Breville 4-Slice Toaster, Brushed Stainless Steel

I was looking for a new toaster for my new home. This new place being a clean slate for me to furnish, I wanted something decent in terms of looks and performance. Breville’s The Bit More delivers on both those aspects, and I think it’s the best high-end toaster that fits my needs perfectly.

It’s not easy to innovate in the world of toasters. After all, there isn’t too much that a toaster needs to deliver on. I just wanted something that:

1. looked nice
2. toasted evenly
3. was compatible with bagels
4. had a simple interface (no frivolous features)
5. didn’t take up much room (I opted for the 2 slice variant)

My favorite lifestyle/home products review website, The Sweethome recommends The Bit More as their “Upgrade” pick. I honestly went with this one over the 

Oster Jelly Bean Toaster

 (which costs half as much) because I thought this one would look really nice in my new kitchen, which has an abundance of brushed metal appliances (and it does). The “Bit More” feature sounded really handy as well (and it is).

Since you already know that I really like this toaster, let me give you a quick rundown of what I like and dislike about this product in the form of readily digestible bullet points.

Pros:
– Beautiful industrial design. The brushed metal body blends in with my kitchen really well, and I think the texture in general is a pretty universal fit in most kitchens (unlike the solid colors Oster’s Jelly Bean comes in). The LED lights that indicate toasting time are absolutely delightful. The row of lights light up and down as you move the knob, and it’s a strange feeling to have such a simple little kitchen appliance behave this way. Even the power cable is designed to be unplugged effortlessly, with an actual hole for your finger to pass through when pulling.
– Toasting levels are REASONABLE. This one is huge. A lot of toasters usually come with a timing system that really doesn’t care about setting your bread on fire on the maximum setting. While I don’t set my The Bit More’s timing knob on the maximum setting ever, I don’t think it will burn your bread to charcoal levels of blackness (although you can use the “Bit More” feature to achieve that if you want!). No more worrying about overdoing your toast. You can feel free to turn up the timing and still not have to worry.
– The “Bit More” feature is more than a gimmick. I often change bread and bagel brands, because why not? The amount of toasting required for the perfect crispiness varies between them. It’s really nice to be able to hit that button, start toasting and walk away for a bit. Regardless of the timing knob’s current position, it automatically toasts for 30 extra seconds.
– Toasting is fairly uniform. I mostly use it for bagels, but it works really well for bread slices as well. It’s not extremely uniform, visually. But I can never tell if one part of my bagel has been toasted more than the other by taste. You can see an example of what my bagels look like after toasting in one of the attached images.
– It’s sufficiently easy to clean. Crumbs (and seeds from my everything bagels) go through several different gaps and holes throughout the body and collect at the bottom. It’s not perfect, but can be cleaned using the removable crumb tray and by shaking the entire device over a sink. So far, it seems there aren’t many corners where crumbs can get trapped.

Cons:
– The “Lift and Look” feature is only moderately useful. Maybe it’s just the size of my bread slices and bagels, but the lift doesn’t seem to make much of a difference. You can peek in just as well without lifting, although it may help slightly when picking the bread up and out of the slots.
– The toaster body gets hot. I never move mine off my kitchen counter, so it isn’t a big deal to me. But keep in mind that most of the metal body conducts heat and you may have to wait a bit if you like to put your toaster away after use.

If you don’t mind spending this much on a toaster, I think it really is worth purchasing. The “Bit More” feature is actually handy, and despite its mostly meaningless shortcomings, this is a very solid toaster. But hey, I’m not a toaster aficionado.

I hate appliance shopping and I hate generating extra garbage by continually buying and disposing of cheap stuff that breaks down easily. That being said, it seems like the expectation today is that everything is cheap crap and will break in a couple of years and ‘just deal with it’. I did a bunch of research to try and find a reasonably priced toaster that I thought would last and this one won. It is holding up well so far (can’t remember exactly when I bought it but it’s been at least 6 months). A few things to note – I eat gluten free bread and I have it on level 4 and only get a very light toasting at that setting (for those of you who don’t know, gluten free bread is harder to toast than regular bread). Luckily, I like my toast lightly toasted, so that’s fine with me. I am trying to follow all of the instructions to make it last, so I am cleaning out the little tray in the bottom regularly. I just cleaned it out a couple of days ago and decided to peer through the slots to see that everything was out and was dismayed to see that a thin sized piece of toast (one of the corners – may about a quarter in size and 3 or 4 mm thick) was wedged in the bottom. Luckily, it hadn’t been there too long or I am pretty sure it would have caught on fire. I tipped the toaster over the sink and gave it a little shake and the toast came out, but otherwise, I would have had to use a utensil to get it out. Also, not all of the small crumbs end up in the crumb pan so that is also something to keep an eye on.

This toaster does NOT toast uniformly. For example, if I put in 2 pieces of bread at level 4, both generally end up about the same level of lightly toasted. However, if I put in only one piece of bread, one side of that piece of bread ends up really dark and the other looks barely toasted. Or both sides are really dark. No idea why. Assuming it would be fairly easy / logical to fix (i.e. always have elements on both sides of bread and always apply the same amount of heat through them all). I have no idea why it isn’t this way.

Gluten free bagels seem to do fine. Cancel button works as expected, as does the ‘little bit more button’. I try to avoid putting in frozen bread since apparently that can be hard on a toaster, but when I do use the ‘frozen’ function, it also works as expected. On average, the toaster is used 1x per day to toast 2 pieces of bread, maybe a little more than that, but not a lot.

The only other comment I would make is to those of you who have ever seen Battlestar Galactica. This is, essentially, a Cylon toaster. When you use it or plug it in, a red light goes back and forth and then stays steady for a bit but eventually turns off. Unfortunately, it does not make Cylon shapes on your toast (Sheldon would be so disappointed.)

After buying a 4 slice a few years back purchased a 2 slice when secondary toaster went. Different model but same high quality.
My only beef…had to buy a different model to get a 2 slice unless I wanted to buy (and I did) the same model as 4 slice but literally not a cent difference in the 2 vs the 4. How is almost twice the toaster the exact same price? Had it been even a little less expensive would have bought the same model again.
You do get what you pay for and both models excellent.

Excelente compra. Además bonito. Es eficiente y el indicador de tostado es útil para saber lo que falta para terminar. El defrost también es muy útil si se quiere tostar pan congeniado con mayor eficiencia.