West Bend 41300 Hi Rise Electronic Dual Blade Breadmaker - on Amazon.com

West Bend 41300 Hi-Rise Electronic Dual-Blade Breadmaker - on Amazon.com

Fill your kitchen with the smells of fresh baked bread. Make scrumptious yet inexpensive, bakery-style artisan bread with our new West Bend electronic dual-blade breadmaker.

Reviews of West Bend 41300 Hi Rise Electronic Dual Blade Breadmaker

Great bread machine, bad manual
Rating by : Bob from TN,

I love this bread machine. It is the best I have ever owned. I would give it a 5 star rating if the manual was better and there wasn't such a long wait to add in fruit or nuts.

I have been using bread machines for over 20 years. This is my 4th bread machine. My last bread machine lasted the shortest time, only 2 years. It was a Breadman 875. I like to make a whole wheat cereal bread and the motor on the Breadman was not strong enough to handle the heavy dough. In addition the rise on my breads was inconsistent. Sometimes it would have a huge rise and others it would barely rise. I never had this problem with my other bread machines.

After reading all the reviews and considering my budget I decided to purchase the West Bend 41300 Hi-Rise. I liked the idea of 2 paddles and a horizontal loaf of bread. As soon as I got the bread machine I plugged it in and read the manual. The manual is a big disappointment. All the other bread machines I have owned have the amount of time for each part of the bread making process. The West Bend doesn't tell you how long it will be when you get the beep to add ingredients like fruit and nuts. The only thing you get it a count down time on the bread machines display.

Another thing the manual didn't tell you was to run the bake cycle (this is one of the menu items) before you try to make any bread. This is important. It burns off any residual oil and sealing material left from the manufacturing process. I recommend you do this in an area with lots of ventilation. Either open the windows in the kitchen, use the garage or do it outside. It will stink and you don't want to have that smell baked into your first loaf of bread.

Once I had burned off the gunk I was ready to make my first loaf of bread. I wait until the add ingredients beep to add in a cooked multigrain cereal to my whole wheat bread. Right away I discovered a big difference in the way the Hi-Rise makes bread. My 3 previous machines would run for 5 minutes to mix all the ingredients, rest for 5 minutes and then knead for 15 to 20 minutes. Usually 5 minutes before the end of the kneading cycle it would beep to add ingredients. The Hi-Rise mixes and kneads for about 15 minutes, lets the dough rise for 45 minutes to an hour and then kneads for another 15 to 20 minutes. The add in beep occurs about 8 minutes before the end of the 2nd knead. This means you have to be around about an hour after you start the bread cycle to add ingredients. This is a negative for me because I like the start it and forget aspect of bread machines.

By this time you are probably wondering why I said in the beginning that I love this machine. It's because it makes the best bread I have ever had, it has no problem with my heavy cereal whole wheat bread and the rise is very consistent. In fact one thing I am still getting adjusted to is the rise. West bend is telling the truth when they call this machine Hi-Rise. With my previous machine I had to add extra yeast (active dry, not bread machine) and gluten to get a decent rise for my whole wheat bread. When I did this with the Hi-Rise the dough rose all the way to the top of the machine. I had to open it and push the dough down a little bit so it would cook evenly. For my most recent loaf of bread I carefully measured exactly the amount of yeast in the recipe and it still rose to the top. My next loaf will have less yeast than recommended for the recipe.

The quality of the finished bread is fantastic. Even the whole wheat bread is light and soft with the air pockets small and evenly distributed throughout the bread. It is similar in texture to commercial made bread.

There is another review that talks about having a problem getting the paddles out of the bread without tearing up the loaf. In my experience this is a problem with all bread machines. Since the 41300 has 2 paddles it can be twice the problem. Most single paddle machines have larger paddles that are bent and they can take out a big chunk of bread when they are removed. Since the paddles are straight they each seem to make less damage to the bread. If the paddle stays in the bread West Bend provides a tool for removing the paddle from the bread. I like to cut the crust of the bread to determine which direction the blade is and then pull it out and up from the opposite side of the blade to minimize the damage to the bread.

One other issue I have read is with getting the paddles out of the bread pan. The manual says put warm soapy water in the pan (but never imerse the pan in water) as soon as you remove the bread. I haven't had any problem removing the paddles after they soak for a few minutes. I use a small brush to clean the inside of the paddle after it is removed.

Pros:

Makes the best bread I have ever had.
Consistent high rise.
Light and fluffy bread.

Cons:

Manual does not tell you to burn in the machine before making bread
Manual does not have times for each step of the bread making process.
Long wait for add in beep.

All the power and capability of a high end Zojirushi made affordable!
Rating by : Samantha Quinn "Chick Lit and Chick Flick junky!",

I came to machine made bread late, and it was a long road to get here. You could say I was a purist stuck in times past, or I was just waiting for my questions to be answered. I know a bunch of people who swear by thier bread machines, and several folks who've had one die and miss it terribly. Me, I had no real problems making bread the old fashioned way so to speak. I learned how to make bread from my Mom when I was a little girl, and that always worked for me.

