 of us and we probably use it every 2 or 3 days. I can make cakes in mine as well which saves putting the oven on.

Thanks for all your replies. The only downside I can see is the size of it. Our kitchen isn’t huge so I’d need to try and tuck it in a corner as I like clear countertops.
other thing I hadn’t thought of was not placing under the cabinets. Could be a problem as the only other place would be on the hob, which is gas, so not really a stable base.
however, none of that has deterred me, I still want one. Just need to carve out a nice little space for it

I keep mine under the stairs where I keep my tinned stuffs and other appliances like my instant pot. Then just get it out to use.

I had one but have recently sold it. It took 5 hours to bake a small brown loaf. I could get a bigger, nicer one from Lidl for £1.69.
Just not worth the faff.

I'm on my second Panasonic, the first one lasted about 15 years, used at least once a day when our children still lived at home. The current one is 10+ years old and used 1-4 times a week. The raisin dispenser broke some time ago, so I screwed it shut and just throw all the ingredients in together. It lives in a difficult to access corner of the kitchen worksurface, under the top cabinets. I pull it forward to put the ingredients in and to remove the loaf/dough, so that the lid just bypasses the top cabinet doors when open. I mostly make rye (3.5 hours), fruit wholemeal, white, and plain wholemeal (all made on either a 2 or 4 hour programme) and pizza dough. I only make the smallest loaves and find that the bread is mostly good fresh for 2 days then good for toast for another two days. The bread is delicious, UPF free and costs very little to make

I also make sourdough fairly frequently, but I mix that in a stand mixer and it takes a couple of days , depending on my chosen recipe, so the bread machine is a great, quick, backup.

I did have a cheaper make before I bought the first Panasonic, but we didn't like the bread from it, so the machine was given away.

My mum had a Panasonic one for years which was great, it broke at some point in the last 20 years, not sure which brand she has atm.

I would love one but have too many intrusive thoughts about a fire when I'm asleep (this is entirely a "me" problem)

I got mine last Black Friday and have used it loads. Most of our bread comes from it and I also use to make pizza dough, naan bread dough, cakes/fruit loaf sometimes. I buy shop bought bread maybe a couple of times a month.
I mostly make bread with flour etc but also always have a pack of bread mix in for when I’m short of time or have run out of flour.
The bread is lovely and better for us than shop bought, doesn’t stay as fresh but a loaf rarely lasts more than a couple of days in our house anyway.

Pro- excellent bread maker. Lovely home made, non upf, bread with not additives. Pizza, cake etc. Never run out of bread as long as you have flour.

Cons , I don't think there is one.

It's so easy to load up in the evening, I have all my flour, salt yeast etc in one cupboard and put it on the overnight timer.

I used to have mine on the counter but it got displaced by a grill, so now it lives in the base cabinet underneath and just comes out for the night, as it were. It fits in the bottom half of a unit.

Love ours - purchased to cut down on UPFs. Store it in the cupboard and get it out to bake a loaf overnight. Bread doesn’t last long as no preservatives but can use any that has gone stale as breadcrumbs as pp have said. I do doughs in there for pizzas etc as well. I would buy it again if it broke. The only issue we have is the bread isn’t as “soft” as a well known brand in orange paper 😉 so DS7 isn’t as keen on it as the adults.

I’ve had mine about 13 years, had a cheaper one before that to test if I’d use one enough to be worth the cost.

We make about two loaves a week (there are two of us) and it’s great for the breads I’d never bother with otherwise, like ciabatta, Panettone, French bread; I also make dough in it and turn it into to rolls and pizza bases to freeze.

It lives on a corner of the worktop, under a wall cupboard, so I do have to move it to use it, but that’s not a big deal.

Would you please be able to share the recipe for this please? My daughter has kidney disease so we need to limit her salt intake. I usually make her a basic white loaf in my bread maker (white bread flour, water, oil, yeast and white wine vinegar) but wouldn’t mind trying something different 😊

My breadmaker makes excellent bread (usually), but it goes stale very quickly, day2 is ok, day3 maybe, but better as toast, so i make a loaf, slice it and freeze what will not be used the next day, then defrost as required. it makes me wonder what is in a supermarket sliced loaf that i would buy Friday AM, so made Thursday or possibly Wednesday, that would mean it is still moist (but not green) at breakfast the following Friday. Actually i would rather not know and just accept the occasional operator error with the machine.

That’s what I thought to wtf is in the bread to make it last longer

Try gumtree, I got a second hand one very cheaply

I second this.

I bought mine for £100 (half price) on Black Friday about 5 years ago.
Sold it a few months ago on FB Marketplace for a tenner.

I have one. They can bake all sorts of things besides bread. Is it good? Yes. Is it indispensable? No.

My basic white loaf from today. I have a Sage bread maker though and am so impressed with the quality of bread that comes out.

I bought mine in the summer when DH said it would be a nine day wonder. It gets used two or three times a week for bread, pizza dough a couple of times and jam a couple of times...I wish I had bought it sooner.
I am not tall and the downside is that the display /controls are on the top at the back so it wouldn't be easy to see on a worktop but as it is set up in top of a set of drawers in the spare room it isn't an issue. I keep all the flour etc in a plastic box next to it.
I keep bread in a wax bread bag and day 3 it makes great toast.

Agree about the display, I'm 5'10 and have one, I can see it fine but anyone much shorter would have a problem seeing it, though this may not be in all models but it is mentioned in some reviews

The problem is we have one and it doesn't stay fresh for long either and the ingredients cost almost the same as the shop plus electricity and also it got quite annoying you want a quick sandwich and no bread as it gets eaten quickly here and then you had several hours to make more.So now it sits on a shelf unused. We just changed bread brand recently much better