Bread is always too dark and crust burnt. Tried different settings, but always have to check bread 10min before end time, otherwise it would be charcoal.... It seems that the temperature setting is not correct or working as it should.

Brought the artisan machine 3 weeks ago. Was hoping to be able to make artisan and ordinary loaves of bread. So far it only makes short, squat, hard loaves. So so disappointed spending so much money on this. I wish I had of brought the cheaper BREADMAKER to make normal sized loaves.

To make decent bread with the Artisan bread maker you have to deviate from exact recipes and cut the bake time by stopping the bread maker 20 minutes earlier before finishing. That is with the wholemeal recipes. The recipes where you can set the crust to light or medium, I always select light. I was following the recipe versions for NZ. The yeast amount is correct but the sugar amount requires over twice amount. I was using organic raw sugar. Not certain if refined white sugar would be better. Also the troubleshooting section of the manual suggests adding 10-20 mls more water if the bread is not rising enough. I always have to do this. If I let it complete the whole baking time the bread is too dark and has a burnt taste, for recipes that cannot adjust the light or medium crust setting.. If I make the adjustments it can produce a decent loaf. So far I have tried recipe number 4, 5, and 8. I used recipe number 8 with a multigrain bread mix. All that was necessary was to add the yeast and the water. It was the best loaf the bread maker has produced even allowing the full bake time.