Panasonic SD-2501

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!

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.

I'm very satisfied with this brradmaker, previously I was using breville. I found Panasonic one is very quiet, you can put it next to a sleeping baby.

I have tried making milk bread, white bread and brioche bread. It was good. Only brioche is a bit brown, as the recipe instruction was not very clear, being a Japanese translated.

The bread taste good and texture is soft. This is the glorious Japanese technology at itd best.

I don't know why people are so negative about this bread maker you obviously didn't read your book we are in our 70s and tried 5 other bread makers. bought this one today have just eaten loaf number1 It is beautifull if we can do it anyone can. I think you young ones are in too much of hurry to sit and get to know your machine before you use it

I have the SD257. We get flour by the 25kg bag-so machine has made a few hundred loaves.
The non stick is peeling off pan and guess what $150 to replace plus freight plus waiting time.
Seems that its going to have to be thrown out and replaced with a new machine. Doesn't seem environmentally correct!!

Been making bread for a long time then a hiatus after my kids had grown up...latterly in our downsized villa (to prevent boomerangs) I developed a preservative allergy...couldn't drink beer, wine or eat commercial bread without painful repercussions. So bought a secondhand Breville and embarked on the baking journey with preservative free sourdough...then upgraded to the sparkly impressive Panasonic 2501...which i entirely screwed my first 3 loaves until I read the ...wait for it....INSTRUCTIONS...Do not bake with this machine until you have read and understood all the instructions. It is not a "simple" breadmaker. I now turn out a perfect variety of loaves and doughs . I will essay my first fruit bread next week....Read the damn instructions... the results are worthwhile the half hour reading. After discovering a product called "pure" so I can again enjoy a beer or a wine (or both) and I now have my own sourdough culture...no allergies providing I buy flour etc after checking the labels for preservatives!

In short - this makes really REALLY good bread. The very first loaf I made in it was the lightest, fluffiest, most amazing loaf I have ever eaten from a bread maker.

The longer review:
Seems well made. The smaller lid is a little plasticky, but otherwise everything fits well. The bread maker itself has some weight to it, which I suspect helps keep noise levels down. It comes with a huge number of recipes, but I just use my normal recipe (620gm bread flour, 1.5 tsp dry yeast, 420ml water) and use default settings (XL, medium crust, menu '01') and press go. 4 hours later (unless using the timer) it's ready.

Tap the pan and the bread slides out onto your airing rack, leaving the paddle behind. Yes it leaves a hole, but I can live with that. My other two bread makers required digging around with a knife or fork to pull it out. If you want, you could always manually remove the paddle during the 'rise' process.

It is quiet. You can hear it working of course, but it is whisper quiet compared to my old bread maker this replaced, and it frankly was not that noisy. The bread maker I had before that sounded like a cannon going off followed by someone gargling marbles. This just gets the job done with a minimum of fuss and a faint beeping when it's finished.

Any negatives? Well the standard bread cycle has a mandatory initial wait of up to one hour (for the largest loaf) which I believe is there to ensure the ingredients all come up to room temperature. This is not an issue if you are using the timer feature of course, but if you aren't it's an unnecessary step *if* you simply ensure you use room temperature/warm water. This step has obviously been put in there to prevent n00bs from making bricks, but still it's really annoying. You can use the rapid loaf setting that skips this "rest" period, but it also shortens a number of the other stages that would impact on the quality of the resulting loaf. Ideally, I'd love it if there was a 'fast' option that you could enable for any program that just skipped the resting step.

The manual - correctly - states that you do not want to mix the yeast with the liquids early. Normally this is not an issue if you are using a bread machine that starts mixing immediately, but because of the mandatory 'rest' period it is important to do this for almost all the various options. What is insane, is they recommend putting the yeast in first then the flour then the liquids. I believe that the correct way of doing this is the liquids first, then the flour, and the last thing to add is the yeast. You can, if you want, form a little well in the middle of the flour and put the yeast in there. Basically, you use the dry flour to protect the yeast from the liquids. Putting the yeast in first risks the liquids soaking in under the flour and getting to some of the yeast before it should.

It is tall. The extra lid on top, covering the reservoir used to drop things like raisins etc into loaves just before the bake cycle, adds extra height to what is an already tall machine. Keep that in mind for storage - measure the shelf you intend to keep it in and make sure it fits! There is a version that does not have this feature, so it's shorter and is otherwise exactly the same - however it seems to be hard to find.

The outside does get quite hot - not so hot that you would burn yourself if you brush against it accidentally, but you would not want to have this close to anything that might be damaged by heat.

The LCD screen is a reasonable size and relatively easy to read, but it could have benefited from a backlight. I mean, really. How much does an LED cost?

But all of the negatives are incredibly minor. The main take away is this does what is printed on the box. It makes bread, and it does it really well.

One other thing to note. The XL loaf is huge. You can only just move the handle of the bread pan over the cooked loaf when getting it out. I can easily imagine someone putting in too much yeast or doing something else that results in the loaf hitting the inside top of the lid. I actually found that if you slice the loaf normally (ie top to bottom) you can then cut that slice in half and you end up with two pieces of bread about the same size as a 'normal' store bought loaf.

What a beautiful machine. I have had it for about a month and I make different bread every day. It is very simple to use, and with the recipe book you cant go wrong. It also has an automatic fruit and nut dispenser which is great for making fruit loaf.

This machine makes great bread and has lots of options for different breads, dough, etc. I would give this 5 stars. Spare parts are a joke - 0 stars. Our machine has made a lot of bread (500+) and dough. Mostly wholemeal. Lining off the bread tin has started to shred, replacement cost is $150 + postage AND 4-8 weeks delivery. This only assists a throw-away society...