Bread is the head of everything, and the toaster is the main appliance that delivers not only toasted, but also heated and defrosted bread to the table. He is required to cope with slices of different sizes and thicknesses, not to burn them, but to brown them evenly and finish the job without loud sounds – otherwise you never know who has a machine gun at hand (see “Pulp Fiction”).
We will check if the Kitfort KT-2038 toasts white, black and gray bread well, if you can put bread with additives in it and whether it will decorate the kitchen – or just take up extra space on the table.
Characteristics
| Manufacturer | kitfort |
|---|---|
| Model | KT-2038 |
| Type | Toaster |
| Country of Origin | China |
| Warranty | 1 year |
| Service life * | 2 years |
| Power | 685-815W |
| Capacity | 2 toasts at the same time |
| Electric shock protection | class I |
| The weight | 1.45 kg |
| Dimensions (W×H×D) | 310×210×195 mm |
| Network cable length | 0.75 m |
| Retail offers |
* If it’s quite simple: this is the period during which parts for repairing the device are delivered to official service centers. After this period, any repair in the official SC (both warranty and paid) is unlikely to be possible.
Equipment
A rather compact Kitfort-style box is made of black cardboard with purple inserts. The font is white, large enough and clear.
On the lid of the box there is the name of the company and model, as well as an indication of the color and a barcode with information about the contents
Both wide sides are adorned with a toaster sketch (and this is the first time we’ve seen this appliance in retro style). They also have the name of the model, type of device, color, link to the company’s website. The parties differ only in slogans: on one “Feed me with bread!”, on the other – “And now a toast!”.
On one of the end sides of the box there is another slogan, this time common to all Kitfort devices, the slogan “Always something new”, another model name, an indication of its color and a list of the advantages of the device:
- six degrees of roasting;
- auto-centering of toasts;
- defrosting and heating;
- extra-rise toast;
- wide slots;
- retractable crumb tray.
On the opposite side, under the same slogan and information as inside the beige KT-2038 toaster, we see a list of technical details: again the model name and color, operating voltage, power, capacity (2 toasts at the same time), cord length, device and packaging size , the weight of the device and the device with packaging.
At the bottom of the box are information about the manufacturer, importer, company hotline, production date – and other official data.
Opening the box, inside we found a carefully packed toaster with a removable crumb tray, as well as an instruction manual, a warranty card, some advertising and a branded magnet.
The body of the toaster is fixed in the box with the help of molded cardboard tabs, which reliably protect the contents from shaking and pushing.
At first sight
The design of the Kitfort KT-2038 toaster is decided in retro style – this is reflected in the round case with a chrome finish, covered with pleasant beige enamel, and in the old-fashioned control panel, and in the form of a toast lowering and raising lever.
In cross section, the body of the toaster is rather an oval. The upper platform with slots for toast is narrower, then the body expands a little and gradually narrows towards the bottom again – but the bottom is still wider than the top.
Under the user’s right hand, on the side wall of the case, there is a spring-loaded lever for raising and lowering the toasts. Outwardly, this part of the body looks like a slot, bordered by a wide chrome plate, in which a chrome-plated cone-shaped handle moves, the top of the cone being cut off to a flat plate, and the bottom of the cone is made of black plastic. The lever in the slot moves freely and must be fixed in the lowest position, and only when the toaster is plugged in.
On the front side there is a control panel in the form of a round regulator of the degree of frying. In the chrome ring we see a round scale with intermediate divisions, and in the middle of the scale there is a chrome-plated cylindrical knob with a small arrow at the base, which is set to the desired number. The stroke of the handle is very smooth, it is not additionally fixed on the numbers.
Under the regulator are three chrome buttons with inscriptions under them and plastic windows for the LED in the middle of each. These are “Defrost”, “Warm up” and “Stop”.
The bottom of the toaster is made of black plastic. It has ventilation slots for the circulation of heated air, guides on which you can wind the excess cord, the actual outlet of the electrical cord and four legs with rubberized gray lining. Also in the middle there is a nameplate with technical information about the device and its manufacturer.
On the left side of the toaster, where the body gently rounds towards the bottom, there is a crumb tray. It can be picked up by a small cutout in the bottom and pulled out with little effort. Shaking off crumbs from it, it can be put back and fixed until it clicks.
The pallet is a narrow rectangular steel tray with a black plastic handle, which, when put into place, almost completely merges with the bottom.
The upper part of the body is a chrome-plated metal plate framing two wide rectangular toast bins, with the inscription “Caution! Hot Surfaces” between them.
The long walls of these slots are heating elements, and there are holes in the side walls for a fixed horizontal movement of steel gratings. When the lever is lowered, they compress a piece of bread and place it exactly in the center, at an equal distance from the heating elements.
