Table of Contents
Updated
I wrote and published this post in 2020 within a few months after I started using a Zojirushi Virtuoso bread machine. I made changes, reorganized and republished the updated post in 2025.
Zojirushi Virtuoso
The firm has a brief Wikipedia entry, which reports:
Zōjirushi Mahōbin Kabushiki-gaisha) is a Japanese multinational manufacturer and marketer of vacuum flasks, beverage dispensers, thermos-style lunch jars, and consumer electronics including rice cookers, electric water boilers, hot plates, bread machines, electric kettles, and hot water dispensers.
Wikipedia entry, as of July 2025
It has a global (international) web page that displays in the English language. It has subsidiary or related companies in the People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, Thailand and the USA. The global page does not mention bread machines. Zojirushi has Australian, Middle Eastern and European distributors.
The USA company publishes the domain and web page Zojirushi.com, and a USA web store. The USA company is the only firm in North America in the pertinent section of the global web page. The USA web pages and store discuss Zojirushi bread machines. The relative authority of the regions and regional companies is not stated.
Zojirushi web pages do not say where Zojirushi products are manufactured. A third party blogger site says, as to bread machines:
The company has several production sites, including its main factory in Osaka, Japan, where it produces a significant portion of its bread makers. Zojirushi also has partnerships with contract manufacturers in countries such as China and Thailand, where some of its products are assembled and tested.
TableAndSpoon, viewed July 21, 2025
Another third party site says:
Zojirushi is a Japanese company that produces a wide range of kitchen appliances, including bread machines. Zojirushi bread machines are designed and engineered in Japan, and the company’s manufacturing facilities are located in Japan, China, and Thailand.
The exact location of production may vary depending on the specific model and the year it was manufactured. …
Jody’s Bakery, viewed July 21, 2025
Zojirushi started production of BB-PAC20 Virtuoso bread machine before 2016. The Bread Machine Diva (see links below; I will refer to her a few times) says in a post on her web page/blog in 2019 (which seems to have undated changes and updates) that she has replaced the kneading blades a few times, which explains he statement: “I bought it in 2013 and it’s still going strong. Yes, it’s more than 10 years old! I love love this bread machine! I make bread in it all the time and this machine has lasted longer than any bread machine I’ve ever owned.”
By 2019, Zojirushi was marketing the BB-PDC20 Virtuoso Plus. It had already stopped producing the Virtuoso. It sold replacement pans and kneading blades for the Virtuoso for a few years. By 2025,it had discontinued those parts. In 2025, the USA web store and Amazon were offering to sell a BB-PDC20BA, (the Bread Machine Diva says the BA suffix is a code for the color scheme), apparently with replacement parts compatible with with the BB-PDC20 and BB-PDC20BA. The Virtuoso Plus has changed since the Bread Machine Diva wrote about it in 2021 – Zojirushi added a “Rapid” setting similar to the Quick Dough setting of the older BB-PAC20, and the Home Bakery Supreme.
Here are links to reviews online that described and illustrated the BB-PAC20:
The Bread Machine Diva site has material on Zojirushi’s BB-PAC20 Virtuoso, BB-PDC20 Virtuoso Plus, and BB-CEC20 Supreme, as well as recipes. As of 2025 the site addressed the Virtuoso Plus and Supreme, but continued to focus on Zojirushi bread machines. It still has material on the BB-PAC20 Virtuoso. The site had resources, as of 2025, that may assist users of many machines – e.g. a page of links to manufacturer service sites and manuals.
I found a refurbished Virtuoso BB-PAC20 in an online store in early 2020.
Basics
Dimensions
The outside dimensions (inches|cm) and weight of the Virtuoso BB-PAC20 (“V”), and BB-PDC-20 (“V+”):
| Model | End to end | Front to back | Height | Weight lb.|kg |
| V | 18|45.5 | 10.5|26.5 | 13|32.5 | 22.5|10.2 |
| V+ | 18|45.5 | 10.5|26.5 | 12⅞|32.5 | 24|10.5 |
The body is metal. The outer surface of the lid is plastic. The lid has a metal inner shell that aligns to the top of pan. The lid is substantial, with a long hinge with stops that holds the lid just past vertical when raised.
