The easiest and quickest way of toasting bread is with an electrical toaster which along with the kettle are probably two of the most underrated bits of equipment in the kitchen.
Bread becomes toast when exposed to high heat temperature from the toaster heating elements which glow red, resulting in the slices of bread becoming crunchy brown. Toasting bread is simple but there is more to it than meets the eye.
The browning process of bread is similar to someone browning their skin under a tanning bed. In fact, the heat generated by the heating element causes a chemical reaction (called Maillard reaction) in the bread that turns the slice of bread crunchy brown or burnt if you happen to get sidetracked while toasting your favorite English Muffin!
Burning toast is quite the adrenaline rush, filling up the kitchen with that indistinguishable burnt toasty smell that never fails to trigger the smoke alarm.
Hate it or love it, the good old bread toaster is a useful addition to any kitchen and just like most kitchen consumer gadgets they come with different shapes and inner workings including computer automated bread toasters that don't require pushing down a lever and "relay logic" type toasters like the Salter Polaris 4 slice that require you to manually push down a lever.
The Salter Polaris 4-slice toaster is an improved "relay logic" type toaster with two separate browning control dials and two separate mechanisms for lifting and lowering toast. The browning dial on the left controls the two toasting slots on the left, while the browning dial on the right controls the two toasting slots on the right; hence you can use the Salter Polaris 4-slice toaster as a 2-slice toaster.
The browning control dials are numbered from 1 to 6 so you can adjust the level of toastiness (brownness) before the slice of bread pops up. Contrary to popular belief, the numbering on the control dials of toasters doesn't necessarily indicate minutes because most toasters don't have a timed relay controller built-in to trigger the bread-lowering mechanism to pop up.
Many toasters, including the Salter Polaris toaster, use either a bimetallic strip mechanism or a capacitor charged mechanism to pop up the bread. The latter uses a variable resistor that is adjusted via the browning control dial so when a specific voltage is reached in the capacitor it cuts off, popping up the slice of bread.
The bimetallic strip type toaster is simple, but also nifty. It consists of two bits of metal back to back that heat up and expand at different rates slowly curving the bimetallic strip. When you change the numbering on the browning control dials, what you are essentially doing is changing how far the bimetallic strip has to curve before it triggers the bread-lowering mechanism to pop up.
The Salter Polaris 4 slice toaster is rated at 1500W, which sounds like a lot of power for a toaster and it is a lot of power considering many kitchen ovens have a similar power rating. With that said, high wattage toasters are always better because they are faster at toasting and also make the toast crunchier and fluffier on the inside (not chewy).
Toasters as a whole are way more efficient than grills at toasting because the slice of bread is just a few millimetres from the toaster heating element. Toasters also have a lower energy consumption than an oven grill because the toaster heating element is much thinner, requiring less time to heat up than the heating element of a grill.
Ultimately, the purpose of a toaster is to evenly toast bread, which the Salter Polaris toaster does a good job of.
Slices of bread, bagels and crumpets are easy to insert in the toasting slots and are easy to pull out of the toaster, thanks to good size slots measuring 13.5 cm long and 3.5 cm wide. The total weight of the Salter Polaris 4 slice toaster is 2.7 kilogram while the total dimensions are 25 cm wide, 24 cm long and 18 cm high.
The two lifting/lowering mechanism of the Salter Polaris 4-slice toaster work smoothly, ejecting the bread without literally flying the bread out of the toaster.
User control buttons include defrost, reheat and cancel which stops defrost and reheat functions, as well as the toasting process, automatically turning off the heating elements and ejecting the toast(s). The reheat function reheats the toast without browning the toast further. All buttons on the Salter Polaris 4-slice toaster feature an led light built-in to indicate when each button is functioning.
Each toasting slot has a dedicated crumb tray which is removable and designed for catching the bread crumbs and keeping them inside the toaster. The Salter Polaris 4 Slice toaster housing has a titanium metallic finish, while the dials, buttons, crumb trays, heating elements and lifting mechanism have a stainless steel finish.
The bottom of the toaster is made of thermoplastic and features vents, as well as rubber feet to prevent the toaster from sliding on the kitchen top. These rubber feet also allow the toaster to stand high enough so the power cord which runs from the bottom of the unit can be reeled around without making the unit wonky.
Overall, the Salter Polaris 4 slice toaster is a nice looking piece of kit that does what it says on the tin without being too complicated with too many features.
The Salter Polaris metallic 4 slice toaster modernizes your kitchen top and works with all types of bread including flour bread, egg dough bread and griddle cake. You can toast long slices as well as thick sliced bread, crumpets and fruit bread evenly on both sides.