Buyers guide: toaster 🔗

When the previous old toaster literally went up in flames, we needed a new one. The market for toasters seems to follow a bathtub-curve when it comes to price. There are a lot of really cheap ones, and quite many pretty expensive ones.

Why so? Toasters are a solved problem since a century and the technology is simple and inexpensive. So one can assume the pricier ones are priced so mainly for the brand stamp.

So what key features should a good toaster have? In our case, I settled on the following.

Feature list 🔗

• clean design, nothing too different
  • it’s a toaster, not a conversation piece
• reasonable price
  • let’s go for a bit over the lower tiers, but avoid the most priciest. Again, it’s a toaster.
• single-slot
  • quite often, that’s enough even for two breads, and we’re not a big family
  • it’s wasteful running an empty second slot
• self-centering of bread
  • thin bread tend to warp when in the toaster, and becomes hard to butterize
  • often in the form of a mesh on each side of the bread
  • don’t want the bread to touch the heating wire inside - smoke and fire
• nice to have: extendable rack above, for thawing or reheating
  • has to be built-in
• easy to clean, often with a removable bottom
• durable
  • this is not the most exciting thing, finding and buying a toaster
• deep and wide toaster compartment
  • must hold also thick or large breads
  • reduces risk of bread slice sticking out and not getting toasted
• lift-functionality
  • eg lift the handle to further lift the bread rack so it becomes easier to pick up the bread post-toasting
• long cable
  • easier to place on the breakfast table

Result 🔗

We bought a WMF toaster. A little short cable, and the brushed alu is a fingerprint magnet, but otherwise it holds up pretty well. The lift is a little poor though.

Background 🔗

So finally, what about the aforementioned flamey previous toaster?

Well, one morning I was having breakfast with my ca 5-yo daughter and we (I) got the idea of, “hey, what about toasting crispy bread?” (a Swedish/Nordic bread type which is dry, thin and crispy).

Those are very dry and it soon started a fire. The flames reached the cupboard bottoms and the small kitchen fire extenguisher only let out a displeasing pfjuuuu but I managed to pull the cable, throw it in the sink and shower it with water.

Needless to say, my wife wasn’t home at the time of my genious idea.