Mixing Pan
The mixing/baking pan is large and horizontal. The inside measurements of the Virtuoso BB-PAC20 pan are 22 cm (9 inches) long by 13 cm (5 inches) wide. It is as long as a large (2 lb.) baking pan for loaves baked in an oven; and slightly wider. The pan is 13 cm (5 inches) high, and has clearance under the lid and lid element – i.e. capacity to bake a large (2 lb.) loaf. The pan has drive shafts for two “kneading blades” dough hooks/paddles). Each shaft passes through a sealed assembly in bottom of the pan, and has a special “wing nut” that fits into an opening in the machines drive system.
The base of the pan has a metal rectangle that fits into a rectangle 6¼ inches (15.5 cm.) in the base of the pan. There are fittings at the long ends of the rectangles. The pan is pushed into the base to lock the pan in, and tilted slightly to unlock. Locking the pan puts the wing nuts on the drive shafts into the drive system. Seating the pan in the base requires light pressure.
The main 600 watt heating element is under the pan, laid out in rectangle inside the space where the pan rests while the machine operates. There is a second 40 watt element in the lid. It is not visible when the lid is raised. It is inside the lid around the viewing window .
Drive Shafts
The drive shafts are separate from the pan, mechanically attached to pan and part of the pan assembly, The shafts are steel and not treated with no-stick coating. The kneading blades fit on the drive shafts; each shafts fit into a socket at one of each kneading blade. Wing nuts mechanically fixed to the ends of the drive shafts below (outside) the pan, fit into openings attached to in the drive system. The blades are rotated in jumps when the 100 watt drive motor is running.
Here is a 2025 picture of the inside of my Virtuoso BB-PAC20 pan assembly showing the bottom of the pan, with drive shafts, without kneading blades:
The shafts project into the inside of the pan assembly though holes located in small depressions in the base. Each drive shaft, measured from the bottom of a depression, is about 250 mm high. Each drive shaft is mainly round, and 8 mm in diameter. There are flat sections at the top of each shaft. The bottom of the blade is held off the base of the pan by the way the blade and the shaft connect, which creates a gap. The gap is about the width of a gift card, about .75 to .80 mm over the main bottom area of the pan – larger at the base of the drive shaft. The width of a gift card is shown in this photo of the gift card in the jaws of a digital caliper device:
A kneading blade appears in the photo, in profile, laid flat on the table top.
The shafts are round except for an area at the top of the shaft which has a flat section. The top 2.05 mm of the shaft is flat. There is a 2nd flat area almost 3 mm high immediately next to the top of the shaft – i.e. a deeper area or notch in the shaft.
Another way to get a look at an image of a drive shaft in a pan assembly: go to the USA support pages at Zojirushi.com and find a manual for the Virtuoso Plus. You will have to download the manual as a pdf; look at the section “Attach the Kneading Blades to the Rotating Shafts in the Baking Pan” (p. 14 for the V+).
Kneading Blades
A kneading blade was shown in the last image above. The blades appear to be cast from aluminum, and have no-stick coating. The weights of my two blades as of July 2025:
- Worn out blade – 17.9 grams;
- Worn but working blade – 18. 1 grams.
Each blade has a cylindrical socket that fits around a drive shaft. The height of the socket is just a tad less than 25 mm. high. Each is 60 mm. long, measuring from end to end including the socket. The height of the blade portion is 30 mm. The inside of the socket is round for nearly 20 mm. from the bottom (this is hard to measure) and for the top 2.0 or 2.1 mm. The inside diameter of the socket, in the round section, is 8.5 mm.
The sockets have a small flat area near the top of the blade about 3 mm high, corresponding to the flat area in notch in the drive shaft. The flat surfaces are aligned with each other when the blade is in position on the shaft. This is how force is transmitted to the blade when the drive system is active (when the machine is mixing/kneading or “knocking down” during the a rise phase). The blade cannot engage the shaft unless the blade is oriented correctly. The bottom of the 3 mm. flat area of the socket hits the bottom of the flat area of the shaft, which stops the blade from dropping along the shaft and hitting t the bottom of the pan – it creates small gap. The top of the 3 mm area catches the top of the notch in the shaft unless the blade is aligned. This keep the blades from lifting, sliding or falling off the shafts except when in alignment.
