Most toasters come with a little toaster tray underneath that catches the crumbs, sesame seeds, poppyseeds, etc. Whilst this is a wonderful little tray it’s very much of a pain to clean it every couple of days.
What I propose is a modification to your countertop where your toaster is placed. You must cut a Rectangular hole about the size of the toaster, and install a grate with metal slats. Beneath this you will install a 5 gallon metal box which is removable from under the cabinet... now remove the silly little toaster tray that came with the toaster and place the toaster over this grate. Depending on how often you make toast, this should collect the crumbs for quite a while. When you choose to empty it you may feed the birds or make your toasted papier-mâché, Or what ever other purposes you find.-- xandram, Mar 08 2021 Crumb feeder http://inventorspot...r_bird_crumbs_29828 [xenzag, Mar 10 2021] I don't have time to read this, but probably should (due to my alias).
OK I read it. + for the idea although not relevant for Israel where most Jews attend to the ritual of cleaning up from bread crumbs once a year before passover, and then living for 7 days without any regular bread, only Matza crackers which the ants cannot digest (and every year a few youngsters are hospitalized for).-- pashute, Mar 08 2021 This is without a doubt the crumbiest idea I've read all day.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Mar 08 2021 I just sluice the toaster out with a hose then hang it from the washing line to dry.
The trick is not to leave it plugged in while you do it.-- Skewed, Mar 08 2021 Crumbs are quite a problem in toasters. I don't know why they don't simply sell them with a pre-installed captive crumb eating beetle who will happily eat them all day.-- xenzag, Mar 08 2021 I get around the problem of cleaning the tray by taking it out of the toaster before I make the toast & putting it back in again after I've finished.-- DrBob, Mar 08 2021 Instead of just a hopper, you could also have a mechanism that soaked, moulded and pressed the crumbs into slice-of-bread-shaped blocks, ready to be packaged and sold as "instant toast" to gullible punters.-- pocmloc, Mar 08 2021 I'd buy it.-- DrBob, Mar 08 2021 Surely after about 500 slices of toast there will be enough crumbs for the toaster to compress them all together with some edible adhesive to create a 501st slice of toast?-- hippo, Mar 08 2021 oh my ‘bakers I love you all. now that I have finished laughing at all of your annos, I want to thank you for those ideas!
[hippo] Yours was sort of my idea when I said toasted papier-mâché, but yours is more witty!-- xandram, Mar 08 2021 //edible adhesive// Branston Pickle? Well, it's adhesive at least.-- DrBob, Mar 08 2021 Honestly I just wait until it's cool and shake it into the garbage.
My favorite, (not sure why that flags as a misspelling), crumb quote;
"You don't make bread crumbs silly, they just happen in your bed."
~Chrissy from Three's Company~-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Mar 08 2021 Well however anyone chooses to clean their toaster, I still say that crumbs are a major nuisance for being such little things!-- xandram, Mar 09 2021 You could use Branston Pickle or Marmite to glue all the crumbs together but I see an opening for a range of specialist products - e.g. "Tesco's Finest Asparagus-flavoured Crumb-Mastic™ - now with improved particle adhesion!"-- hippo, Mar 09 2021 I love your idea because I dislike cleaning out that tray so much. I don't know why. I clean the microwave without a thought, but the toaster, I avoid that beast as long as humanly possible.
Several co-ideas placed here seem good too. Toasted buns for all then, but you gotta clean up after yourselves or else!-- blissmiss, Mar 09 2021 I agree [bliss] Because the minute you think you have cleaned up all the crumbs another one appears out of nowhere on a perfectly clean countertop!
yes! [hippo] great ideas!-- xandram, Mar 09 2021 Crumbs are one of the two forms new mater takes when it pops into existence.
The other is paperclips of course, no one ever buys them but there they are in your draw, or a random lone clip under the chair when you move it to hoover, no one knows where they come from, it's the only plausible explanation.-- Skewed, Mar 09 2021 Hmm... perhaps crumbs and/or paperclips are an alternative form of socks; socks inexplicably disappear, crumbs & paperclips inexplicably appear.-- neutrinos_shadow, Mar 09 2021 Yes, & with population growth it's beginning to happen faster than the paperclips appear, I've been saying for years that we've got to stop making socks & start going barefoot, it's the only way to avoid a shrinking universe & the the eventual depletion of all matter in it.-- Skewed, Mar 09 2021 Mmm, technology to make us more nakedly balanced with the emergent properties of all those intersecting fields.
A tall ask given the shape of the human race.
As for the idea, yes, I would like a bread pellet for the bird feeder.-- wjt, Mar 10 2021 An alternative way would be to recess the toaster into the kitchen wall, such that any crumbs simply fall into the empty space behind the plaster. This metal tray approach has several advantages.-- sninctown, Mar 10 2021 I have prepared a dozen croissants from balled up crumbs and some gelatin with some pasty frosting on the top. I will deliver one to each of you for your great comments and ideas. I will send two to Mr.[2fries] So he can crumple one up in his bed! Ha ha-- xandram, Mar 10 2021 What if you operated your toaster upside down?
It would need little jaws to retain the slices while they were being toasted, and a safety net to catch them un- shattered when they were done, but that's OK: if the safety net were made from the three- dimensional webs of non- orb- weaving spiders, then it would be soft enough you break the fall of the completed toast slices, while also providing a substrate for accumulating the crumbs.-- pertinax, Mar 10 2021 Have you ever eaten spider web [pert], it's not very tasty, other than that the idea sounds fine, best make sure the spiders have vacated the web first, they aren't just not very tasty but have an actively unpleasant flavour, the mushy texture isn't up to much either.-- Skewed, Mar 10 2021 Maybe the toaster location on the countertop needs a vacuum system.
Ooh... dry countertop cleanup as a side-benefit.-- RayfordSteele, Mar 10 2021 There's an idea!-- UnaBubba, Mar 13 2021 random, halfbakery