OsterExpressbake Breadmaker, 2-lb. Loaf Capacity, 2 lb, White/Ivory

Follow the Oster recipe. I did that. Twice. More or less. After reading people's experiences here and elsewhere, I added vital wheat gluten - 7 tsp. for 4-2/3 cups of 100% whole wheat flour. I also added 2 TBS oil because the Oster recipe was inexplicably missing it, though they had oil in their other bread recipes - I think it would have stuck to the pan in the mixing without it. And 1/4 cup of flax and sunflower seeds and oats. It looked dry during kneading, so I added 3 tsp of water, one at a time. The ball looked fine after that. Because my first loaf came out like a doorstop - it didn't rise even to the top of the pan - I followed other advice here and put the pan with the dough in the oven to rise - set the temp at 170 and left the door open. It rose just to the top of the pan. Then I baked it in the machine. Same result as the first loaf. Tastes good enough, but very dense - like I said, the black hole of bread. All my ingredients are fresh, and except for the above-noted changes, I followed the recipe exactly - same amount of flour, brown sugar, yeast, salt, water. Disaster.But I didn't buy this thing just to knead the dough, and then have to put the dough in a bread pan in a regular oven.So at the moment, I don't know what's going wrong. I don't think more gluten and yeast are going to help - more would probably hurt, actually. I used Whole Foods organic whole wheat flour - the recipe didn't specify a certain brand, and I doubt that could make much difference. What I want is a loaf much, much closer to the kind that, say, Dave's Killer Bread makes - whole grain, seeds and stuff, and pretty light and fluffy for whole grain bread. I'll try a few more loaves, and if they keep coming out this way, I'll be returning this thing as non-functioning.UPDATE: 4/6/16 Upgrading to 5 stars. If only because this thing walked itself off the kitchen counter, fell to the floor, the lid came off and skidded across the floor ... and I put it all back together, no plastic broke, and... IT STILL WORKS!!! Helps that the kitchen floor is wood, but still...I mean, that's worth 5 stars all by itself. OK, so that happened. My only quibble is the display - it doesn't light up and the overhead lighting has to be just right to be able to read it. Not that the timer matches what the manual says is supposed to be happening, but to me that's just another one of those irrelevancies, as you'll see if you keep reading.I've just about started to break even on making bread versus buying it. The loaves are getting better and that's because I've started using white whole wheat flour - still whole wheat, just the white variety of wheat instead of the more common red. Makes all the difference. OK, not all - I've had to increase the gluten (maybe a quarter-cup, and yes, I'm lucky gluten and my body understand each other) and yeast. The manual has a recipe that calls for 3 teaspoons of active dry yeast for 100% whole wheat bread but 5 teaspoons fast-rising yeast for Expressbake white bread. So I began using 5 teaspoons of fast-rising yeast in the normal bake 100% whole wheat. After all, fast-rising is the same as bread machine yeast, and this is a bread machine, is it not? Fast-rising needs only one rising, but normal bake has three, so fast-rising yeast + three rises = high-rise 100% whole wheat bread, right? Right. As in, beyond your wildest dreams.Of course, I look at instructions that say bread-making requires precise measurements and I think, "as if" (which is why I flunked algebra - twice - it's a lifestyle thing...) - "precise" means "just a suggestion." So each loaf is like a mystery to me - if it fails or succeeds, I don't know why. Kind of like life, huh? Full of wonder, right? I do things like, oh, set it for whole wheat, let knead for the first 5 minutes, turn it off, do it again, and again, then let it go through the program. I figure whole wheat kneads more needing - er, needs more kneading. Then when finishes its last rise, just before it begins baking, I take the dough out and pull out the kneading blade - the holes it leaves are too big.So I get results like, well, for a while I was getting loaves that rose up to the lid and stuck there - not conducive for browning. I wonder what measurement did that ... actually, I probably should say "measurement," maybe it's something to do