Customer Reviews

Breadman TR444 2-Pound Rapid-Bake Horizontal Breadman

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

We're pretty heavy bread-maker users and when our old machine died after 7 years of hard use we picked up this model. We've been very disappointed: It's inconvenient to add ingredients (they need to be added in a specific order), it's very noisy, and the bread has the consistency of cake. I'd look elsewhere. Our machine is going into our sell-at-next-garage-sale box.

I used this bread machine 4 times successfully, on the 5th time it malfunctioned, fried the electronics and it no longer even turns on! I had to pry the lid open with a screwdriver because the plastic melted. It could have started a fire if I had not been home! The customer service dept are worthless - they will only repair it (ha ha). Best bet to return it from where you bought it.

I wasn't sure if I really "needed" a bread machine so I wanted to try one of the more inexpensive ones first, in case I ended up never using it. But I got this for Christmas and have made bread every day since then! This machine works great, the pan and paddle are totally non-stick, and we have been more than happy with every loaf from it. The rapid cycle is a great bonus if you forgot to plan ahead for dinner, but the crust is not as pretty as the regular cycle, so don't plan on taking rapid-cycle breads to a party or anything! It still tastes great, but the color is uneven. The recipes that come in the owner's manual have been some of our less favorite breads, so I would definitely recommend another source for recipes. (I have The Bread Machine Cookbook by Donna Rathmell German-- 5 stars!) The kneading cycle is a little noisy, just as any appliance with a motor can be noisy, but it only kneads for 20-25 minutes total out of 3.5 hours, so not a big deal. The loaves are on the tall side, especially if you make a 2 lb. loaf, so they are not the usual shape we think bread should be. But when your house fills up with that fresh-bread smell, you will cease to care what shape the loaf is and just drool!!

I thought this was the machine I wanted, because it had a die-cast pan like the beloved Oster machine it was replacing. (Oster, unfortunately, has abandoned quality in the interest of cutting prices and satisfying the irrational consumer notion that a loaf of bread must be rectangular, not square.)

I was wrong. The heavy die-cast pan does make a better crust than conventional stamped pans, but this machine over-kneaded the dough (40 minutes altogether), resulting in a dense texture inside.

But the worst thing about this machine was the noise. The machine was driven by a toothed belt with matching slotted pulleys. Nothing wrong with that, except that Breadman engineers apparently thought this design eliminated the need for belt tension. The belt was loose, and it often slipped out of the notches during the kneading cycle. The result was a loud banging noise that resounded throughout the house. I could never use this machine on the delay setting, because the banging would wake me up during the night.

Customer Service just told me the noise was normal, wouldn't damage the machine, and I could try adding more water to the dough.

After trying 3 loaves of bread, I exchanged the machine for the Breadman TR2200C Ultimate, which is far superior and well worth the extra 30 bucks. I will miss the crisp crust of the die-cast pan, but otherwise the Ultimate is a better machine.

We bought this machine at a retail store and about five weeks of use we took it back. It started knocking and there were error messages on the display (the machine was overheating after only five minutes on the cycle). The store salesperson said Breadman were the top of the line -- I don't think so. This price is a little bit high for the item anyway. I guess we got about 10 breads made before it went bad. We had a Regal before and it lasted about 5 years. We will probably buy another Regal, we are pretty happy with that brand as it made good breads. Again, do not buy any Breadman machine!!!

I have a tr444 that I used about 12 times and really loved it because it was easy. Just add the ingredients and turn it on. Then a plastic part that the belt wraps around that is connected to the motor broke into 3 peices. The machine is unusable. The service department cannot get new parts and cannot service the item because it is made in China. I have found nowhere to find new parts - they are not sold anywhere. The service department was no help at all and the warranty is useless.

While it still worked, the cycle had to be set to "white light" for normal bread or the loaves would be too dark. The last time we used it the belt kept slipping, which ground the cogs down into black powder. The motor pulley & driven pulley are offset by about 1/4 inch which causes the belt to fail. I don't like buying products from China. This is a good example of why not to buy from China.

This is our first bread maker, so we have nothing to compare it to. We bought the Breadman TR444 because it appeared to have what we needed. A basic machine. It has 22 programs. My blender has 75 speeds on it but I only use the fast and slow speed. So we thought 22 programs would be fine and skip the more expensive 100+ program machines. Our first loaf was made from Continental Mills Bavarian Pumpernickel Rye machine mix. Adding the ingredients was easy and we found the machine to be quiet. There is a paddle on the bottom of all the units and they do whirl around. As in any mixer, it does make noise but not at all the noise that a dedicated mixer would. The pan it one of the heaviest that is on the market. Programming it was very easy. Once this is done the unit is on its own for about three and a half hours with a standard mix. Once completed, the pan was easy to pull out and drop out the loaf. The Teflon paddle was on the bottom of the loaf. I used a pair of wood tongs to extract the paddle. No problem. The heavy pan seemed to pay off. The bread was evenly cooked with a fine crust all around. Cleaning the pan with warm water was all that was needed. We had great success with our first loaf. I know cake mixes are not all the same so when it came to bread mix, I bought a few, just to see how much different they were. We were very happy with this bread mix and happier with the Breadman machine. Both worked out great.

We are having the same problem I'm reading in many of the other reviews. This is only a few months old now but the belt in the machine is really starting to slip (can hear the crunching sound all over the house). We've tried adding liquid to make the dough ball a bit softer, but it just makes for dough that is too wet. I don't expect this one to last much longer.

I do not recommand this breadman model at all. I followed their recipe for 2 pound white bread, and it didn't even mix all the ingredient. I made 1 pound bread which was succesful. I am returning this product, and try something else.