Sage - The Custom Loaf - Bread Maker, Brushed Stainless Steel

Not cheap but perfect loaves every time and looks stunning. Not small but also not as big as some seem to say, I have a small kitchen and had no problems finding a place for it.I have never been able to bake so much as a bean but I’m already experimenting and finding that whatever I throw at it comes out great.It looks and feels extremely high quality and the controls are easy to understand.

Stunning piece of machinery. I’ve had mine for a week now and have made a white loaf, wholemeal loaf, crusty loaf and pizza dough. So simple to use and the results are really impressive. I suggest reading the manual and downloading the free recipe book ( I saved it to my kindle app on the iPad for quick reference) to really understand the process: I misread the timing chart and thought the machine wasn’t working as the preheat stage for wholemeal took longer than I thought I had read.. it can take a while so dont worry!I also invested in some Vitamn C powder (bread improver) and can say it was an amazing addition. the crusty loaf was light as a feather and rose magnificently.You can choose size of loaf, crust colour and so much more. You can make pizza dough, regular dough for rolls to cook in oven, pasta dough and even jam!I chose this model as I’m a big fan of Heston and his attention to details and can honestly say I’ve been browsing other Sage products to see what else I can save for.This is a beautiful machine.. no more shop bought bread for me, I can be sure my family’s bread is good and honest now.

Unfortunately I was delivered a faulty item, The screen was misaligned as were the lid and top casing. Rather than send it back immediately, I decided to see if it worked correctly before returning it for a properly assembled replacement.The machine is indeed very easy to use and program and this impressed me greatly. My first loaf tasted fine, but was and ugly looking creature!This machine requires more water (or liquid total) than most bread recipes specify. I typically use a ratio of 0.6 of the gram weight of flour for the ml of liquid. The Sage started to give me a better looking loaf at a ratio of 6.6 to 6.7, although this does vary for different qualities of flour. I made plain white bread, a 50/50 mix of white flour and wholemeal and some white rolls. All of which were of excellent flavour and perfectly baked. I cannot fault the results from the machine.I checked on Amazon to see if they still had stock so that I could ask for an exchange unit, but there is no stock, so I am returning the machine, The edges of the stainless steel top casing and the lid extend beyond the edges of the main casing and sadly are sharp (due to a lack of de-burring in manufacture) which could result in cut fingers when cleaning the outside.I hope that the norm for this machine is properly fitting component parts, or this would be damaging to Sage's reputation for quality builds.Assuming that my assumptions on build quality are correct, I would highly recommend this machine to anyone keen to make top quality bread at home. Do bear in mind that some experimentation will be required to find the best ratio of flour to liquid, but try 0.66 for your first white loaf and I don't think you will be disappointed.P.S. there is an online recipe book titled 'Flour' written by the famous sponsor of this machine, a famous experimenter of strange cooking methods. Clearly he never tried any of his bread recipes in the Sage, indeed, most have insufficient liquid amounts even for hand bread making, so don't waste your time.I hope this is found useful if you already have a Sage and are wondering how to improve the look of your bread. Right now Amazon are out of stock, but I am told that Curry's have the same model for the same price.Again, if the build quality of mine was simply one that escaped quality control, then I highly recommend this machine as it is extremely easy to use, with the best means of setting things and programming things of any home bread making machine I have seen.

After much research and toying with the Panasonic, settled on the Sage bread maker. It looked (and is) solidly built and I liked the collapsible paddle idea (though I suppose just removing the paddle after it's last cycle would prevent the 'paddle hole'). First loaf was a .75kg wholemeal (half wholemeal/half white flour) and it looked like a proper risen loaf of bread! After trying to perfect the handmade wholemeal (all tasted great but never managed more than a gently rounded top, more usually the minimalist house brick style), this had us grinning like eejits. Tasted great, lovely crust and well risen. I can see a danger here: far too easy to make delicious bread and no-one needs a loaf a day unless channelling Eddie Izard and running a marathon a day. Going to check out low carb bread recipes now ...As others have mentioned, it is a bit of a faff for those of us without an iPad on the recipe book stand to download and print relevant pages just to get going. No doubt this is green and saves trees, so all for that, but just a couple of basic recipes at the back of the instruction manual might have helped make this experience a 5 star one rather than the slightly niggling 4.8. Nevertheless, have rounded up to 5 because the machine is fab.If my views change over the first month or so of use, I will post an update.