Toasters & Toaster Ovens

Slot width decides the pop-up toaster:

standard slots are cut for pan cuadrado and wholemeal bread from the bag, while extra-wide ones take a thick slice of pan casero, a bagel or a frozen waffle. A four-slot toaster is really two toasters under one shell, each side with its own lever and dial. The buttons worth having are defrost, cancel and bagel, which browns the cut face and only warms the back. In a Costa Rican search, tostador also means a coffee roaster, which is another machine altogether; the brewing side of breakfast is in tea and coffee makers.

What a toaster oven does that the slot toaster cannot:

an open slice with cheese melted on top, a bollito split and crisped, an empanada reheated so the pastry cracks instead of going soft. The small ones have a metal element top and bottom, a rack and a crumb tray, and are sold by the slices that fit. Larger models add a convection fan that browns evenly enough to bake, and the newest add an air-fryer mode with a mesh basket. Those crisp well but eat counter space, so if crisping is the whole point, a dedicated machine from air fryers and deep fryers is smaller. Some ovens heat with quartz tubes instead of metal rods: they are hot in seconds, but the tube is glass and does not survive a knock.

Cheap toasters, dearer toaster ovens:

a plain two-slot toaster from Black+Decker or Oster costs under ₡20,000 new, and at that price a second-hand one has to be close to a gift to beat a sealed box. The sums run the other way at the top. A large convection or air-fryer oven is around ₡100,000 new, its shell, glass door and racks barely wear, and the elements and fan that do wear can be tested in minutes. Plenty of those come up lightly used once an air fryer takes over their job, and that is where buying second-hand saves real money.

A toaster lever that springs back up:

that is the classic fault, so start there. Push the lever with the toaster plugged in. In a modern toaster a small electromagnet holds the carriage down, and a lever that will not stay points to crumbs caked on that magnet or to a contact burnt by years of sparking. Crumbs shake out; a burnt contact usually retires the toaster. Once it heats, look down each slot: the fine wire wound across the mica sheets should glow along every wall. A dark band is a broken wire, and on a cheap toaster that ends it. Toast two slices side by side and compare the colour, because an uneven pair means one side is failing.

Testing a second-hand toaster oven on toast and on bake:

on toast, the top and bottom elements should both come on; on bake they switch on and off to hold the heat, which is normal. On a quartz model, look along each tube for cracks or a darkened end. Open the door all the way and let it close: it should travel smoothly and shut flat, with no chips in the glass. A convection fan should whirr rather than scrape. Grease inside is cosmetic; rust on the floor and coating flaking off the tray or basket are not, and a replacement basket for one particular oven is hard to find.

Photographing a toaster oven with its elements lit:

take one picture with the elements glowing and one of the inside with the door open, rack and tray in place. Give the size in slices, the functions, whether the elements are original, and whether the basket, baking tray and crumb tray all go with it. For a pop-up toaster, say whether the slots are standard or wide and that every one of them heats. Then empty the crumb tray before anyone comes round: a buyer who slides it out and finds years of burnt crumbs will assume the magnet under the lever is caked the same way.