Comparing Bread Machine Times

This is a comparison between times in Hamilton-Beach Homebaker Breadmaker, model 29882C (my old machine) and new machine, model 29982, just called "2 lb. Bread Maker." Both machines have three levels of crust: light, medium and dark. Choosing any of these does not affect the baking time.

HOMEBAKER BREADMAKER, MODEL #29882C
2 loaf sizes available, 1.5 lb. and 2 lb.
1. Basic 2:53, 3:00
2. French 3:40, 3:50
3. Gluten-Free 3:32, 3:40
4. Quick 1:40 (no choice of size)
5. Sweet 2:50, 2:55
6. 1.5 Express 0:58 (size as indicated)
7. 2.0 Express 0:58 (size as indicated)
8. Dough 1:30 (no choice of size)
9. Jam 1:20 (no choice of size)
0. Cake 2:50 (no choice of size)
11. Whole Grain 2:55. 3:00
12. Bake 1:00 (maximum time)

REPLACEMENT MODEL #29982
3 loaf sizes available, 1 lb., 1.5 lb. and 2 lb.
1. Basic 2:55, 3:00, 3:02
2. French 3:54, 4:01, 4:09
3. Gluten-Free, 2 lb. only, 3:09
4. Quick 1:24 (no choice of size)
5. Sweet 2:47, 2:52, 2:57
6. 1.5 Express 1:25 (size as indicated)
7. 2.0 Express 1:35 (size as indicated)
8. Dough 1:32 (no choice of size)
9. Jam 1:20 (no choice of size)
10. Roast Nut 0:45 (no choice of size)
11. Whole Grain 2:54, 3:09, 3:22
12. Bake 1:00 (maximum time)

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WHOLE GRAIN (WHOLE WHEAT) CYCLE, MODEL #29982

The length of this cycle for a two pound loaf is 3:22. Times are "counting down" in reverse.

3:22 - Starts with this "jerky" sounding movement of the mixing blade.

3:21– Switches to a different mixing noise, still not full-fledged mixing.

3:20 – The mixing blade from now is continuous, additional flour or water may be necessary, sides of the bread pan should be scraped down with a plastic scraper if there is anything there; also flour in the corners should be encouraged with the scraper to come to the middle. 3

3:10 – The full-fledged mixing stops, a ball should be formed by this point. (This machine forms balls of dough better than any other bread maker I have ever used, by the way.)

2:45 – Machine has been quiet until now, there is a beep noise which means "add raisins, nuts or whatever," but the machine does not start up until…

2:43 – Machine resumes mixing, this is unusual, every other machine I have had has you dump the additional ingredients in the bread pan when the blade is moving. From this point, the machine keeps mixing (if there are additional ingredients) or just forming a ball. Sometimes the mixing is non-stop, other times it continues for 29 seconds, then stops for 1 second while the ball is tossed around to another location in the bread pan by the blade. This continues until…

2:10 – Machine finally stops the second mixing (I felt like this is a very long time).

1:50 – The machine moves the bread around slightly for two or three rotations of the blade.

Soon after this point before I figured out how to make the machine make bread successfully, the bread started to rise too much, so I had to abandon following what was going on. The baking would have begun shortly after this.

I got a new bread machine...

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Despite the following rant, the bottom line of which is that this most recent bread machine I got is incapable of making a 2 pound loaf without big issues, I actually found a way to have it make bread successfully ... so read on ... and see the update at the very bottom...

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I finally broke down and got a new Hamilton Beach bread maker. The previous one I had (model 29882C) was falling apart, the pole which holds the blade started dropping out of the bottom of the machine. There were ways to still make bread but this was kind of hairy, because even if the pole was in the machine, there was a small gap where liquids, typically put in the machine first, could leak through the bottom and cause a short circuit or a fire or something.

I had purchased the "Artisan" Hamilton Beach machine, model 29985F, in October 2024 from Amazon.ca to replace 29882C, but 29985F had serious problems (see my review) and it was returned to Amazon. Model 29982 was recommended by the company as the one I should have gotten to replace 29882C. But 29982 was also BAD. Its major problem was it was incapable of making a two pound loaf without a big mess.

You can look up this new model by searching for B0BLXGJ27V at Amazon.ca (Canada) or Amazon.com (USA). (In the URL, Amazon.com says it is a "Programmable Dishwasher.") Amazon.ca currently has it for sale only from Marketplace sellers, the price is over $200 Canadian. Amazon.com has it as "Amazon's choice" for $74.99 US on special, but to order this from Canada costs around $143 Canadian including shipping; I ordered mine from Walmart Canada and the cost was around $145 Canadian.

I made several tests with 29982.

The first one was a 2 pound whole wheat bread using an old recipe from a Black & Decker manual/recipe book which I have used many times without a problem. (NOTE: Instead of water and powdered milk, I used 3% milk from Safeway; instead of honey I used maple syrup, which I use interchangeably with honey all the time.) The bread hit the viewing window of the machine during the baking cycle, but it only touched it a little bit (about the size of a quarter) and I tapped it down gently with a spoon, it turned out OK and was tasty. I was optimistic.

The second test, a white bread, was using the 2 pound loaf recipe in the manual for the new machine, 29982. The bread hit the viewing window big time and I punched it down, but the top of the bread looked bad; the rest of the loaf was OK. The ingredients were exactly as listed; I was using Robin Hood white flour.

