If you expect any manufacturer to give us the answer to the question how hot does a toaster get, you’re not going to get your answer.
No toaster manufacturer mentions how hot their appliances get so how can we go about finding out?
How Hot Does a Toaster Get? Using a Digital Infrared Thermometer to Find out
I have a digital infrared thermometer temperature gun, which I also use to measure the temperature in my outdoor pizza oven to make sure that it’s hot enough for the best crust.
So, I decided to use that in order to gain some answers to the question how hot does a toaster get.
While I can’t offer you a decisive answer to our question, what I can offer you is some approximate numbers for my toaster’s temperature levels. Mine is a 2-slice.
My findings for determining how hot my toaster gets are the following:
The air inside can reach a temperature of about 350 degrees Fahrenheit or approx. 177 degrees C.
However, the heating elements can reach temperatures as high as 1,000-1,200 degrees Fahrenheit or about 538-649 degrees C.
How many watts does a toaster use?
Not all toasters are the same when it comes to power.
Some 2-slice toasters have a power of 850 watts, while others have a power of 1000 watts.
Things vary for 4-slice toasters, too. Some have a power of 1,300 watts, others of 1,500 watts, while others have a power of 1,800 watts.
1,000 watts (2-slice) and 1,800 watts (4-slice) respectively are about as powerful as classic pop-up toasters get.
The watts influence how quickly a toaster reaches that desired high temperature to toast bread.
How Hot Does a Toaster Get? 1 to 7 Shade Levels
All toasters have different levels or shades, as they’re called.
The temperature is constant for all levels. The answer to our question about how hot a toaster gets is the same for all browning levels.
The timing is the variable in the equation because the temperature is constant.
A thermostat determines how long the heating elements will work for. Once the timing allocated for each level is done, our products will pop up.
If we set our toaster on level 1, the toaster will barely get the time to heat up our products.
On the other hand, on level 7, it will run for a few minutes until the heating elements are turned off automatically by the thermostat.
How to understand toaster shade levels
The shade levels, which are usually from 1 to 7 in most cases, indicate how well toasted we want our slices of bread or bagels to be prepared.
The shade levels are controlled by browning control.
For example, if we pop in some pop tarts, we are advised to use the lowest level, the lowest setting on our toaster.
We can also set up the toaster on levels 1-2 if we want our toast to gain basically any color, our slices of bread will be toasted light on lower levels.
On medium levels, 3, 4 and 5, we get a nice coloring for our toast. It’s a gorgeous golden brown. Level 5 is my favorite if I’m toasting thinner slices of sandwich bread.
If I’m toasting very thick slices of homemade bread, I will prefer level 6 or 7 to get a nice darker shade.
For thin slices of sandwich bread I don’t use levels 6 or 7 because they make the bread a dark brown that I don’t enjoy seeing or eating.
Thus, these 1 to 7 shades ensure that everyone gets the right kind of toast to suit their tastes.
However, no manufacturer is going to mention how hot their toasters get.
All we can say without any kind of temperature measuring tool is that we’d better steer clear of the metal bread rack that all toasters come with because that metal gets really hot and it’s going to burn quite a bit if you put your finger on it or even accidentally brush it off.
That’s why we’re using the lever to lift up our slices of bread before removing them from the metal bread rack.
How toasters work
I’m not going to go into the complicated elements that constitute a pop-up toaster. I’m going to keep things simple.
Before using our toaster, we need to select the shade level we want from the dial.
Next, we have the slots and the carriage. We can get a 2-slot or 4-slot model.
The slices of bread, pop tarts, bagels, and frozen waffles are placed through the slot in the top of the toaster and into the carriage.
When we push the lever down and products reach the bottom, the carriage closes in and traps the products we placed through the slots.
This is how we activate the heating elements. How long the heating elements run for is determined by the shade level we selected.
When the desired temperature is reached and the timing is complete, the heating elements are turned off, the latch is unlocked, and the carriage springs up to its original position.
Check out this article if you want a more detailed explanation about how toasters work.
How hot does a toaster oven get?
Classic pop-up toasters and toaster ovens don’t have much in common, besides the fact that both appliances can be used to make toast or bagels or waffles or pop tarts.
Other than that, they’re two very different appliances.
In fact, we don’t even have to go through too much trouble to find out how hot toaster ovens get. It’s not nearly as difficult as answering our initial question about how hot a toaster gets.
The maximum temperature for a toaster oven is 450 degrees F (232 degrees F).
How to toast in a toaster oven:
We turn the temperature dial to maximum temperature and then we place our food on the rack.
Then, we use the function dial to select the Toast function.
Lastly, we use the timer dial to select the desired toast color. Some will have 2 toast colors, other models will have 3 toast colors.
Thus, it’s demonstrated once again that the temperature is the same for all shade levels. Only the timing is different. The timing depends on how light or golden brown or dark we want our toast done.
All in all, answering the question how hot does a toaster get should mainly teach us that our pop-up toasters get very hot and that we shouldn’t touch the metal slots if we want to avoid getting burned.