When a blade in working condition is fitted to a drive shaft, the top of the socket will align a fraction of a millimeter below the top of the shaft; the bottom of the socket and the bottom of the blade are held off the bottom of the pan. When the flat area of the socket is worn out, the blade does not engage the drive shaft. This has consequences:
- The blade contacts the base of the pan – it rest on the bottom of the pan;
- The drive shaft will spin in the socket without moving the blade.
Before a blade is worn out, when a blade is worn enough it may contact the pan.
The manual recommends wet ingredients be loaded first. This machine uses the usual way of keeping yeast away from the water: the user puts yeast in last, after the flour. When the machine is loaded, both blades are in the water or wet ingredients. Both blades mix the dough. The Operating Instruction & Recipe Book (manual) included a number of recipes. The manual could be viewed at the manufacturer’s USA web site as a pdf before it was manual was removed. Most of the recipes are for large (2 lb.) loaves.
The outside of the shaft is a quarter millimeter from the inside of the socket. Water, including water with dissolved and suspended solids, can penetrate this space, and some dough normally gets in.
In my experience with BB-PAC20 the tips of the drive shafts may have a little crumb adhering when the baked loaf is dumped out of the pan. The coated blades may trap a little crumb, but that has been rare. A minute amount of dough gets into the sockets; some dough sticks onto the upper tips of the shaft or, rarely to one or both blades. The pan releases the loaf, but the blades say with the pan. The blades have a small amount of crumb or crust adhering (baked on). I waiting for the pan to cool and put water in the pan to a depth that covers the blades and shafts. After a short soak I can twist the blades and release them off the shafts (manually).
This photo shows the pan with blades. One blade is worn but still working and one is completely worn out. :
The worn out blade rotates freely on the shaft and rests on the bottom of the pan.
Mixing and kneading are a single phase. The dough ball will not fill the pan until the dough ferments (rises), or the loaf springs during the first few minutes after the baking phases begins. During kneading, the dough should form a single ball that moves around the bottom of the pan. A wet dough may form two balls. Generally, the dough flows together and forms a loaf when the dough has fermented and sprung.
In some circumstances one of the blades can be lifted out of attachment to the drive shaft When this happens, the dough ball may stay at one end of the pan. The dough may flow enough fill the pan and bake into a normally shapes loaf when there is enough dough in the pan. Some times, one end of the loaf may be bigger and rise higher, or the loaf may show other signs of the way it rose and and sprung in the pan.
The pan coating releases the loaf easily at the end of the bake cycle; the paddles stay on the shafts in the pan. It has a delay timer, as most bread machines do, that can be programmed to finish (and start) at a time up to 13 hours after loading and starting the machine. The timer is integrated with a clock, and can be set to time when the bread can be taken out of the machine.
The viewing window in the lid collects a little condensation during the rest period before the mix/knead phase and in the early minutes of that phase, but clears up. It lets me observe the knead and see the dough. Raising the lid turns off the motor, pausing the course until the lid is lowered into place.
Courses (Programs for Baking)
Phases
Zojirushi calls the programs that control the machine in kneading and baking a specific type of loaf”courses”. A course is made up of phases. The phases and the purposes 0f the phases of the main baking courses (Regular Basic, Quick Basic, Regular Wheat and Quick Wheat):
| Name | Action and purpose |
| Rest | The ingredients are heated a little above the ambient temperature around the machine |
| Mix/Knead | 1. Mix the ingredients, dissolve soluble solids (e.g. salt, sugar, mik powder) and beginning to hydrate the flour; 2. Hydrate the flour further and/or work the proteins in the flour into gluten |
| Rise(s) | Fermentation. The element(s) warms the space around the pan to 91-95 ℉ (33-35 ℃) The mixer is deployed for knockdowns at the beginning of Rise 2 and Rise 3. A program with 3 Rise phases has sequence of rise-knockdown-rise-knockdown-rise. |
| Bake | The element(s) heats the space around the pan to 248-302 ℉(120-150 ℃) to bake the loaf. |
The amount of time devoted to each phase varies, but is fixed for each of the programmed courses. There is no setting to change any phase of any course for loaf size.
The mix/knead phases are longer than in many other machines but not as long as in some Panasonic models.
The BB-PAC20 Virtuoso turns the heating element on for short intervals during the rise phases to raise the temperature in the mixing/baking pan to enhance or speed up fermentation.