The third test was this "kitchen sink" bread which I have made many times with my old HB machine and never had a problem. (See recipe here.) It uses many different kinds of seeds, flour and so forth. The machine started to sound very weird during the second mixing cycle; I hadn't monitored it during the previous tests. I thought it was broken, but later I found out this was not true. Freaking out, I stopped the machine and took the dough out and put it in a baking pan and baked the bread in my stove's oven. It turned out OK. I think during the baking cycle, it would have hit the top of the machine. Let's ignore this test.

The fourth test was another two pound loaf of the whole wheat bread mentioned above, again using the old recipe from the Black & Decker manual. It started to almost hit the viewing window of the bread machine with a huge bulge and over an hour still to go and if I hadn't stopped things, the mess would have been much worse. The ingredients were exactly as specified, with milk powder and honey this time. I took the dough out of the machine, and put it in a bread pan and cooked it in the oven.

The next test was a one-pound loaf, using the new machine's white bread recipe from the manual. One pound loaf recipes are often found in really old bread machine books, though they are usually not identified as such. This turned out perfectly. How could it be otherwise, it was the smallest one -- unlike the two pound loaf above with the same recipe which was a disaster. This test used white flour which was not Robin Hood flour.

The final test (so far) was the 1½ pound loaf from the default white bread recipe again. This one also hit the roof, though not as serious as other examples, with about 32 minutes to go during the final baking sequence. The rest of the bread looked OK. This test used white flour which again was not Robin Hood flour.

It doesn't make sense to me that I have used the whole wheat bread recipe from the old Black & Decker book for years and the loaves all turned out OK, but now the results are inconsistent. I think I was lucky that my old Hamilton Beach machines were compatible with those recipes.

BUT ... there are some other issues, maybe. I notice that the ingredients for Robin Hood flour (a Canadian flour which is more expensive than typical "no name" flour) that I used to make a 2 lb default white loaf (above) from the HB manual (which was a flop) are kind of weird. There might even be other grains included in this white flour along with other additives. And when I used to make bread with an HB machine, I usually first heated up the water for 30 seconds in my microwave ... but I think the rising/baking would override that ... it's not like "cold" water at the beginning could have such a huge effect on the loaves. And it's not like I live in La Paz, Bolivia, I am only a few hundred feet above sea level.

Here are some other interesting facts about this new Hamilton Beach machine, 29982:

• First of all, there are only TWO recipes in the manual. One is for white bread (which I have used twice above, one was a huge flop). The second is for something using the "Roast Nut" cycle which replaces the "Cake" cycle in my previous HB machine. You are supposed to take some nuts like almonds, soak them in salty water, drain them and then cook them in the machine for 45 minutes, producing a snack treat. If you want other bread recipes, you have to go the Hamilton-Beach web site! There are around 40 such recipes on the page at the Hamilton Beach site (choose "Breads" on the left side), but if you don't own a computer you are stuck with only the recipe for white bread, unless you own some recipe books or consult the Internet. Some of these recipes at the HB web site are for the same bread, so you get two recipes, one each for 1½ and 2 pound loaves.
• The mixing blade in the new machine is not compatible with the shaft in my now-broken machine's baking pan ... this could be a problem if you are ordering some replacement blade from a place like Amazon where lots of generic blades are available, which don't specify which machine they are for.
• The overall dimensions of the bread pan are similar to my earlier machine, but the thing on the bottom of the pan where it connects to the motor is NOT the same, so you cannot use the pan in an old machine or vice versa. This again could cause issues if you are ordering a generic bread pan from Amazon which does not specify which machine it is for.
• The machine beeps at various times (when you add raisins, nuts, etc.) but the volume of the beeps varies. The beeps when everything is finished are barely audible. As well, when I was making whole wheat bread, it started beeping at 1:35 of the cycle, which made no sense, because there was nothing happening at that point.

See also another posting on my blog which compares the times for various breads on the old and new Hamilton Beach machines as well as a sample time breakdown for one cycle on the new machine. The old machine's manual had a time chart which was much more detailed than the one for the recent machine, which is disappointing.

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UPDATE, JANUARY 12, 2025

I was just about ready to return this new Hamilton Beach machine to Walmart, when I suddenly had a brainstorm.

This new HB machine is unusual, because it has 3 different weight settings: 1 lb., 1½ lb. and 2 lb. One pound loaves were popular when bread machines were first introduced many years ago; these days typical weights are 1½ lb., 2 lb., and even 3 lb.

Since a 1 lb. loaf of white bread using the one and only default recipe in the machine's manual turned out OK (because it was the smallest one with the shortest baking cycle) I decided to try and make a 1½ lb. loaf without any change in the ingredients, but using the 1 lb. baking cycle. The results were perfect, not only for a white bread loaf (which had blown up using the 1½ lb. recipe with 1½ lb baking cycle as well as a 2 lb. loaf which was a huge disaster), but also for my "kitchen sink" bread which is full of seeds, plus a pumpernickel loaf.

In my old Black & Decker manual/recipe book, I found there are several 1½ lb recipes, and I found a really old bread machine cookbook written by Donna Rathmell German (from 1991) which has recipes for all 3 weights. She wrote several bread machine books judging by what is available at Amazon. I used this book for the pumpernickel bread using the 1½ lb. recipe/1 lb. baking cycle combo as well as another recipe for 1½ lb. cinnamon raisin bread from the Black & Decker book, and they all turned out fine.

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