I'd read that for features and function the Zojirushi was the top of the line. Great, but there was no way I could cost justify that kind of money for a bread machine. Plus, while it met most of my specifications, it missed on one important one, loaf size. For me a requirment was a horiontal loaf, and an ideal was maximum function and control. Including loaf size and crust.

Enter the Hi-Rise. It's selectable for four different loaf sizes 1, 1.5, 2 and 2.5 pound loaves. It has three different crust settings that give one control over color and thickness of the crust, accessed with the temp button.

With a horizontal loaf pan, and dual blades, it makes it simple and easy to prepare just about anything. The large windows in the top make it easy to watch how your bread is doing and the display is easy to read and keeps you informed about where in your journey each loaf is. It even has prgrammability in terms of when the bread machine starts, and even allows you to create a custom profile for "Home Made" bread. Wake up to the smell of bread baking? Done! Now you can program the coffee machine to start your morning cup of java, and have fresh baked bread waiting too. Spoil me rotten why don't you!

The acid test of course was actually making bread with it. Took it out of the box, used the basic white bread recipe that came with the manual, hit start and walked away. I looked in now and again to see what it was doing, but I did not hover, chosing instead to believe that this would work just fine and I'd have a wonderful smell to tell me that all was right in my bread machine.

Soon, the unmistakable aroma of rising dough filled my senses, and sometime later, baking bread. When done I took it out of the machine and placed a wonderful looking and sounding loaf on the cooling rack and waited a bit before putting on water for tea. When I say sounding, one of the things my Mom taught me was to tap on the side of the crust lightly like with produce to get an idea of how the bread was inside. A properly cooked loaf should have a slightly hollow sound to it when tapped. Sure enough, this one did.

When the time was right, I poured a cup of tea to steep, waited for it to be ready and cut a slice out of my warm, crusty, perfect, loaf of bread. It was crusty on the outside as it should be, and warm, slightly moist, springy bread on the inside. I grew up in New England, and one of the things I love is "Country Style" bread. Slightly heavier, and moister than your run of the mill bread, it has a wonderful taste, texture and weight to it not generally available outside of New England.

Before I even tasted this I knew I was in for a treat from the smell, feel and texture of bread. The first morsel was a reward beyond my expectations! "Country Style" bread by pushing a button. Plus because I controled the ingredients it is healthy too. I used 1% milk, and "Smart Balance" butter substitute along with Unbleached King Arthur Bread Flour and Fleischmen's "Highly Active Yeast" in the making of my first loaf. Perfect "Country Style" loaf in terms of all criteria. Taste, Texture, Smell, Weight, Crust, Color and Moisture.

It is easily the simplest loaf I've ever made. Put the materials in the pan, select options, press start and walk away. I'm thrilled with this bread machine! Hundreds less than it's nearest Zojirushi in terms of price and more features. Needless to say, I'll make more of this so called basic bread again, because now I can have "Country Style" bread anytime I want it despite no longer living in New England. So far I've only made one loaf, but I know hundreds more are to follow, next I'm going to go for a New York Deli style Rye.

The West End Hi-Rise is a gem at twice the price, and honestly has more features then the high end Zojirushi. Plus this has one touch selectable loaf size & crust type which the Zojirushi does not.

Would I reccomend this again? Oh yes, without question.

MMMM.... Good Bread, but.............
Rating by : Steven Levin,

Very easy yo opporate. All recipe books we've used work with this machine. NONE of the loafs have "sunk" and it really does a great job with the mixing times and different bread textures, ie.e a rye is done differently in the machie than white bread, and you get perfect results! Our kitchen is stainless steel and black. 5 - star

Update 3/26/10 - After about 5 months of use (2 loafs per week) it stopped working... it powers up, runs the program, but the motor doesn't turn on... it is under warrentee but we've e-mailed and called for 5 days now with NO response.
Today, we called AGAIN and after tring some phone aided suggestions we all realize... it's broke. Unforturnalty, they are out of stock on this item and we will recieve a replacment in just over a month... oh well. Seemed like a good deal, and worked great (while working) I guess you get what you pay for... lowered my original 5 - star to a 2 - star, as can't be used, but hopefully a new one is coming. I will update again, hopefully in about a month.

Update 6/1/10 - We received a new bread machine about 3 weeks ago. This unit looks identical as the first but; the bread quality is not consistent as it was in the first machine. It doesn't seem to get as hot as it needs to, and the mixing paddles are much stiffer than the original one, so I don't think the dough is getting a good enough workout and a majority of the loaves have sunk in the middle, never an issue on the original machine. Lastly this unit has several slight scratch marks over it in the black plastic and in the stainless steel... refurbished? Who knows...

Final thoughts... For the price I guess you could take a chance... Although it looks nice and has some great features it's not consistent. I might suggest saving for a higher quality machine as the bottom line is - if it doesn't work well, you not going to use it... unless you only want to make bread bowls. Staying at 2 stars.

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4 stars. "Great bread machine, bad manual" I love this bread machine. It is the best I have ever owned. I would give it a 5 star rating if the manual was better and ...