The heating element is on, heating the space around the pan:
- to 248-302 F (120-150 C) for baking the loaf in these courses:
- Regular (& Quick) Basic,
- Regular (& Quick) Whole Wheat,
- Gluten-Free,
- Cake
- Home-made
- Jam (heat).
- at a low temperature to heat the ingredients in the initial “rest” phase, which occurs in most courses,
- at 91-95 F (33-35 C) during up to 3 Rise phases in these courses:
- Regular (& Quick) Basic,
- Regular (& Quick) Whole Wheat,
- Regular (& Quick) Dough,
- Gluten-Free,
- Sourdough starter,
- Home-made.
The control panel has a control button to set a crust setting of light, medium or dark. This function is active only in Regular Basic, Quick Basic, gluten free and cake courses (programs).
Regular and Quick
The Virtuoso BB-PAC20 Zojirushi “Quick” courses were variations of the Regular Basic, Bake Whole Wheat and Dough course. The differences between the Regular and Quick course were in the amounts of yeast and timing.
Zojirushi explained in the BB-PAC20 manual that it has tested the its programs with Fleishmann Yeast products – active dry yeast for the Regular Basic, Bake (Whole) Wheat and Dough programs, and “Fast-Rise” dry yeast for the Quick versions. This was standard for Zojirushi’s bread machines before the Virtuoso Plus. After that model was released, Zojirushi’s recipes ceased to refer to active dry yeast and began to refer to instant yeast.
The brand of yeast is not important.
A user can use instant yeast for a “Regular” course, if the amount is converted. There are no functional differences between instant yeast and Fast or Quick rise yeast products; the yeast strains are equivalent and the amounts and types of coating are the same.
The times (in minutes) for these phases :
| Course (Program) | Rest | Mix/Knead | Rise 1 | Rise 2 | Rise 3 | Bake |
| Regular Basic | 31 | 19 | 35 | 20 | 40 | 60 |
| Quick Basic | 18 | 22 | 20 | 35 | 0 | 50 |
| R. Bake Wheat | 31-41 | 22 | 27-37 | 30 | 20-30 | 60-70 |
| Quick Wheat | 15 | 27 | 13 | 30 | 0 | 60 |
| R. Dough | 23 | 20 | 45 | 22 | 0 | x |
| Quick Dough | 10 | 20 | 10 | 10 | 0 | x |
The Quick courses used more yeast with same amounts of flour, water, salt, and other ingredients. I compared manufacturer’s recipes for medium (1.5 lb.) loaves, from the manual, by converting Active dry yeast to Instant yeast.
| Recipe | Salt | Reg. course Active dry yeast | Reg. course Instant yeast | Quick course Instant yeast |
| Basic White Bread | 1½ tsp. | Basic 4.2 g. (1½ tsp.) | Basic 2.8 g. | 4.5 g. |
| 100% Whole Wheat | 1 tsp. | Wheat 4.2 g. (1½ tsp.) | Wheat 2.8 g. | 4.5 g. |
Dough, Starter, Other
This machine uses mix/knead and rise phases in the regular and quick dough courses. In these courses, the course does not proceed to the bake phase; the user should turn the dough out immediately at the end of the course, and shape and bake the dough in an oven.
The Sourdough starter course has a short Mix phase and a single 120 minute Rise (not 3 Rises). The manual has recipes to make a starter from flour and water and (commercial baker’s) yeast which can then be used to bake bread laterThe machine, in this course, can mix any pre-ferment whether called a starter, sponge, poolish, biga. The fermentation time can be extended by leaving the pre-ferment in the pan longer. It is could be a useful feature for users who want to use a bread machine instead of using other methods of growing and feeding “mother” starters or making pre-ferments.
This machine has:
- cake course for cake mixes, soda bread, corn bread and non-yeasted mixes;
- gluten-free bake course for gluten-free breads, which has a 17 minute knead phase, and a 35 minute three step rise phase;
- a Jam course which heats and cooks the ingredients, then mixes them.
Home Made
It provides for saving 3 “Home made” courses (custom programs) in which a user may set the time for the initial rest, mix/knead, rise (3x), and bake phases in a range. Temperatures for the rise phases and bake phase cannot be set; these are preset.
