KBS Pro Stainless Steel Bread Machine, 2LB 17-in-1

Solid machine, but safer as well due to its ceramic pot.
Ok, it’s been about a year now since I decided to buy this particular bread maker, so I can give you my honest perspective on it. Originally, I purchased the bread maker out of concerns that Covid was going to impact my family’s everyday life and of course Covid has done that. I thought bread was going to be scarce for awhile and it was for a short while. And I wasn’t too sure about eating good from restaurants, so I thought the bread maker would be a good idea for making home made pizza.Spin forward a year and I can honestly say that if you are thinking of buying a bread maker, consider buying one for making pizza dough. This machine makes great pizza dough and to date, we’ve made 57 pizza’s with our bread maker. We just put 1-1/3 cups water, 1/4 cup olive oil, 3-1/2 cups I bleached all purpose flour, 1 tbsp sugar, 1-1/2 teaspoons salt and 2 teaspoons of SAF yeast into the bucket in this specific order, and set the bread machine to setting 11 (dough mixing mode) and in 23 minutes, we have enough dough for 2 large pizzas! We cut the dough in two chunks and place them in plastic bags and refrigerate or freeze. The KBS make the process of making pizza’s so easy, that it’s now an effortless process for us during the week to make 1 or more batches.Yeas, we tried bread once, but as a result of Covid, I’ve found that making the type of quality sourdough you see in the pic I’ve provided, that hand kneading yields much higher rising. So I just hand mix and knead my sourdough. The rising is not an issue with the KBS, it’s just that sourdough rising is a process better left to a slow and easy kneading method.As far as the one bread loaf I did make, it was from the 3rd party cookbook others mentioned. I made a white bread loaf and I have to say so myself, that it came out beautifully. But because sourdough is healthier, I’m satisfied with the KBS making just pizza dough.In regards to the machine, it works flawlessly for us. The non-stick ceramic pot is what sold me when reading about the horrors of PTFE’s which are embedded in all the major brands that don’t use ceramic pots. And the ceramic coating makes cleaning up a breeze.Initially, I there was a flaw in the machine that I had read about where others were complaining that if you hit the start button by mistake, the bread machine would run a cycle with no way to cancel it, even if you unplug the device. Well, those people probably don’t use computers much. Being an IT professional, I figured it would be a simple matter of holding down one of the buttons for 5 seconds to reset the machine, and sure enough, by holding down the start button (I believe it’s actually called th Menu button) for a few seconds, you should hear a beat that will tell you that the selected mixing recipe has been cancelled.Other than this one initial flaw in the design, I can’t complain much. The people that complain are probably not used to using a bread machine of any kind and they’ll complain about bad results. The key thing to realize about bread machines is that the ingredients must be added in the specific order specified in the recipe for best results. Just winging things in the pot will get you sub par results no matter what machine you use.And as far as being made in China, tell me what machine probably does not have major internal components from the Far East. These days, we tend to blame the device when 9 times out of 10, it’s operator inexperience or improper use.One area that is poor is the user guide. That I will admit is pretty shabby. But hey! You can get a great guide with another bread maker along with some really tasty PTFE chemicals from their Teflon coated pots! Yum!The pics I’ve provided of my results tell the story. This machine is well made and it can make good breads, pizza doughs, etc. I can highly recommend it, especially if you’ve used other bread maker machines. It’s use is pretty simple with even the tiniest bit of intuitiveness.

Decent Machine
During the Covid19 pandemic of 2020, many people started baking their own bread as a way to pass time. I have owned a bread machine for years, and primarily used it to make dough for homemade rolls. Recently I discovered I was out of bread, and we really wanted some toast. I decided to make a loaf of white bread in my DeLonghi bread machine. Sadly, as I carried it from the shelf to counter, somehow the cord got caught in something, and the machine was pulled out of my hands, landed face down on the floor, and the glass top shattered. So much for toast.I searched for a bit, and found this machine. It looked similar, particularly the bread pan, so I ordered it. In some strange twist of events known only to Amazon, it is now $20 less than what I paid, but such is life. Although it is a decent machine, and functions similarly to my old machine, in the long run it is not as good. The instruction manual is difficult to follow, not nearly as slick as the one that came with the DeLonghi. Also, there is no light inside, so even though the viewing window is large you must use a flashlight to see how the dough is doing.At first I decided to make the plain white bread I’d been attempting to make when I broke the old machine. I decided to make the smaller 1 lb loaf. Because the recipes in the book that came with the machine were difficult (including things like milk powder which I do not keep on hand) I decided to use the recipe from the DeLonghi machine. I find those recipes tricky too because they require you to weigh the dry ingredients. But, I managed to get everything in the machine, and after 3 hours the loaf was ready. It was great! Just the right size, and delicious.Next, I tried another recipe from the DeLonghi book: French Bread. I made a 2 lb loaf. This loaf was not quite as good as the first one, it sank in the middle. Also, it bulged out over the top of the pan, and it was quite tricky to get the handle of the pan pried up so that I could remove the pan at the end of the baking. It was tasty, but difficult to slice because it was very crusty.Finally, I decided to make the “natural sourdough” recipe from the book that came with the machine. After reading some of the reviews, I made the recipe with milk instead of water and milk powder. The recipe calls for 1/3 teaspoon of yeast powder. This puzzled me because the measuring spoon included appears to have 1 teaspoon and half a teaspoon measures. Not even standard measuring spoons include a 1/3 teaspoon. So, I eyeballed it in the 1/2 teaspoon. Also, the 1 lb recipe calls for 160 ml of liquid, but the included measuring cup shows 150, then 158, then 180. Again, I eyeballed the 2 additional ml. Because I’d had issues with the 2 lb French Bread rising so far out of the pan, I made a 1 lb loaf again. This cycle takes 6 and a half hours.The result is pictured. I included a pen to show the fact that the bread is somewhat flat. The taste? Well, it’s not real sourdough.In the end, I would recommend this machine, yet I would invest in a bread machine cookbook.

Me gusto mucho, el pan queda muy bien, es fácil seguir las instrucciones

Funciona de maravilla, el pan queda delicioso.