Breadman TR875 2-Pound Breadmaker, Stainless Steel
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Kitchen and Housewares Reviews of Breadman TR875 2-Pound Breadmaker, Stainless Steel
Customer Review: Dang Good Bread Machine
Summary: 4 Stars
I decided to order this particular machine because it fit in my budget and it seems like it should be good enought to do the trick. It doesn't take up as much counter space as I thought it would, and it has several different settings for jam, dough, bread, rapid cycle and whole wheat, gluten free and more. It comes with a pretty clear cut instruction manual and it has a lot of recipes as well. I first tried their basic white bread recipe that was listed in the recipe book that came with it. It turned out really good, although it came out to be a weird shape. Next time I might have to just smooth down the dough myself. This thing is pretty loud during when it kneads, but that's not too bothersome. When it's time for you to add in fruit or nuts, it beeps really loudly about 10 times. I think 3 would be plenty! For the second loaf of bread I tried a honey whole wheat, this time from the Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook. It turned out great! The shape was a bit better this time and it was delicious. The third loaf of bread I made was jalapeno from the instruction manual, but it didn't turn out. I ran out to do some errands so I wasn't able to check it periodically to see what was going on. After trying it again, I watched it and discovered that the recipe was incorrect there is not enough water to get it to mix all together. So after adding a bit more water, it turned out great. I would definitely recommend this to a friend, and the only reason why I'm giving it 4 instead of 5 stars is because of the incorrect recipe. I don't know how many other recipes are incorrect, but I plan to update this as I go along and I'll definitely write in again when this thing takes a crap.
UPDATE:
I have decided to sell this thing on craigslist after only 6 loaves of bread. It produces good bread, but hand made is just so much better, fits in my toaster better, and makes for better sandwich bread. I would rather devote a few hours of my day to making a few loaves of delicious bread that last a couple of weeks than making good bread without doing much.
Customer Review: Breadman TR875 was good buy.
Summary: 5 Stars
I decided to make my own bread after I discovered that almost all of the breads on the market contained soy, an item I need to avoid to keep my thyroid healthy. I love kneading and baking bread, but since I work a lot, I decided to buy a bread machine. I like buying from Amazon, and so far have never had a problem with any of their products. Reading their reviews have been helpful as well. However, I did read several reviews where they thought that their bread machines appeared to be used or factory reconditioned, so when my Breadman arrived, I carefully inspected it before throwing out the box. Everything was in good order, and the item arrived in lighting speed, so I was well pleased. It is a nice looking machine, with easy to read controls, and makes a horizontal loaf. Many of the loaves I've made are almost as high as they are wide, so half of a slice will equal about the size of a normal slice of bread. The teflon coating on the inside of the pan insures that the loaf comes out easily from the pan, leaving just a small hole in the bottom of the loaf where the paddle was. So far, I have made three to four loaves per week since getting it with no problems.
It came with good instructions, easy to read, but did not explain that once the machine is plugged in, you will not be able to remove the pan from the machine until you unplug it again, a safety feature I had not seen in any of my old bread machines. Once you get used to it, it's not so bad.
The Breadman came with some recipes, which have all made successful loaves, but I also bought several cookbooks from Amazon as well. I was able to find some very nice used bread machine cookbooks for .01 plus shipping, so it's worth looking into.
All in all, I would highly recommend this bread machine to anyone looking for a reliable horizontal loaf machine. It's especially nice if your kitchen decor is black and stainless steel. The price for this machine is a little more than some, but worth the money, considering all of the positive reviews that it has received.
Customer Review: A good choice
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought this bread machine because of the need to feed a growing toddler and chose this model because of the look. After using it for more than 2 months, this machine has been a very good addition to our kitchen. Since this is our first bread machine, it took several trials to get used to making bread in a machine, and to make the perfect bread we liked. The recipes in the manual are not the best, so expect experimenting yourself, get a good recipe book, or download some recipes from internet (this is what we did).
Note that we did not follow the instruction in the manual to run an empty cycle to burn off the "machine oil", because I saw for a different model of Breadman machine, one review complained about the machine breaking after this empty cycle. It turned out that this burning run is not needed at all. Just clean the container well.