Other
Not included, but …
The Virtuoso does not have
- a French or European bread course,
- a multigrain course,
- a raisin or fruit bread course or
- a No Salt course
but can manage these breads.
French/European/Lean Bread
The Virtuoso BB-PAC20 manual provides recipes for French bread styles, and a suggestion on programming one of the “homemade” courses to bake a lean bread – it is almost identical to the “European” bread course in the Virtuoso Plus. It follows the sequence of the Quick Bake course in the BB-PAC20 Virtuoso, but gives the dough more rising time:
| Course (Program) | Rest | Mix/Knead | Rise 1 | Rise 2 | Rise 3 | Bake |
| (Suggested) Home made | 22 | 18 | 35 | 50 | Off | 70 |
| Quick Basic | 18 | 22 | 20 | 35 | 0 | 50 |
Rye bread
Zojirushi had a recipe in the manual for a bread with a little rye flour using the whole wheat program, in its manual.
MultiGrain
Most loaves which involve mixtures of whole wheat flour, bread flour and most of the no protein (i.e. no gluten formation) flours can be mixed and baked in regular bake and Bake (Whole) Wheat courses.
Raisins, Fruits, Seeds
A bake program, by default, sounds a beep to prompt the user to add raisins or other ingredients late in the kneading phase. The prompt can be turned off when the machine is set.
No Salt
The Virtuoso does not have a No Salt course (there is such a course in the Virtuoso Plus), but can bake the Zojirushi No salt sandwich loaf (no salt but made with vinegar) in the regular basic bake course.
Value
Price
The BB-PAC20 was more expensive than most other bread machines, even at a discount. The retail price in 2022 was a premium price. The model was discontinued and replaced by the Virtuoso Plus
The Virtuoso Plus BB-PDC20BA was offered for sale in the US, for $420 ($US) in July 2025 in the Zojirushi.com (USA) web store and on amazon.com. The BB-PDC20BA was offered for sale in Canada on amazon.ca, on sale, with “free” delivery for $626 ($Canada) at the same time. The currency exchange rate, shipping and tariffs were a factor in the pricing. Availability in Canada from was uncertain. Zojirushi and actors in the supply chain, and Amazon.com would not sell or ship to Canadian buyers
Virtues
The Virtuoso BB-PAC20 is quiet. It is stable, partly due to its weight, and partly because it is a balanced machine It doesn’t rattle or try to dance off the counter, unlike many machines by other manufacturers and other earlier Zojirushi bread machines.
It is good at sandwich loaves made with wheat flour, water and baker’s yeast. It lets such dough “rise” (ferment), and bake for about an hour in a baking chamber smaller but as hot as a conventional oven. The loaves develops an even crumb structure and a sweet brown crust.
The inside of baking pan and the exterior surfaces of the kneading blades have been treated with a no-stick coating. The drive shafts are not coated. Non-stick coating of baking pans is a common feature of bread machines made after 1980, A bread machine pan is both a mixing bowl and a baking pan. A metal baking pan can be oiled when dough is place in a pan to rise and bake. The bowl of an electric mixer must adhere to the dough to mix and knead, and then allow a loaf to rise and slide out after baking,
The Virtuoso provides heat while the dough is being “proofed” (i.e. rising or fermenting before the dough is baked), incorporating the function of a proofing box (a device used by some bakeries and a few home bakers) into the bread machine.
Limitations
While Zojirushi suggests, by offering multiple courses, that Virtuoso can mix, knead and bake any kind of loaf, with any ingredients a user may want, the BB-PAC20 does not handle kneading and baking a blend with more than a nominal amount of rye flour well.
I have not tried to use the gluten free programs and recipes.
The blog at the Zojirushi USA site said the non-stick coating:
… is made using PTFE, or polytetrafluoroethylene, a polymer that is applied in a two-step process with a primer and a topcoat. It is nonreactive, inert, ultra-smooth, hydrophobic, and resistant to abrasions, corrosion, and heat.
Zojirushi.com blog, February 4, 2019, “Design Explained“
PTFE is a PFAS chemical which can be a hazard for the workers who may be exposed, and for persons consuming products prepared in cookware with coating made with PTFE, using the word hazard in the sense explained by the Government of Canada’s Centre for Safety and Occupational Health, (“CCHOS”), as source of potential danger:
A hazard is any source of potential damage, harm or adverse health effects on something or someone.