Also, in the side walls of each toast receiver there is a narrow slot, along which a spoke with petals connected to the lever moves, which supports the toast from below.
Instruction
The instruction, as usual with Kitfort, is only in Russian. This glossy card booklet, printed in clear and large print, contains detailed, complete and logical information on how to use the appliance, how to clean it, what problems can occur with it, and what safety precautions must be taken to ensure that operation is no trouble.
The scheme of the device in the instructions is very detailed and is provided with clear and distinct signatures. In general, it can replace the entire instruction at once – at least it is completely clear from it where to put the bread in, what to press and what to turn so that it is fried or defrosted.
Also included is a warranty card.
Control
The control of the toaster, like the entire appliance, is made in retro style and consists of a thin rotary handle with a small arrow and a round scale, the divisions on which correspond to the degree of roasting of the toast (from 1 to 6) – the heating regulator, as well as the “Defrost” buttons, “Warm up” and “Stop”. The device turns on automatically when the lever is lowered.
Before switching on, you must put the toast in the slots and lower the lever. Then set the desired degree of roasting with the regulator. After that, the toaster will begin to heat up and, after heating, will toast the bread.
Shutdown can be automatic, or can be carried out in manual mode after pressing the “Stop” button (when on, it glows red).
If already cooked toasts are cold, they can be reheated by placing them in the slots, lowering the lever with the temperature control knob set to zero and pressing the “Reheat” button. The time of this program is approximately half a minute, the temperature is not regulated.
If you need to make toast from frozen bread, then pieces of it must be laid in the slots, set the degree of roasting using the temperature control and press the lever down. Immediately after the device starts working, you must press the “Defrost” button, which will be highlighted in red. Then the toaster will first defrost the bread, and then bring it to the desired degree of roasting.
Exploitation
Before making toast for the first time, the appliance must be placed on a flat surface that will not be damaged by high temperatures (we had a wooden table, which the toaster did not damage at all).
Then you need to plug the toaster into the outlet, set the heat control to the maximum and lower the lever to make the device work. At the same time, a specific smell of a burning heating element can be heard from the bread slots; in our case, it was barely noticeable, and it could well be neglected.
According to the instruction manual, this procedure should be repeated two more times, after which the toaster is ready for use.
The compilers of the instructions recommend cutting bread (or taking ready-made pieces) 1-1.5 cm thick and not using pieces thicker than three centimeters. Since the toaster uses auto-centering, each piece will be evenly toasted on both sides. Keep in mind that stale bread will toast faster than fresh bread, and brown bread may need additional toasting. One toast cooks faster than two, so you need to choose a lower degree of roasting for it. The same applies to the second and subsequent portions of toast, if you fry them without interruption.
You can put bread with cereals in the toaster, but not one that includes pieces of fruit or vegetables – they will burn, ruining the taste of the toast, and may damage the appliance.
Stuck toast can be removed by unplugging the appliance and letting it cool down. After that, you need to lower and raise the lever several times to get a piece of bread. In particularly difficult cases, the toaster should be turned over and slightly shaken or gently tapped several times on the bottom with your hand.
Like most similar devices, the Kitfort KT-2038 toaster is designed primarily for the use of white toast (sandwich) bread. The dimensions of the toast bin are ideal for slices of this size. Domestic pan bread is slightly smaller in size, but it can also be easily removed from the toaster. Toasted slices of sliced loaf are a little more difficult to remove from the appliance: even when manually lifting the grate, they barely reach the top edge of the holes. If the owner wants to fry, defrost or reheat slices of a thinner baguette in cross section, then he cannot do without additional tools for extracting toast.
For fresh white bread, the degree of roasting of toasts is also adjusted. Positions from one to six exactly correspond to the readiness of porous wheat bread from slightly toasted to slightly burnt. In the photographs below, we show the degree of readiness of toasts, corresponding to divisions from 1 to 6.
All six toasts were made in the front slot of the toast bin closest to the user. The top line corresponds to the inner, hotter side, the bottom – the outer. You can see that the sides of the toast are cooked differently.
The toaster runs almost silently and makes a soft click when the bread is done. We have noticed that the click sound is louder when special toast bread is used, and when slices of a loaf are placed inside (they are smaller in area), it clicks quieter. The toaster does not emit any bells or other sound signals.
We were pleased that it is absolutely not necessary to eat cold toast if they were accidentally cooked more than necessary. The reheat function works great: when you press the reheat button, the slices of bread do not get more toasted, but really warm up to the temperature of freshly cooked toast. Heating does not affect the taste at all.
The same can be said about the defrost function. Using the button of the same name, we prepared fresh, not soaked toast without any extra flavors from toast bread frozen at -18 ° C. No pre-treatment is required, just took a couple of slices from the freezer and got hot toast at the exit.
