lena18janv, these two ovens are good, reliable, * very similar *, bake both bread perfectly.
Conversations that are tastier are subjective and have little basis ...
The mechanics and the bucket, including Panasonic's, are made more elegant.
Functionally, Panasonic is inferior to Kenwood today.
In terms of reliability, according to the materials of the forum today, the bowl fluctuates. There are no obvious problems with these stoves.
It is difficult to choose. Brace yourself.
The presence of service and something personal in the stove can tip the scales.
Vanya28, thank you for your posts and explanations, they seemed to me the most objective. I read the entire thread. I'm already tired. Now, like many others, I am tormented by a choice. The fact is that the experience of using Panasonic
255 I already have, two years ago I bought such a mother-in-law. The oven is just plain. Fully functional. Now my wife and I decided to buy a stove for themselves. I already wanted to order the same, but at the last moment Kenwood noticed. I wish I hadn't seen her !! We have a Kenwood Food Processor which is the same design as this Bread Maker.
Therefore, of course, Kenwood also wanted. Let's try to summarize these 17 pages.
1. Design and construction. Most, myself included, give priority to Kenwood. This is subjective. But hardly anyone will argue that the steel case is worse than white plastic (although there are no complaints about the quality of the plastic, nevertheless, during the time we use Panasonic's mother-in-law, the plastic of the case turned yellow in some places, even browned, especially in the place where the hot air outlet is.Perhaps this happened due to improper care, but nevertheless steel + black plastic is probably more practical, well, in my opinion, it looks more beautiful). Kenwood has a viewing window and a backlight. For many, this advantage is controversial, but I think that hardly anyone will call it a disadvantage. Personally, I think that's a plus. Sometimes it's just interesting to see what's going on there. And sometimes you need to control the process. In order not to violate the temperature regime when the dough is rising, it is much more convenient to look through the window than to open the lid for a second and catch a glimpse of what is there. Kenwood also has a removable dispenser, but Panasonic does not. Kenwood has sort of a removable lid. (For me it is relevant - probably if something can be washed in the dishwasher). Kenwood has touch-sensitive controls. I don't quite understand what it is. I did not try to press myself. Panasonic can also call them touch-sensitive, because there are no buttons as such, they are hidden under the film of the control panel. Although if we consider the touch buttons that work by touch, and not by pressing, then Panasonic, of course, is not like that.
2. Reliability and workmanship. As I understand it, both of these stoves are equally reliable. In the thread, there were a couple of times mentions of the Kenwood breakdown. But, apparently, these are isolated cases, which certainly happen to Panasonic. In general, these ovens have no specific weak points. By the way, somewhere I read that Panasonic in a year and a half starts stronger than it is necessary to fry the crust. I agree with that. Our Panasonic now, when setting a light crust, turns out to be an average, with an average - dark, with a dark one I have not tried, but I think that it may even burn a little. In addition, the bread began to rise less, the loaves no longer turn out to be as high (almost to the lid), as they were at the beginning of operation. Perhaps this is due to the poor quality of flour, a bag of which my father-in-law brought from the village, and which we somehow will not finish eating. It looks, it seems to me, a little grayer than the premium flour from the store. Or maybe the reason is in the thermal sensor? Well, there, it's dirty, or you need to bend it ... If anyone knows what the matter is, or is it described somewhere, please poke my nose into the link. By the way, also: Panasonic is quite dusty when kneading.That is, flour can fly out of the vat and, settling on the walls and heating elements, burn. Cleaning the oven is quite problematic. Although I have not tried using any cleaning products. I have no information about Kenwood in this regard. I also realized that the bucket and the inner walls are better made by Panasonic, but this does not mean that Kenwood's are bad, there seem to be no complaints about the quality.
3. Service and warranty service. It seems like a year ago, Kenwood had problems with warranty service for the 450th model, since it was completely new. But lately I haven't seen such complaints. Moreover, I think there will be no such problems in Moscow.
4. Functionality and equipment. Here, I think undoubtedly, the leadership is for Kenwood. Most important is the ability to manually program up to 5 programs. In terms of equipment, nothing particularly outstanding. Panasonic has a special comb-type shovel for rye bread. Although I repeatedly forgot to change the scoops and rye bread baked just as well in Panasonic with a regular scoop. It seems that you can still buy an additional bucket with a round base for Kenwood.
5. Ease of use. Kenwood did not try, but from the reviews I realized that he was a little more complicated than Panasonic. Well, about Panasonic: from my own experience I know that it is extremely easy to use. Everything is clear intuitively. You don't even need to read the instructions. Very simple. Simply press all the buttons sequentially from left to right. And in the end, the "start" button.
6. And the most important thing: the quality of bread baking. I believe that this item should be the main one when choosing. But everything is not so simple here. As far as I understand, in automatic mode in Panasonic it turns out better, namely: the dough rises higher, the bread is more "fluffy". For some, this is not even an advantage at all, because they prefer less "fluffy" bread, for example, so that butter is easier to spread on it. But still, when using bread makers, the prevailing opinion is that the higher, more porous and "fluffier" ordinary white bread is, the better the bread maker does its job. However, the taste of the bread is equally good in Panasonic and Kenwood. Particular attention should be paid to French bread. Panasonic does it great. Kenwood cannot cope with this task in automatic mode. The bread is not French. Now rye bread. It's even more complicated here. Again, Panasonic makes excellent rye bread. Only it is not quite rye. I tried to make rye and Borodino bread from the enclosed recipe book and from recipes offered by a company that sells ingredients at the All-Russian Exhibition Center. But this is bread with the addition of wheat flour. Here, on the forum, recipes for rye bread are offered, which everyone praises very much. However, they are not suitable for use with the normal automatic rye bread program. In Panasonic, you have to combine two programs. It's okay, but you have to time the time or set the alarm. It turns out that you cannot put such bread for the night. Now about Kenwood. Let's not forget the five manual programs. According to Vanya28, for simple bread, you can manually prescribe a program by increasing the dough rise time and it will turn out no worse than in Panasonic. I don’t know exactly, but I think the situation is the same with French bread. When it comes to special recipes for rye bread, Kenwood wins. Since you can again manually prescribe the program and put the bread overnight. Although, in fact, at the stage of kneading the dough, the participation of the baker is still necessary to "help" in the kneading.
Oh!! How I am sold! Okay, I'll wrap up.
So, the summary: for those who want to get excellent bread with a minimum of problems with the settings and programs and who are going to bake mainly fully using the programs offered by the manufacturer, you should choose Panasonic. Kenwood should be chosen by those who are going to use manual programs, special recipes, as well as those who pay great attention to design. Here. I wrote all this, based on personal experience using Panasonic sd-255 and summarized information from this thread. Maybe he messed up something. If anything, correct me.
Personally, I made my choice in favor of Kenwood. I would only like to clarify some points, I hope Vanya28 or someone else will answer me. French bread is important to me (my wife loves it). Is it possible to manually make something similar to Panasonic's French bread in Kenwood? What exactly needs to be changed to make simple white bread "fluffier" like Panasonic's? And just in general, friends, who uses manual settings, can you share the most successful manual programs for Kenwood-450 with everyone?