with, like, algebra? Plus they were so big that I couldn't get to the handle. So I had to pull the handle up some by force, which took off part of the crust, then decided to just leave the thing in there and set it on bake.It would be nice if you could use my experience as an object lesson, but I have no clue what I did to make the bread do that, so I can't tell you what not to do. Except maybe to not look at measurements as "measurements." Good luck!UPDATE 4/7/16: The photo speaks for itself. Despite my best efforts, this little, much-abused machine turned out a stellar loaf of bread. Light, chewy crust...huge.UPDATE 11/1/16: Got tired of oversized loaves, and the bread tasted too yeasty, so cut back on the yeast to 3 tsp - and that worked. The crust browns nicely when it isn't squashed against the lid.One thing still bothers me: the cycles don't start and stop at the times given in the manual. Most important, the first kneading is supposed to last 5 minutes - it goes for 7 minutes, so that's OK,. But the second kneading is supposed to last 20 minutes - it doesn't; it lasts only 14 minutes. The 2 extra minutes in the first kneading doesn't make up for this shortened time. This is serious - bread depends on the kneading to make the best loaf. And my loaves are pretty dense, even for whole wheat with all kinds of added ingredients. So as I said above, I get the process going, then stop it in the middle of the second kneading and start all over again. Seems to work better. But really - Oster ought to check into this. It's been happening since Day One, and falling off the counter didn't change anything.After the whole wheat cycle is done baking, I still bake it on Bake (#12) for another 15-20 minutes - seems to need it.Otherwise, I'm happy with the machine, glad I have it, and it still warrants 5 stars.UPDATE 5/6/18: OK, don't ever do this: accidentally turn the bread machine off just as it's about to enter its final rise. I kind of brushed the button with my sleeve - no, really! - and it turned itself off. *&^^$$@*(!!! OK, look in the manual - like for power outage. The manual tells you what to do but you have to do it within 6 minutes of the outage: unplug the machine, then plug it back in and hold down the start button for 3 seconds and release, and the machine should start up where it left off. If only. Maybe it's because I turned the thing off - I should have accidentally flipped the circuit breaker. Anyway it didn't work. Now I'm having to let the dough rise in the oven - I warmed it up some, turned it off - no idea what temperature, and no idea what temp the bread machine uses. So I set it to 170, the lowest it can go, let it warm up to maybe 100, turned it off, opened the door - so it's rising nicely. Since I don't know how well it's rising - like, forming giant bubbles, rising too fast? - I can only guess and take it out when it gets to its usual machine rise height, then put it in the machine and use the Bake setting (#12). And see what happens.But really - there should be a way to set the machine to start at any step of the way - how complicated could that be to make? Maybe it's something that's available only on expensive machines?

2nd EDIT 2/17/2015Success! I "found" the solution to better tasting French bread and texture! After making suitable adjustments for an slight overise/crash issue, I adjusted the yeast down to 1.5 TSP of Saf Red, 1 leveled TSP of sugar, 1.5 cup water, 3 TBSP EVOO and 1.5 TSP salt for a 2lb loaf. PLUS 1 level TSP of Hodgson vital wheat gluten!! Unlike the Con Agra bread flour from Costco I've used for years, many "bread flours" simply do not contain enough gluten to give loaves that real bakery bread crust and texture. This simple addition produced excellent taste, texture and crust. The loaf is still moist and chewy with a crispy crust after 3 days at 6000 ft altitude and high desert humidity. This is now my "go to" recipe for outstanding French bread. Too many "grocery store" bread flours don't have sufficient gluten; others are expensive. Look into the six pack of Hodgsons gluten as an economical fix/improvement for "dry, cracker tasting" French breads. My next attempt at an improvement will be to use the darkest setting for crust color. I've made them at "medium" so far.1st EDIT 2/14/2015In the last 24 hours, I saw the price go from 69.99 back down to under $62. This a lot like Vegas!Orig Review:I'm