Panasonic SD-2501

My 15 year old faithful Breville bread maker could be heard squeaking way down the street and it was time to buy another. Product Review had so many positive reports about the Panasonic which decided me. My wife saw one advertised for $20 (Bargain!) which we bought. It was used twice and like new, but no manual. This was downloaded.
Since then, some 6 months ago we have made so many different things all with great success except for Spelt bread which tasted like sawdust.
It is very quiet, efficient, easy to clean and the bread just falls out. It is logical to program and has a multitude of easy to understand settings. Someone at Panasonic was very mindful of the difference between regions as there are separate recipes for New Zealand and Australia, presumably because of different flour. Of note is that the stirring blade does NOT come out buried in the bottom of the loaf as the old Breville did. Panasonic has put a lot of thought into the this machine and I feel very lucky to have one (at such a low price)
Would I recommend it? Yes.

I have been using this for a couple of months now, my previous breadmaker having finally died after 14 years of great bread. I use bread mixes, so I can vary my style of bread without having to keep lots of different ingredients. I am most unimpressed. The bread doesn't rise at all well, and is strangely spongy in texture. I have tried extra yeast and extra water as suggested in the manual. No joy. There is only one brand of bread mix available these days (certainly at any of the supermarkets I can get to - rural NSW). I think I will go back to the old brand of breadmaker and cut my losses. It can't be any worse.

I have made white, wholemeal, multi grain and spicy loaves. All have turned out perfectly. The blade comes out clean and doesn't take chunks out of the bread. It is very quiet. Would recommend this product 100%.

I've used this bread maker every day for last four months and it has given me perfect bread every time. It uses little sugar compared to others, has a great range of recipes with it and the timer means I can get up or come home to freag bread. I've made the bagels , pizza dough etc as well as many of the loafs and all worked brilliantly. Highly recommend

Followed the instruction for putting correct amount and sequences for first time with time setting with menu 1. white bread was not risen probably and has excessive flour on the side and the instruction seems have way too much salt and too salty. Second time when kneading I saw paddle could not knead the flour on side and far corners. I ended up using plastic folk to stir the flour at corner....It should work automatically but it seems not. Can anyone help? Love to make better bread for mother's day.

Absolutley love this machine, makes an awesome loaf of bread & actually stays fresher for longer than my old Breville. Bought at the good guys for $215.00 4 days ago & I have now made 3 loaves of bread & everyone has turned out beautifully. I still have a lot of experamenting to do but the recipee books has good information & instructions on many different loaves. It's extremley quite, don't even here the finish beeps, which is a bit annoying as the loaf can be left too long which means sweating crust, also it dose'nt have a viewing window, minor detail though. Would highly recommend this bread maker

After much research and review reading here, we purchased this machine last month.
Basically, the loaf comes out like a large brick, never reaching the lip of the pan.
I have tried 3 commercial bread mixes, different sized loaves, 4 hr setting, 2 hr setting, more water, more yeast and all with the same result.
I make a basic loaf every second day and they are so small, often with a air filled top, that some of the loaf is wasted, having to cut that off.
I'm at my wit's end...
****A month later and all is good. Seems my mix was all wrong and trial and error has now fixed my issues, so I'm giving it 5 stars all round!

Having had a rather disappointing experience with my previous bread maker (completely different brand), it was with apprehension that I purchased a second one. I purchased the Panasonic bread maker on the recommendation of a friend and haven't regretted the purchase at all.
I have found it to be reliable both in timer mode and instant use, the bread is perfect and delicious each time (I can see my waistline expanding vastly in the near future!). The machine gets on with the business of kneading quietly and without complaint. So far I have made semolina bread, wholemeal bread, raisin wholemeal and a couple of different doughs....all with great success. The manual is well laid out and easy to follow. So far the recipes, from the ones I've tried, have been accurate in their amounts of ingredients; no tweaking required.
If you are thinking of purchasing a bread maker I would suggest spending the extra dough (sorry, couldn't resist the pun) and buy this one. I don't think you would be disappointed. The Panasonic SD-2501 Bread Maker is a 5 star appliance, I highly recommend it.

Bought one of these for Christmas to replace and old Sunbeam bread maker that was gifted to us. I had some concerns from the negative reviews here but after reading through the positive reviews I took the chance and bought one. So far we have made multiple loaves from both supermarket packet mixes and recipes that were in the instruction manual. They have all come out just fine though we prefer the recipes from the manual and will probably make those exclusively once our stock of packet mixes has run out. For the recipes we have only tried organic bakers flour from 'the source' wholefoods shop. The other key is to keep the yeast separated from the wet ingredients. So we put in the water, butter, salt, whatever into the pan first, then we put in the flour, and then put the yeast on top of that. Set and forget.

Hope that helps anyone who might be put off from some of the people who are baking house bricks. :)

We have had this a few years now. We generally get the Laucke pre mix and just set the timer for great fresh bread in a morning. We have made our own too and our favourite is the raisin bread which is great for toast! I would give this six stars if I could!

I had to learn that it can only do what it's programmed to do AND ALSO that for some reason making a MEDIUM LOAF does not have enough ingredients (mostly) to give it a really good thrashing/mixing and turn out a good loaf. I now use LARGE loaf mix (more ingredients) and am getting a good loaf each time. I also invested in a new gram by gram scales which makes the weighing easier. I haven't bought a loaf of bread since I got this machine, and no longer need to have spare bread in the freezer (just in case) which has considerably freed up freezer space. I now cannot imagine NOT having this bread machine in the house, and the unit has almost half paid for itself already.

