Panasonic SD-YR2550

I use this 3-4 times a week and love it, but what I love more is knowing my family is eating healthy bread that I know exactly what's inside. I've tried many of the recipes but what I love most is the Basic Menu 1 or 2 and I make the Light, Medium sized loaf (the smallest loaf) or it is too high for my toaster. I strictly follow the recipe for… Read more ·  1

the amount of flour and water but add a little more powdered milk, sugar, butter and yeast. It takes less than 3 minutes to put on a loaf.

I quickly learnt that the most important ratio is flour to water. I always weigh my flour.

I ONLY use organic flour, if you are in Australia you can buy this: https://goodness.com.au

Because the bread is not loaded with preservatives etc it doesn't last as long (2-3 days in the summer), which is not a problem when making smaller loaves and it's so easy to make more.

There's a bit of a fight for the crust when it first comes out of the machine, so crispy, we usually dont wait for the bread to cool down lol, too eager. I always place it on a drying rack with a net over, letting the natural air cool the bread.

I often set the bread to make fresh overnight and we wake in the morning to the smell of fresh bread for lunches wafting through the house. You set the timer to how many hours before you want your bread to finish eg 10pm at night is 9hrs for 7am fresh bread (Basic Menu 1).

Never leave the bread in the machine when it's finished or it goes a bit soft/soggy and shrinks. I've had a fail when I forgot to put back the mixer at the bottom of the basin; I've had a fail when this wasn't cleaned properly of leftover baked bread and then failed to turn and mix properly. I've also had many fails when I've forgotten the yeast.

I love the Dough (Soft Rolls / Baps) Recipe, I've learned to cut these into a minimum of 10 rolls as they rise really well and 8 is too big.

My husband makes his Pizza bases, so much easier for him. Pizza are his 'Italian' speciality.

After baking, I've learnt to wrap my tea towel (as shown in my pics) to avoid burns (I've had a few lol) and I immediately drench the tub in cold water, wash the mixer and put back in the machine to dry.

I've had my machine for nearly 2 years, I don't think it has saved me any money, but the bread is delicious and it has become the most important piece of equipment in my kitchen.

Don’t waste your money – I was so incredibly excited to buy this machine after seeing the baking quality of older models. I had a successful baking experience for about 18 months. I might also point out, the warranty only lasts 12 months. There is a known fault with this machine and bake quality so don’t expect the unit to last. While my unit heats, it no longer browns… Read more

nicely as it once did and bakes a heavy light coloured loaf. The standard basic recipes is all that work. Panasonic bread makers were absolute premier machines a decade ago, but there are other far better machines out there for a fraction of the cost that last longer and do a better job. I had a breville for 12 years prior and it never failed me. I’m of the firm opinion, if a company can’t offer a warranty for at least 3 years then it’s not a quality appliance.

Almost Perfect – I purchased this to replace an ageing Tefal machine. My main use was making pizza dough and only an occasional loaf because the loaf was never quite what I wanted, so I shelled out for a new machine. The Panasonic arrived and came with its instruction book a couple of kneading blades, a 500ml container with some scoops. It takes up a bit of bench… Read more ·  1

space and I tried to fit it into my kitchen cupboards but it was a fraction too tall, so I have to lay it on its side. The first thing I did was cook some milk bread. The result was nicely baked on the light setting, so, I baked another at mid browning, using the mid loaf setting, and replacing the milk with water. The milk loaf was a little heavy in texture for me and the original loaf was spot on and resembled a store baked loaf. The loaf was light and fluffy, a little hard to cut because it was so soft. The taste was a little different from store baked loaves. I then baked some banana bread, and this turned out better than store baked, quite dense but very nice.

Lastly, I baked some Rye bread, dark rye, well textured and tasty. It did however end up a little uneven in size and some flour on the base remained, but that's ok I just scrapped it off.

Next time I will make a light rye mixing in some plain flour.

I then started to make a sour dough starter, which is still in the process (it takes a week) but I will use this when I try to bake my favorite sour dough.

To be honest, I was more than surprised with the results, in the most they were fantastic. A little care and some internet searching will render you with countless recipes for this machine, including jam making, and some very inventive uses.

The yeast container and nuts and fruit are shown in the photo, these are added later in the cooking process. One thing I did note however was, when doing the banana bread and just outside the 50-minute time frame I could not add minutes. In fact, I had to let the machine cool before I could reset the unit for extra cooking time, so just be aware if you want to extend the cooking time on the bake only setting you need to do it before 50 minutes expires, and don't forget to remove the stirring blade before using this setting.

I must mention the cooking time. The only reason it is long is because this machine sits there for an hour getting everything to room temperature before it starts the process, you can however bypass this if you are in a hurry, for me though I'm not so, I used it once but preferred the extended time method, I just think I got a better result.

My one gripe with this machine is the LCD read out, it's hard to read and needs a back light, hence the 4 stars, more like 4 1/2. It is quiet, very quiet, although I noted some complaint about the noise when the yeast was delivered, apparently it woke someone up at 3am in the morning.

A highly recommended machine from me, just experiment till you find your sweet spot, be brave and try stuff you don't normally try, you will not be disappointed.

A squeaky loaf – Update: has been very squeaky for more than 6 months now, lubricating the base of the rotor in the bread pan only ever slightly alleviates the issue. If you like your bread loud, Panasonic is the way to go Every loaf has turned out basically perfect, following the recipes, excluding the milk powder. The machine is quiet and is one of the few that… Read more

are still mainly made out of metal. The downsides for this and most machines includes the loaf style not being suited to toasters (the slices are too tall), and the dispenser is ridiculously difficult to clean. In future I will just be adding sultanas, olives etc manually, so the automatic dispenser is a pointless addition for me at least. The instruction manual is adequate, the packaging unfortunately included styrofoam, Panasonic could do a lot better in that respect.