giving a full five stars on this machine. Here's why: My trusty (very trusty) old Welbilt ABM 100-3 The Bread Machine, a Japanese made 1.5 lb machine took a long walk off a short counter. Sadness! Being very heavy and almost all metal and heavy, thick glass... and the floor a vinyl covered slab of concrete, the result was not pretty. But since it had done so well, for so many loaves and decades, it deserved a worthy replacement. Cheap at 62 bucks (Feb/7/2015) delivered and brimming with rave reviews, this Oster CKSTBRTW20 2-Pound Expressbake was to take over duties for old R2D2 (as they were nicknamed.) By the way, R2D2 STILL WORKS! Ok, onto the new Oster.My fav bread is French or Italian traditional. Most recipes for this bread are almost identical. The machines makes the differences. For example, in R2D2, you put the yeast first, then dry stuff and finally water/oils. Opposite from Oster. But this machine does extremely well!! I saw few reviews of french bread so I crossed the old fingers and prayed for the best. After a cleaning/"burn off" breaking in run on Menu 5, I loaded in proper order... 1 3/8 (later added 3 TBSP water) room temp water, 3 TBSP EVOO (for nostalgia,) 4 leveled cup of Gold Star Best for Bread flour, 1 1/2 TSP Morton Sea Salt, 1 heaping TBSP powdered sugar (on hand but granulated is fine,) and finally 2 level TSP of Saf Red Active dry yeast. Machine was set on Menu 2 French, 2lb loaf and Medium crust color. Let me add that I'm at nearly 6000 ft altitude and it's dry here. Also out of the ordinary is a minor mishap with the beater blade which came loose as I was fiddling with the dry ball and trying to get the flour out of the corner. As a result, I restarted the machine so the dough ball got a few more minutes of knead time than normal.Waiting begins. It's pretty quiet. I forget to check on the progress; especially the final rise. When the final beeps sound, I check the result. Hmmm. It over rose and hit the lid a bit then fell back to a bit over top of pan level. Not so bad. How's it look and taste? After cooling 30 minutes or so, DAMN excellent French bread with a medium browned crisp crust and an even texture top to bottom, left to right throughout! One of the best French breads I've ever made! Not like the corner Italian bakery with open hearth, coal fired vintage brick ovens I grew up on for 50 years in Chicago, but damn good!Some things I've noticed. Gold Star bread flour tasted "tasteless flat" in the old R2D2. Hodgson's and King Arthur seemed a bit more flavorful and were also OK, but 20lb bags of ConAgra unbleached bread flour from Costco seemed always the best all around. I've been using, until lately, Red Star active dry yeast (also from Costco) before this new Saf. Even with the Saf, the flours seemed tasteless in R2D2. Help me out maybe, someone?With the Welbilt ABM 100-3, 1.5lb (R2D2) I used 1 or 3/4 TBSP yeast (both brands,) 1 TBSP salt, 3 TBSP EVOO or corn oil, 1 TBSP sugar and 3 cups of the various flours. Usually, the pan over and rose crashed badly also. I am going to try the first standard solutions (cutting back the yeast and/or sugar) and see how it goes. What I CAN state is that the Oster performed perfectly and made a very delicious French bread, but now two pounds worth! I see that a few days after I purchased, it went from 62 to almost 70 bucks. Some folks may pause a bit at the increase. Don't fret! Buy it now. While a lot lighter and more fragile than old R2D2, you can do much more, and get excellent results, with this machine. I read many other machines, regardless of cost, may give less than stellar results. A lot depends on the person as well as the various machines. These Oster reviewers seem the most knowledgeable bread lovers and give good, honest comments.One last thing I am missing with the old Welbilt... it has a cool air fan boosted cool down cycle. This really keeps the loaf from getting soggy and spreads godly great fresh baked bread aromas throughout the house. With the Oster, a good amount of condensation forms under the lid and may drip onto the golden goodness. Just extract the bread when the cycle is done. WEAR MITTS! lolFor full disclosure, I have an old KitchenAid Professional 6qt mixer and do electric oven baking bread on occasion. Don't be a hater! lol Bread masters... any advice on the over rising? Remember, this was my first loaf and at 6000 feet altitude. Go Oster!