How much power does a breadmaker use?

Different brands maybe have different power ratings. Check the one you are interested in. It will have the power rating on a sticker or at least on the box. It will be for 240v in amps or watts. Then you just need to do the maths to work out how many a/hrs etc.

A heating element is the biggest current user on any device, any voltage.

Turn the breadmaker over and read the panel that tells you what power rating it is. It might show something like 2000w.

This means 2000 WATTS of electricity and will be used to heat up the oven component and cook the bread. You'll need to figure out how long the oven is on - an hour or so maybe - to make a loaf of bread.

Now comes the interesting part. You need to convert the WATTS to AMPS which can then be used to calculate how many alternators and batteries and inverters you will need to make your loaf of bread.

Main electricity is 240v give or take. Assuming your breadmaker uses 2000 WATTS of electricity, you Divide the WATTS by the VOLTAGE - 2000W/240V = 8.3 Amps. This is not a whole lot of current and quite manageable inside a house or running on a 240v generator.

However, you are running it via a 12v system. It will still use 2000 WATTS and lets assume your inverter has a 10% loss built into it as it does it transforming - 2200 WATTS. So now the calculation is 2200W/12V = 183 AMPS

Most vehicle alternators range between 40 AMPS and 80 AMPS, but you need 183 AMPS from the alternator. You can add to the alternator capacity with drawing down on your battery capacity. A large 4WD battery will give you about 100 AMP/HOURS. In theory this equates to 100 AMPS for 1 hour, but in practice that would be less.

Some options:
You'll need to buy a large inverter. 2400W or bigger, say a 3000W inverter to make sure it will have the required capacity. These take up a lot of space and the copper cable required to power it need to be the heaviest and most costly you can find. The size of your thumb type size.

You need to install a 200 Amp capacity alternator.

You need to install two large batteries and make sure they are fully charged before running your breadmaker.

All this for a lovely loaf of bread.....

Alternatively, by a cast iron pot and cook it in a campfire.
Or buy a 2400W genset and run that.

Or vacuum seal and freeze your loaf of bread before you leave home.

Isn't there a whole section on power consumption on this website??

Try this if you need even more information
http://www.exploroz.com/Articles/Power_n_Electrics/Default.aspx

Tim

That is like asking how long is a piece of string.....bread makers differ in size and rated power usage , the power usage is usually printed on the bottom of the machine....eg. 1800w,2000w , 2400w, of course the higher the wattage the more power it uses and it is normally? per hour of running at the peak usage rate and a bread maker has different rates of usage as it goes through the cycles of making a loaf of bread....if you are using caravan parks when traveling then how much it uses really would not matter, but like you say with 12v and inverter then it will chew through your 12v supply in a big hurry...cheers

Would be good, but for get it, will use too much power unless you have a generator.

For instance my GE uses around 400W-500W and runs for around 1 hour on bake, so
say 1000 watts to cook a loaf.

1000W @ 240V = 4.1Ah at 12.5V that would be around 82Ah

Cheers
Leigh

If you use a camp oven it does not use any power. Not as convenient, you just have to do a bit of work.

You could use your breadmaker, (mine is rated 550w Panasonic) to do the menial work, mixing, proving, knockdown etc then remove the dough & cook in camp oven or your regular oven or your webber even.

Used like this the power consumption would be minimal as most power is used for the baking cycle.

I actually do this at home as I hate the paddle-hole left in the bottom of the loaf baked in the breadmaker.

Cheers Neil

We use a breadmaker at home quite a bit - the shortest loaf mode is about 3 hours 20 minutes, but the rate of energy consumption would vary greatly throughout - the mixer is not always running - the rise stages are only warm - the very hot cook stage would consume heaps of energy. I presume the xxxxW rating would simply be the max level on cook stage. Using a breadmaker OFF mains would have to produce some of the most expensive bread known, considering the hardware and generation required to support it.

Appreciate all the replies, I do know how much power a breadmaker uses but not how long it runs for so total consumption was unknown.

According to Leighw above it runs on bake for approx. 1 hour so about 1000w or 83ah. Now this is not entirely out of the question as the alternator is 180 amp: so start breadmaker when heading off in the morning and after an hours driving using a 1000w inverter bread should be done and all power usage should be covered..........or am I missing something?

If it was good enough for Harry Butler than it would be good enough for me to use a breadmaker on the road using an inverter.
He seemed very chuffed when he was doing it.

Honky

Hi Wicket
There is a lot of inaccurate guess work in the previous answers.
These are measured currents (at 240V) of a Panasonic 550 watt bread maker.
25 minutes at .25 amp
53 minutes at 0 amp
9 minutes at 2.3 amp
45 minutes at 2.3 amps which cycles at about 50%
Allowing for 85% efficient inverter the max amps at 12 volt is about 55 amps.
Total A/h between 25 to 30A/h depends on whether you want a light or dark crust.

hey I would give it a go I suppose and if it works you win ....
I always remember the series Ben Dark did and the roast he did on the engine of the Statesman, we have done the same a few times now, we get a cold or frozen chook and when thawed we wrap it very well in alfoil and cable tie it to the top of the motor and about an hour later it is perfectly heated and ready to eat, spins out the others at the parking bay when we pop the bonnet and cut the ties and un-wrap the steaming hot chook and start to eat it ..................
My plan down the track is to make a purpose built "hot box" out of S/S with a good sealed lid and place under the bonnet, location yet to determine, and both cook and heat stuff from stews to roasts to bread if it works .......
I will experiment first but a coolant coil around it is looking promising as it keeps a constant heat regardless of speed or external temps and is not hot enough to burn anything ....
Still planning :-)
Cheers and let us know how it goes
Joe

We use a breadmaker in our Oka, doesn't make any impression on 480ah of batteries and 500w of solar.
We also have a few friends with 4wd's and either trailers or vans who use the breadmaker to do the mixing, rising etc while driving and then cook it in the camp oven at camp.
I'd the suggest the post above with x amps for x minutes when XXXX is pretty close to the mark as to power consumption.

We took a breadmaker around Australia - and it stayed under the bed. I had the idea of using to mix the dough only as I do every day at home, but it was too easy to just mix it by hand.

Motherhen

For those who use breadmakers, how does your loaf turn out?

I have one at home and it makes a crap loaf of bread.
No, let me rephrase that.
I makes a short loaf of bread with a bloody great hole in it where the agitator is.

So, I only use it at home on the dough cycle, then remove the dough, place it in a proper bread tin and cook in the oven. I end up with a full sized loaf that is just superb.

I prefer the camp oven anyway as it's much more versatile.

Hint: If you are in a bit of a hurry and can't wait for the dough to "prove", you can mix the bread mix until it is smooth and elastic, cut into 10 smaller sections, then role it out fairly flat with a wine bottle, shaping the dough into discs. Cook in a frypan or camp oven lid and have flat bread wraps you can use to make a variety of sandwich wraps, or eat as is to accompany a stew, curry, or roast.
Got this great idea from an article by Jo Clews from an Engel brochure.
Jo has released a book titled "Australian Camp Oven Cooking".

Hmmm, a breadmaker on a trip.
Sad actually.

Always take my bread maker where ever I go, she uses about three meals a day and a half bottle of read