Pop-up toaster

Glowing filaments of a modern 2-slice toaster

In pop-up or automatic toasters, a single vertical piece of bread is dropped into a slot on the top of the
toaster. A lever on the side of the toaster is pressed down, lowering the bread into the toaster and
activating the heating elements. The length of the toasting cycle (and therefore the degree of toasting)
is adjustable via a lever, knob, or series of pushbuttons, and when an internal device determines that
the toasting cycle is complete, the toaster turns off and the toast pops up out of the slots.

The completion of toasting may be determined by a timer or by a thermal sensor, such as a bimetallic
strip, located close to the toast.

Toasters may also be used to toast other foods such as teacakes, toaster pastry, potato waffles and
crumpets, though the resultant accumulation of fat and sugar inside the toaster can contribute to its
eventual failure.

Among pop-up toasters, those toasting two slices of bread are more purchased than those which can
toast four.[1] Pop-up toasters can have a range of appearances beyond just a square box and may have
an exterior finish of chrome, copper, brushed metal, or any color plastic.The marketing and price of
toasters may not be an indication of quality for producing good toast. A typical modern two-slice pop-up
toaster can draw from 600 to 1200 watts.

Beyond the basic toasting function, some pop-up toasters offer additional features such as:

One-sided toasting, which some people prefer when toasting bagels

The ability to power the heat elements in only one of the toaster's several slots

Slots of various depths, lengths, and widths to accommodate a variety of bread types

Provisions to allow the bread to be lifted higher than the normal raised position, so toast that has
shifted during the toasting process can safely and easily be removed

Toaster oven

A toaster oven

Toaster ovens are small electric ovens that provide toasting capability plus a limited amount of baking
and broiling capability. Similarly to a conventional oven, toast or other items are placed on a small wire
rack, but toaster ovens can heat foods faster than regular ovens due to their small volume.[citation
needed] They are especially useful when the users do not also have a kitchen stove with an integral
oven, such as in smaller apartments and in recreational vehicles such as truck campers.
Conveyor toaster

A conveyor toaster

Conveyor toasters are designed to make many slices of toast and are generally used in the catering
industry, restaurants, cafeterias, institutional cooking facilities, and other commercial food service
situations where constant or high-volume toasting is required. Bread is toasted at a rate of 300–1600
slices an hour;[citation needed] the doneness control on such a toaster adjusts the conveyor speed, thus
altering the time during which the bread is near the heat elements. Conveyor toasters have been
produced for home use; in 1938, for example, the Toast-O-Lator went into limited production.

Development of the heating element

The primary technical problem in toaster development at the turn of the 20th century was the
development of a heating element which would be able to sustain repeated heating to red-hot
temperatures without breaking or becoming too brittle.[citation needed] A similar technical challenge
had recently been surmounted with the invention of the first successful incandescent lightbulbs by
Joseph Swan and Thomas Edison. However, the light bulb took advantage of the presence of a vacuum,
something that couldn't be used for the toaster.

The first stand alone electric toaster, the Eclipse, was made in 1893 by Crompton & Company of
Chelmsford, Essex. Its bare wires toasted bread on one side at a time.
The problem of the heating element was solved in 1905 by a young engineer named Albert Marsh, who
designed an alloy of nickel and chromium, which came to be known as Nichrome.

The first US patent application for an electric toaster was filed by George Schneider of the American
Electrical Heater Company of Detroit in collaboration with Marsh. One of the first applications that the
Hoskins company had considered for its Chromel wire was for use in toasters, but the company
eventually abandoned such efforts, to focus on making just the wire itself.

The first commercially successful electric toaster was introduced by General Electric in 1909 for the GE
model D-12. Toasters were not invented by an "Alan MacMasters"; that notion stems from a 2010s
Wikipedia hoax.