PROS:
- Because of the long bake times (using a lot of rest time) toss everything in and set the timer to finish baking at a convenient time for you. Walk away and forget until that set time and tip out a fresh baked loaf of bread.
- Easy as intro to basic bread making
- Uses less power than starting the oven
- Finished bread tips out of pan really easily
- Just soak then rinse non-stick bread pan and paddle, and air dry or dry with a soft cloth.
- Reasonable variety of different breads to choose from and bake (experiment and find your favs)
- You can make your own multigrain mix (find seeds and nuts and blitz in food processor) which works just as well, as long as you also use the cornmeal and oatmeal components. (or it can be a little dry)
- STALE BREAD!!!!!! On top of your normal loaves, make a loaf of plain white basic bread (with no conditioners to keep it fresh) and put it aside to go stale over a couple of days. Proper stale bread. Now you can make all those recipes from your granma's cook book that are impossible without proper stale bread. Queen's pudding, bread and butter pudding, spicy bread pudding (much like spicy fruit loaf) and whip up your own dry bread crumbs (stale bread + food processor + drying tray) for INCREDIBLE fried chicken or crumbed chops! etc etc They are so much better than bread crumbs from the shop.

CONS:
- When making spicy fruit loaf using organic sultanas and currants (with sugary crystals on them), the bottom of the dispenser opens but the fruit stays in there until you poke it. Luckily there is a REALLY LOUD CLACK when the dispenser releases, so you can go and check it or toss them in manually at that point. As a work around I'm going to trial tossing the sultanas in flour before putting in the dispenser and see if that works.
- Both Spicy Fruit Loaf recipes (wholemeal and long cycle + white and short cycle) are marked as NEW ZEALAND recipes in the book. There is no AU recipe. However, both recipes will work with AU ingredients as well (found after much frustration)
- Banana bread recipe recipe using BANANA CHIPS (finely chopped) instead of fresh bananas. DON'T DO IT. Banana chips are hard, very very hard, harder than nuts hard, and even if you chop them finely, the amount of bashing around and vigorous mixing a loaf of bread gets means those hard little lumps that DO NOT SOFTEN with moisture, will score and scratch the surface of your non-stick bread pan. Mine has very prominent scores in circles on the bottom after I made it, and I followed all the instructions, but I doubt I could prove it's the recipe that caused the damage and make a claim. SO DO NOT USE THAT RECIPE with banana chips. Find one online that uses over ripe real bananas. They won't scratch your non-stick pan.
- Using MEDIUM loaf ingredients sometimes is not enough ingredients to turn out the best loaf. Go to LARGE loaf and it will work every time.
- The back of the unit gets very hot and needs clearance around it and good ventilation.
- The "wait" times will drive you batty and make you frustrated until you get used to it, but then you don't notice it any more.

Really great bread maker, the bread always turns out perfect, as long as the correct mode is selected and used. There is nothing like having fresh warm home made bread smell through out the house. I would highly recommend this product to anyone looking to purchase a quality bread maker.

I've had this for a couple of years now and love it. It does what it says and what functions as its supposed to. I've only made breads. The bottom paddle has come out once.

Pro - works great, delayed start
Con - I wish the bread tin was a wider size.

After researching the various Breadmaker in NZ I opted for this Panasonic version and I really like it. Comes with great recipes and very easy to use. Makes great Pizza dough. Bread seems to turn out good if you stick to the recipes. Plenty of other recipes online as well as this has a solid worldwide following.

Was a bit scared forking out $200 for this bread maker because I was worried it would not do the job. See many other reviews complaining about others that are no good. So I know Panasonic is a good name so I bite the bullet and buy iy. First loaf was perfect and stayed fresh for a week. I used Laucke bread mix which is so easy to apply. One TS yeast... then the satchel of bread mix... then water... shut the lid and 4 hours later a great loaf of bread. How easy is that? next I will do sourdough and gluten free to see how it goes.

I've had Breville, Sunbeam and Aldi breadmakers and none come anywhere near close to the results this machine gives! Bread comes out light, soft and like proper bread, not heavy bricks others produce. I am amazed at how much better this machine works. It works well with regular flour, so I can't wait to see how delicious bread with proper bread making flour will be! I cannot recommend this product highly enough and am thrilled with it. Well worth the extra cost.

This bread maker gives excellent results only caution is watch your water measurements too much water ends up with collapsed loaf water just right excellent bread. I found using Panasonic bread mix recipe for the best result premix gives very ordinary bread texture. The fixed blade in the mixture bowl leaves a great loaf of bread. Will not disappoint you just stay right away from Sunbeam.

Every loaf is perfect with a very small hole. Works a lot better than the previous machine. Loaf is a good shape to cut and slice. I use about an extra 1/2 teaspoon of yeast. Would definitely recommend. Worth the extra money but have only used premixes. Have not tried adding fruit.

Love this breadmaker! They've upgraded the electronics, but kept the same excellent design and programming! Good, solid bucket that doesn't send out of shape! Light years ahead of the rubbish sunbeam so-called smartbake! Panasonic, please don't change your basic design - its great, and when u r on a winner, stick to it!!!

We purchased this bread maker four months ago. I have previously owned a Panasonic many years ago, and also a Breville which I was happy with, but this one is fabulous. I have not tried out all the bread varieties that are in the book, just the normal white crusty loaf which we love and I have to send a loaf home with my grand kids after a sleep over. The bread is perfect every time, and makes the best toast. I like to use the delayed timer so that I can put it on before I go to bed and it is ready the next morning. It is a bit taller than my previous bread makers, probably because of the special section at the top to add nuts and seeds. We had to lower the slide out shelf that our bread maker lives on, but that wasn't a problem. My only criticism is that the beep to let you know the bread is finished is very quiet and we have missed it several times, but now I put on my kitchen timer when I set the bread timer so they both go off together, problem solved! The settings are really easy to use. The is truly an easy, uncomplicated, perfect bread maker.