It must be remembered that the toaster does not have any protection against turning on without bread, so it is better not to leave it plugged in for a long time.
In general, working with the toaster is very simple: we did not encounter any other difficulties, tricks and life hacks when testing than those listed above.
No additional devices – grills for toasting hot sandwiches, for example – are not attached to this model, and they are not offered to buy them separately on the official website.
Care
Cleaning your toaster consists of regularly shaking out the crumb tray and removing crumbs from the appliance itself. To do this, the tray must be removed, shaken out and, if desired, washed with warm water and a small amount of detergent. Only a completely dry pallet can be inserted back!
When cleaning, the device itself must be turned upside down and lightly tapped on the bottom so that the crumbs fall out. After that, the body of the device can be wiped with a soft, damp cloth.
Such a procedure with constant use of the toaster should be carried out at least once a week.
If something has dried up inside the toaster, then you can turn it on without bread to maximum heat and then thoroughly ventilate the kitchen, but it is better not to abuse such extreme cleaning.
Our measurements
Since the toaster can be turned on without bread, we checked to what maximum temperature the slot is heated from the inside at two extreme degrees of roasting. For the first degree, this temperature was 190 ° C, and for the sixth – 240 ° C. The temperature was measured in the slot closest to the user, approximately in its center – both in width and height. We then measured the temperature of the toast at maximum toast: it was 194°C.
We were also interested in how hot the body of the toaster would be when heated to the sixth degree. It turned out that the top panel can be seriously burned: its temperature reached 100 ° C. The side walls also heated up significantly – up to 65 ° C. On the other hand, the control panel is well insulated and does not heat up above 35 °C.
We also measured the time of different degrees of roasting. To do this, we took identical slices of toast bread and measured the period from switching on to automatic switching off with an external stopwatch.
| Degree of doneness | Time for preparing |
|---|---|
| one | 1 min. 30 sec. |
| 2 | 2 minutes. 20 sec. |
| 3 | 2 minutes. 40 sec. |
| 4 | 3 min. |
| 5 | 3 min. 20 sec. |
| 6 | 4 min. |
| warm up | 40 sec. |
| defrosting | +50 sec. to cooking |
The maximum power achieved by the device during all tests was 795 W, and the average was in the region of 775-780 W, depending on the cooking program. The device spent 0.047 kWh for the preparation of toasts of the sixth degree of roasting.
practice tests
We took different types of bread and dreamed up what kind of fried slices of each type could be cooked in haste.
Black and gray bread
For gray and black bread, chopped herring with onions and apples will be an excellent addition.
To get a crispy crust, these types of bread need to be re-processed into toast. First, we fried the bread at the maximum degree, and then held it again at the second. The bread turned out crispy and went well with finely chopped stuffing.
Result: excellent.
Baton with jam
If the body urgently needs a boost of satiety, then it makes sense to turn to fast carbohydrates: a slice of a loaf with homemade jam. However, store-bought jam will also do, but white bread is better to toast: this way it will be tastier even without butter.
We fried the loaf slices at the third degree of roasting and with great pleasure replaced pastries for tea with them. And yes, this test showed that with the advent of a toaster in the kitchen, the consumption of jam in the house increases significantly. Perhaps it can even reach the year before last year’s stocks …
Result: excellent.
Special bread for toast and sandwiches
Square large slices of such bread are ideal both in area and in thickness for any toaster. And the crust on them is just perfect.
Such bread usually does not keep very well both at room temperature and in the refrigerator: it quickly becomes moldy. Therefore, the best option is to freeze it and store it in the freezer.
We put two slices directly from the freezer into the toaster slots, set the third degree of roasting, and after lowering the lever, immediately pressed the “Defrost” button. A little more time is spent on cooking in this way, but the loss of bread is reduced to zero.
And from the fried slices, you can collect sandwiches with everything that is available, including just a fresh cucumber. We took cheese, lettuce, tomato and smoked sausage and were pleased with the result.
Result: excellent.
findings
The Kitfort KT-2038 toaster, as we expected, turned out to be a simple and reliable device that helps to destroy jam and cheese stocks in the house. It will come in handy for anyone who likes to take sandwiches to work or, according to the English tradition, drink tea with sandwiches. Bread toasted even when cold is much tastier than usual.
It would be nice, of course, to add accessories to it, like a grill for hot sandwiches. Moreover, the width of the slots allows them to be cooked. But even so, KT-2038 is a good choice for lovers of retro and American breakfasts.
However, this toaster will not spoil the modern design of the kitchen.
pros
- cute design
- ease of use
- defrosting and heating
Minuses
- lack of accessories
