<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>
A month ago I asked for advice on buying a bread machine for gluten-free
recipes. Here is a summary of what I learned from your email, plus shopping
and reading and making lots of phone calls:
1) No Good Answer Yet; How We Can Change That
Regardless of how much you're willing to pay, there is no bread machine
currently on the market that has all of the ideal features for making
gluten-free bread. At the moment, manufacturers of the 3.5 million bread
machines sold annually in the U.S. think that Celiacs are too small a market
share to warrant designing a machine especially for us.
To change that situation you should join our List Owners in supporting
Celiac research to prove that this disease is more prevalent than previously
believed. If you live in the U.S., there is a simple way to do that. For
information send an email request to:
[log in to unmask]
or contact:
Center For Celiac Research
University Of Maryland School Of Medicine
29 S. Greene St. Rm. 120
Baltimore, MD 21201
2) Bread Machines That Mix Well
Most bread machines cannot mix our heavy dough well enough, or they continue
to mix it in such a way that the air fizzles out of it. Our doughs prefer
only one kneading and one rising cycle, whereas gluten-containing doughs
prefer two rising cycles. Thus we want machines with thick strong paddles
that mix thoroughly but can be programmed to rise only once.
A wonderful woman named Glenna at the extremely helpful Red Star Yeast
Company (1-800-423-5422) has tested many machines and declares that the
following will mix our GF dough adequately:
* Welbilt models 3600, 4800, 6800 (Welbilt models 3300 and 4000 mix well but
don't allow you to cut out the second rising cycle; the Welbilt 4800 is under
$100 and mixes fantastically but requires that you be present at the right
time to skip the second rising and instead direct the machine to go directly
to the baking cycle);
* Toastmaster 1195;
* Regal 6750, 6751, 6760, 6762.
But all of these above-named machines require more babysitting than I am
willing to provide. With some of them you need to be present mid-way through
the process to tell the machine to skip the second rising and go directly to
baking. And none of them has a fan-assisted cool-down cycle, as explained
below.
3) Cool Down Cycles & Avoiding Babysitting Your Machine
If you don't remove your bread promptly after baking, it will get soggy and
could also lose flavor. To prevent that problem, you must have a fan-assisted
cool-down cycle or be present at the moment the bread is completed (and be
careful not to burn yourself as you remove the hot pan). None of Red Star's
recommended machines has a fan-assisted cool-down cycle to allow you to let
the bread sit in the machine until you return home or wake up or whatever.
(Someone suggested just letting the dough sit in the machine on a delayed
program so that it would finish baking at a convenient time, but that's
dangerous if the recipe contains eggs that can spoil).
On the other hand, some of you pointed out that gluten-free dough sometimes
rises over the top of the pan and drips down onto the heating element
(depending on that day's humidity, temperature, or amount of water in the
recipe), making a mess and possibly risking fire if you are not carefully
monitoring it. My old Dak machine dripped over and made a burned mess, though
it didn't start any fire.
As several people put it, if you have to be there to watch or direct the
process anyway, you might as well skip using a bread maker altogether and
just buy a heavy-duty mixer, so you can mix and bake your bread yourself. (Or
mix the dough by hand). That way you can avoid the blade-impression at the
bottom of the pan, you can get a truly "normal" looking loaf, and you can
save some dough (double meaning intended) to make rolls.
Personally, I'm willing to risk a lot in exchange for the convenience of
just throwing the ingredients into a machine and coming back three to twelve
hours later to find a decent loaf of bread waiting.
Apparently the machines that mix really well AND have automatic cool-down
cycles are no longer manufactured nor available (e.g. the Welbilt Multilogic,
which despite its round pan may have been as close to a perfect machine as
we've yet seen).
4) The Zojirushi S15 -- my choice for now
I finally bought the Zojirushi BBCC-S15 last week at a small local shop for
$240. I hear you can order it from the Gluten-Free Pantry in Connecticut at
860-633-3826 (or http://www.glutenfree.com) or from King Arthur Flour
(800-827-6836 or http://www.icenter.net/~kpsfoods). It has an automatic
cool-down cycle but is *not* one of the machines that Red Star thought mixed
our doughs particularly well. But in her third book, The Gluten-Free Gourmet
Cooks Fast and Healthy, Bette Hagman recommended it as having "worked well
with our heavy flours." See pages 43 - 47 of the hardcover edition; the
paperback edition is expected to come out in September.
The Zojirushi S15 is the only machine Bette recommended that has the helpful
cool-down cycle and is still on the market. Many of you wrote me that you use
and are satisfied with this machine.
Besides the opinion that some other machines mix better, drawbacks of the
S15 are that some people find it complicated to program, and you have to
babysit it the first time you use it to program it for subsequent uses. (I
know three people who bought this machine and then for a long time were too
intimated to use it). Bette Hagman mentions that it is tricky to adjust the
proper amount of liquid in this machine. And even Zojirushi admits that some
folks seem to have trouble inserting the kneading pin properly, so it either
falls out or gets stuck.
I used it for the first time today and thought that it mixed the dough
adequately but not terribly well (I could see some unmixed bits as the dough
was rising). I do not know if that is what caused the bread to fall about an
inch and a half into the pan. But all in all, the bread turned out OK. The
kneading pin did not present any problems, and I did not find the
instructions too difficult (particularly since I used Bette Hagman's book as
a guide).
5) A New Machine Not Yet Out
Zojirushi says that beginning in August 1997 it will market a new machine,
Model BBCC V20, that has *two* thicker paddles (no kneading pin), a
horizontally placed rectangular pan, and a fan-assisted cool-down cycle, at
the suggested retail price of $250. Double-paddled machines tend to mix very
well, so perhaps this will be the machine we are waiting for. It's too soon
to know. Zojirushi's phone number is 800-733-6270.
6) Other Reports of Satisfaction
Some Listers reported satisfaction with models that were not recommended by
Red Star Yeast nor by Bette Hagman (because they reportedly don't mix well or
can't be programmed to skip the second rising cycle). Yet the Listers liked
their machines, including:
* Oster Breadmaker 4812, with a cool-down fan and rectangular pan (make sure
you get one with the thick solid-cast pan), sometimes available under $100;
* Goldstar two-pound-loaf model.
FOR MORE INFORMATION LOOK IN OUR LISTSERV FILES under bread and recipes. See
your instructions for using this Listserv.
7) Other Usage Tips
Some Listers suggested:
* mixing the dry ingredients in advance to save time (and separately mixing
the wet ingredients ahead of time if you are willing to refrigerate and then
re-warm them);
* wrapping warm bread in a towel for an hour before slicing to help dissipate
heat.
Thank you to all who helped assemble this information! I received so many
wonderful notes that I cannot thank each of you personally, but please know I
truly appreciate your helpfulness.
And from now on, I plan to buy only Red Star brand yeast, to thank that
company for being so helpful to Celiacs.
Jeff Golden, San Francisco Bay Area, 6/26/97
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