The burn temperature is 140 degrees Fahrenheit. After five runs, you could touch anywhere on the front or sides without getting burned. It does stay nice and cool, relatively speaking. Unfortunately, for everything it adds, an accompanying annoyance follows. I expected a few features of this ludicrously expensive toaster to be incontrovertibly useful. You'll have to run it through a short cycle and it might end up more browned than you intended. Unfortunately, because the keep warm feature is entirely automatic, if you do return to the toaster, remove your bagel, and then decide you'd like to reheat it a little, there's no way to do it. Too much longer, and that toast will go back down on its own. It's a great, simple touch that I wish more toasters could implement. If you wait the full 3 minutes, the toast will inevitably be a little drier than it would have been if you'd gotten it right away, but I still found this particular feature quite helpful. When you return to the toaster, you can hit cancel any time to grab your snack, still pleasantly hot. Then it will lower and run a continuous warming cycle for up to 3 minutes.

The KitchenAid Pro will wait 45 seconds after it pops up. Because of the weight sensor, it knew I hadn't removed the bagel. Then, I accidentally left my morning bagel in the toaster, and when I came back to it a minute later, I found the toaster had pulled it back down and kept it warm for me. Initially, I thought the 'A Little Longer' button was this KitchenAid Pro's version of that. Most toasters include a 'reheat' button to give your toast a little extra warmth if you forgot about it and it popped up before you were ready to feast. That said, it allows for one unique feature that I found fantastically useful - automatic reheating. The mechanical lift adds to the coolness of the toaster, but also adds inconvenience to its day-to-day use. You also can't use the extra lift afforded by most levers to raise up a shorter slice and remove it from the toaster without burning your fingers. You can't just push the lever down to work it unstuck. The mechanical lift also makes it quite tedious to deal with stuck bagels or thick bread. You don't actually gain much in exchange for the annoyance the auto-load causes. You can adjust settings for a few seconds after the cycle starts, and you can always hit cancel if you're just not ready, but all of this seemed backwards to me.

Wide slot toaster review