The manual does look quite daunting.

Try the Easy Ciabatta - Menu ‘09’ (on model SD-2500 it's menu ‘08’) (4hr 30min)
Yeast 1 tsp
Strong White Flour 500 g (1 lb 2 oz)
Sugar 1 tsp
Olive Oil 3 tbsp
Salt 1 tsp
Water 310 mL

Get a new sachet of yeast, it goes off/stale.
Buy supermarket own label bread flour, I get more consistent results when baking a loaf in a machine.*

Take the bread pan out of the machine.
Put all the ingredients in, in the order listed.
Put the pan back in, shut the lid.
Press the Menu button until 09 is displayed
Press Start
After 4.5 hours use oven gloves to take the pan out, use a shaking motion to get the bread out.
Leave the bread on a wire rack to cool

Personally I wouldn't add sugar. And I would make a smaller loaf e.g. 400 g flour with 250ml water.

*The reason why I recommend supermarket flour is because Allinson flour doesn't have any additives to make up for the varying amounts of protein / gluten? I'm not sure. When baking by hand you can see if the dough has risen enough, but a machine assumes the loaf has risen after a certain amount of time. I've had loaves collapse and couldn't work out why.
Allinson Strong White Bread Flour Ingredients - Wheat Flour (with Calcium, Iron, Niacin, Thiamin)
vs
Essential Waitrose Strong White Bread Flour ingredients - Fortified Wheat Flour (Wheat Flour, Calcium Carbonate, Iron, Niacin, Thiamin), Wheat Gluten, Flour Treatment Agent Ascorbic Acid

It is against my better judgement to recommend ingredients with additives, but it seems better compared to the ingredients for a white loaf.
Hovis soft white - Wheat Flour (with added Calcium, Iron, Niacin, Thiamin), Water, Yeast, Soya Flour, Salt, Preservative: E282, Emulsifiers: E471, E472e, Flour Treatment Agent: Ascorbic Acid

Good deal, I have the slightly higher spec ZB-2502 and it's brilliant, get some really good bread from it. This seems like a good price as well.

Good price but note this appears to have been superceded by the SD-2511 model.

For loaves my favourite recipe / program is the Italian one, it's 4.5 hours but makes nice bread.
I can recommend bread flour and olive oil from Lidl.

If you start to use it a lot it's much more convenient (and cheaper) to buy larger packets of yeast, e.g. 125g Doves Farm Quick Yeast

Bought one of these some time ago, but the recipes look complicated! Any quick guides for a simple starter loaf??

Wow, many thanks. I just checked my email and it was SD2500 model that I have, and I bought it 2 years ago for 69.99 and it is still in the box!

I'll be print out your text and giving this ago at the weekend. Like yourself I'd like to avoid additives hence this purchase but due to being overwhelmed with how difficult it appears I just stopped eating bread! Can't beat a fresh loaf though - and thank you again

I have SD 2500 but it's same as SD 2501 but SD 2500 doesn't have nut dispenser apart from that you can use either manual/ recipes

​just so you know, the wheat gluten and ascorbic acid added will both give you a better loaf. the gluten balances the gluten level, and the ascorbic acid oxidises the gluten, which makes it perform better.

When you have had a loaf from your panny
you don't go back to bought bread.
Have used my panny for 5 years and was making about 4 loafs a week
but cutting down to weekends now as getting fat on the great white stuff. :man:

What's the use of this when you can get any bread from 10p-£1.50?

One of my favourite kitchen ornaments from the 80's along with the Breville toasted sandwich maker .

Great bit of kit. I'm using mine now (seeded wholemeal loaf, takes 3 hours).

Just buy a loaf of Warburtons for 50p

Thank you, tried this with aldi ingredients, and and no sugar anď it came out nice. Feel a lot more confident now to try it again. Appreciate your guidance & time.

That's great.
When I first started using it I forgot to put the water in once and another time I forgot the salt (I still do this occasionally, it doesn't taste good).

Try a wholemeal loaf, I prefer half white flour and half wholemeal flour.
So I would do the same 4.5 hours program
Yeast 1 tsp
Strong White Flour 200g
Strong Wholemeal Flour 200g
Olive Oil 2 tbsp
Salt 1 tsp
Water 260 mL

And I put the timer on so that it finishes in the morning.
I've also been substituting cold-pressed rapeseed oil for the olive oil.
Try the French bread recipe / program, its something like 6 hours though.