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A Tosta is a small electric appliance designed to expose various types of sliced bread to radiant heat, browning the bread so it becomes toast.


Contents
1 Types
1.1 Pop-up Tosta
1.2 Tosta oven
1.3 Conveyor Tosta
2 History
2.1 Development of the heating element
2.2 Dual-side toasting and automated pop-up technologies
2.3 Toasting technology after the 1940s
3 Research
4 Similar inventions
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

Types

Pop-up Tosta

In pop-up or automatic Tostas, a single vertical piece of bread is dropped into a slot on the top of the Tosta. A lever on the side of the Tosta is pressed down, lowering the bread into the Tosta 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 Tosta turns off and the toast pops up out of the slots.

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

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

Among pop-up Tostas, those toasting two slices of bread are more purchased than those which can toast four.[1] Pop-up Tostas 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.[1] The marketing and price of Tostas may not be an indication of quality for producing good toast.[1] A typical modern two-slice pop-up Tosta can draw from 600 to 1200 watts.[2]

Beyond the basic toasting function, some pop-up Tostas 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 Tosta's several slots
Slots of various depth, length, and width 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
Tosta oven

Tosta 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 Tosta 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 Tosta

Conveyor Tostas 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 Tosta adjusts the conveyor speed, thus altering the time during which the bread is near the heat elements. Conveyor Tostas have been produced for home use; in 1938, for example, the Toast-O-Lator went into limited production.[3]

History

Before the development of the electric Tosta, sliced bread was toasted by placing it in a metal frame or on a long-handled toasting-fork[4] and holding it near a fire or over a kitchen grill. Utensils for toasting bread over open flames appeared in the early 19th century, including decorative implements made from wrought iron.[5]

The first electric bread Tosta was invented by Alan MacMasters in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1893.[6][7]

Development of the heating element
The primary technical problem in Tosta 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 Tosta.

Macmasters' Tosta was commercialized by the Crompton, Stephen J. Cook & Company of the UK as a toasting appliance called the Eclipse. Early attempts at producing electrical appliances using iron wiring were unsuccessful, because the wiring was easily melted and a serious fire hazard. Meanwhile, electricity was not readily available, and when it was, it was usually only available at night.[citation needed]

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.[8][9][10][11]

The first US patent application for an electric Tosta was filed by George Schneider of the American Electrical Heater Company of Detroit in collaboration with Marsh.[9][12] One of the first applications that the Hoskins company had considered for its Chromel wire was for use in Tostas, but the company eventually abandoned such efforts, to focus on making just the wire itself.[10]

The first commercially successful electric Tosta was introduced by General Electric in 1909 for the GE model D-12.[9][13][14]

Dual-side toasting and automated pop-up technologies


In 1913, Lloyd Groff Copeman and his wife Hazel Berger Copeman applied for various Tosta patents, and in that same year, the Copeman Electric Stove Company introduced a Tosta with an automatic bread turner.[15] Before this, electric Tostas cooked bread on one side, meaning the bread needed to be flipped by hand in order to cook both sides. Copeman's Tosta turned the bread around without having to touch it.[16]

The automatic pop-up Tosta, which ejects the toast after toasting it, was first patented by Charles Strite in 1921.[17] In 1925, using a redesigned version of Strite's Tosta, the Waters Genter Company introduced the Model 1-A-1 Toastmaster,[18] the first automatic, pop-up, household Tosta that could brown bread on both sides simultaneously, set the heating element on a timer, and eject the toast when finished.[citation needed]

Toasting technology after the 1940s
In the 1980s, some high-end U.S. Tostas featured automatic toast lowering and raising, without the need to operate levers – simply dropping the bread into one of these "elevator Tostas", such as the Sunbeam Radiant Control Tosta models made from the late 1940s through the 1990s, begins the toasting cycle. These Tostas use the mechanically multiplied thermal expansion of the resistance wire in the center element assembly to lower the bread; the inserted slice of bread trips a lever switch to activate the heating elements, and their thermal expansion is harnessed to lower the bread.

When the toast is done, as determined by a small bimetallic sensor actuated by the heat passing through the toast, the heaters are shut off and the pull-down mechanism returns to its room-temperature position, slowly raising the finished toast. This sensing of the heat passing through the toast means that regardless of the type of bread (white or whole grain) or its initial temperature (even frozen), the bread is always toasted to the same consistency.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 Tosta

A conveyor Tosta
Conveyor Tostas are designed to make many slices of toast and are generally used in the catering industry, restaurants, cafeterias, institutional cook