Basically, a hazard is the potential for harm or an adverse effect (for example, to people as health effects, to organizations as property or equipment losses, or to the environment).
CCHOS, viewed July. 2025
The bearings and seals of the drive shafts built into the baking pan can wear out. This happened to me once with this machine, in 2022 while replacement pans available;
The bit of metal that is used to make the flat section of the socket of a kneading blades will wear out. If that part of the blade was not weak and loose, the whole machine might fail. The kneading blades are vulnerable to strategic failure, by design.
Zojirushi did not discuss this issue in the promotional material for any bread machine or in the manual for the BB-PAC20. There was a reference to a battery for the internal clock bu no discussion of service life or the need to periodically replace of any other component, or of the kneading blades. Some users realized this was necessary. The Bread Machine Diva said, referring to kneading blade as paddles, in a post in 2019:
… I use my bread machine two to three times every week. In my experience, Zojirushi bread machines will last four to six years under those conditions. Paddles and other parts are available on Amazon or from Zojirushi.
I do need to buy new paddles every few years.
Bread Machine Diva, “What Bread Machine Should You Buy” – why Zojirushi, July 14, 2019, last updated April 5, 2025, viewed July 30, 2025
She did not explain what led her to buying new kneading blades. Zojirushi made baking pans and kneading blades for the BB-PAC20 available for a few years after the model BB-PDC20 was introduced (2019) ; replacement parts for the BB-PAC20 disappeared from Canada by 2025. In 2025, a few retailers in the USA still offered to sell pans and ship them to Canada. Blades were gone in Canada and the USA by July 2025 except “compatible” blades without coating made by a third party manufacturer, offered in the Amazon market. The vender and Amazon offered prompt service without any practical assurance that the goods were fit for the purpose.
Loaf Size, Yeast & Salt
Medium Loaves
A recipe for a medium loaf can be mixed, kneaded, proofed and baked in the large loaf pan of a BB-PAC20 on the factory settings for the regular bake and whole wheat bake programs on the machine’s settings. . A few recipes in the manual are for medium (1.5 lb.) versions of large loaf recipes.
A medium (1.5 lb.) loaf is 75% of a large loaf recipe. The dough for a medium loaf generally will flow and fill the bottom of the pan as the dough rises. The height of a medium loaf, baked, from the bottom of the pan to top of the loaf at the wall of the pan is about 8 cm at the side of the pan; to the top of the crowned (domed) top of the loaf, 10-11 cm.
I tested the 1.5 lb. (medium) recipes in the manual. I tested the recipes as written -without attempting to reduce salt or yeast. I tested medium recipes if given, or large recipes scaled to medium, for loaves made with Bread flour and/or Whole Wheat flour. I converted yeast in these recipes from Active dry yeast to Instant yeast. Weight in grams of main ingredients for medium loaves:
| Name | Manual p. | Course | Bread flour | WW flour | Water | Salt | Instant Yeast |
| Basic White Bread | 14-15 | Regular Basic | 416 | 0 | 240 | 8.4 | 2.8 |
| 100% WW | 18 | Regular Wheat | 0 | 420 | 320 | 5.6 | 2.8 |
| Italian Wheat | 19 | Regular Wheat | 256 | 180 | 270 | 6.3 | 3.8 |
| Crusty French | 44 | Home made i.e. custom | 416 | 0 | 240 | 5.6 | 2.8 |
These medium recipes worked. The dough flowed enough to fill the pan to both ends and front to back. It rose, sprung and baked into loaves within the pan and well under the lid. I put these recipes into worksheets or tables for my future reference to help work out conversions for recipes from the Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook and other sources.
These recipes will work with less salt than the recipes in manuals say.
Yeast
Medium loaf recipes from the BLBMC recommend 1.75 tsp. (5.5 g.) or 2 tsp. (6.2 grams) +/- instant yeast for 3 cups of bread flour, or 1.5+ cups bread flour blended with 1.5 cups of whole wheat flour, and 1.5 tsp salt. For the BB-PAC20, I need 50-70% of the instant yeast in a BLBMC recipe. (This is a little more than the amount that I would use in a Panasonic.)
Low and no sodium?
This machine supports low sodium baking, as any bread machine does.