On the good side, this machine has a very nice mordern look. Has an easy programming panel. And most importantly, makes good bread.
Some notes:
1. this bread machine makes 1.5 lb and 2 lb only. If you need a smaller loaf, such as 1 lb, you'd better go with a different model. For two of us with a kid, 1.5 lb is perfect.
2. the machine is bigger than it looks in the picture. It is not among the large sized bread machines, but it looks really small in the picture.
3. the machine has a bit trouble mixing the last bit of flour from one of the corners. That will leave some dry flour in the corner of the final product, which doesn't really affect the taste though. We solve this by using a plastic spoon to help a bit in the second kneading cycle. But if it is set for over night run, you have to live with this.
4. We never tried the ultra fast cycle, but regular cycles take more than 3 hours to finish. With preparation time, normally about 15 to 20 mins, that means you will wait ~4 hours before the bread will be ready. Of course, using the delayed start will solve this, but we like to put milk and egg in, and we are afraid they might go bad sitting overnight.
Customer Review: Serious DO NOT BUY warning. Received refurbished model, not new.
Summary: 1 Stars
I received this as a wedding gift from a dear friend of my Wife's, as we used Amazon for one of our two wedding registries. Unfortunately, I waited until today to open the box after receiving it in mid-April.
Thank god for Amazon's customer service. They agreed to let me return it with no squabbling, because it was a gift and the product was not as ordered. Our friend ordered a new breadmaker, we received a used/refurbished one.
I wanted to read the reviews for the machine and see any tips or tricks. I was extremely disturbed to read that MANY people received refurbished products after paying new prices, and that many units stopped working after short periods of time. I read about the warning signs that you've received a refurbished product, opened the box, and sure enough, they were everywhere.
The interior of the unit was all scratched up, the plastic top was scuffed up, and there was no plastic cover on the LCD screen. Everything else seemed to be OK, but at that point I had read enough D.O.A./died after a few uses reviews to not want to bother with the machine.
Growing up, my Mom had one bread machine for over 15 years, and as far as I know it still worked when she gave it to a friend and bought a new one. It was a Zojirushi. After reading what everyone else has gone through with this P.O.S., I'm going to go with a company that has a long standing reputation with this particular type of appliance. I may pay a little more, but like most things in life, it's worth paying for quality.
Let me restate this succinctly:
You should not give your money to a company that abuses customers this way, no matter how good the product is. In this case, the product is terrible as well.
I understand there are always the outliers, people who get one and it works great for years. But at this point, there are enough seriously bad reviews to warrant avoiding this company entirely. They are dishonest.
Customer Review: Needs refinement
Summary: 1 Stars
My son needs to eat a gluten free diet so when we learned about the special program in this machine we decided to try making bread at home. We have an older Hitachi bread machine which makes the loaf more vertically but doesn't have a gluten free cycle.
This Breadman product appeared to be unused and all the parts were in the box when it arrived. We read through the instructions and followed the recommendation to run the short cycle first without the paddle installed to remove oils on the pan from production. It did it's thing and we did not find it to be too loud as some have said in other reviews. We let it cool down overnight and then the trouble began. The pan would not pull out of the machine. There are 2 pieces of metal acting as a retainer near the top of the pan on the machine and our first suspicion was that one or both were bent or jammed as they do not appear very robust. So one of us with gloved hands pressed the clips aside while the other tried to pull the pan out on the table, then on the chair and finally while placing the machine on the floor. It became obvious that the sticking point was actually where the motor interacts with the mixing paddle shaft on the pan. After an hours worth of fiddling with the paddle in to try to get the parts to separate, we gave up and put it aside figuring it to be a total loss.
A few days ago, I tried again and finally with it on the floor and pulling up sharply, it "broke" free. Examining the base of the pan and the motor "blade"; it is a very poor and cheap construction. I have made some adjustments to each with a Dremel hand tool (a very good product by the way) and we have made one loaf of bread. My son liked it so I will continue to try to get this machine to work more reliably. It may need further tweeking but this should not be the case with a brand new product. Unless you need the special features or like to re-engineer your appliances, better to keep looking for something else.