Air Fryers

Has anyone here used an air fryer? How effective is it? How does it really compare to deep frying?

While I would love a deep fryer, I'm put off by the hassle of dealing with the oil. The air fryer seems to use convection to simulate the effect of hot oil; while I don't think it's going to be the same as a deep fryer, I can imagine it coming close if used in small batches. I'll take 75% effectiveness in exchange for a 90% reduction in hassle.

I have no experience, but it sounds like it is just a small convection oven. I am extremely skeptical because the entire point of deep frying is the ability to heat via a surrounding liquid at much higher than boiling water temperatures. 390 degree air is nowhere close to as good a cooking medium.

It's exactly like a small convection oven. I'm not an engineer, but as I understand it, the circulating air is more efficient in a smaller space, so the fan and heating element together can move enough air around to maintain temperature better than it would in a standard sized oven.

Most fryer recipes I've sen don't call for the oil to go above 375 (probably out of safety, because a lot of common cooking oils have a smoke point as low as 400 degrees), so I'm less concerned about the max temperature than I am about the fact that air is a much less efficient conductor of heat than oil. This is supposedly mitigated by coating whatever you're cooking with a small smidgen of oil, but the question is whether that's enough to cook the interior of the food the way it would when submerged by hot oil.

That's clearly a definite no on a larger scale, but it seems plausible in a small batch, particularly something with a high surface area:mass ratio (like french fries). Again - I wouldn't ever expect it to match a real deep fryer, but I'd give it a shot if it could get to "pretty close".

I had never heard of these before. My sense is that they are expensive for what they are. You can get a self-contained deep fryer, which stores and filters oil, for a lot less money.

Wouldn't this be much the same premise as for popcorn--air popper v. popping kernels in oil? (and I HATE air popped popcorn )

Oil has better thermal conductivity than air... so the temp doesn't transfer the same:

even better article with relation to cooking/engineering

http://www.cookingforengineers.com/arti ... nd-Cooking

Would it be a similar process to broasting?

Puckjam wrote:Would it be a similar process to broasting?

Broasting is just another term for pressure frying. It's what KFC does, deep fry in oil under pressure to reduce cooking time.

Pressure frying was, in fact, invented by Colonel Sanders :

http://stellaculinary.com/podcasts/vide ... ure-frying

Increased pressure = higher boiling point of water (in the protein) = less water turned into steam (less moisture loss), and the water that does turn into steam (also higher temperature than sea level steam) causes less of an immediate temperature loss in the oil surrounding the protein.

Which came first, KFC or Broasted Chicken https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broasting? I'd always thought that Broasted chicken predates KFC.

from L.A.M. Phelan's wiki-biography :

In the early 1950s, approximately the same time as Colonel Sanders began franchising his KFC restaurant chain, Phelan developed the broasting method of cooking chicken, for which he invented a modified commercial-grade pressure cooker. He founded the Broaster Company in 1954 to manufacture and market the machines.

Like many great ideas/inventions, looks like a few people were working towards this method around that time... The Colonel was originally cooking fried chicken in hot oil in a modified pressure cooker (not intended for frying) - so the major change was designing a pressure-cooking fryer rather than just frying in a pressure cooker... If you do a patent search, there are many designs/claims to inventing pressure frying (all around the 1950's-1960's) - L.A.M.'s patent was filed in 1954 - the colonel's in 1966, but it seems the colonel was frying in pressure cookers before he invented his pressure fryer

rubbbqco wrote:from L.A.M. Phelan's wiki-biography :

In the early 1950s, approximately the same time as Colonel Sanders began franchising his KFC restaurant chain, Phelan developed the broasting method of cooking chicken, for which he invented a modified commercial-grade pressure cooker. He founded the Broaster Company in 1954 to manufacture and market the machines.

Like many great ideas/inventions, looks like a few people were working towards this method around that time... The Colonel was originally cooking fried chicken in hot oil in a modified pressure cooker (not intended for frying) - so the major change was designing a pressure-cooking fryer rather than just frying in a pressure cooker... If you do a patent search, there are many designs/claims to inventing pressure frying (all around the 1950's-1960's) - L.A.M.'s patent was filed in 1954 - the colonel's in 1966, but it seems the colonel was frying in pressure cookers before he invented his pressure fryer

That's pretty much what I thought. I can remember going to broasted chicken places (Johnston's, Chicken in the Rough, Henny Penny, and maybe even Wesley's) long before the Colonal made his first appearance, at least in these parts.

"It's exactly like a small convection oven. I'm not an engineer, but as I understand it, the circulating air is more efficient in a smaller space, so the fan and heating element together can move enough air around to maintain temperature better than it would in a standard sized oven. "

I'm an Engineer and the reason a convection oven will cook faster is because the blowing air across the surface of the food transfers heat faster than natural thermal convection.
My Viking has an air duct at the top backsplash through which the air exhausts.
The additional advnatage touted is more unifrom heating across the oven space.
But since in the Viking the flames are at the bottom, it's crispy critters real fast on the bottom rack if you don't watch it.
I'm surprised George Forman isn't selling this product!
I use a deep cast iron Lodge 'Chicken Fryer'.
Large, heavy but it works!-Richard

Ok, this is the official explanation on how it's supposed to work:



Most of the videos online are either terrible, or from people being paid to sell it (not a promising sign), but this looked pretty genuine:



The color on the fries don't look great, but it does seem better than anything short of a real deep-fry. I wonder if a two-temperature cook would work with it.

I have to admit it - I finally bought an air fryer 6 months ago and I probably use it more than any other appliance now. I don't even use it to "fry" much. I have cooked steaks and burgers perfectly, I baked a cake, small pizzas, heat up leftover pizza, etc. When I do want to air fry something you'd typically deep fry like cheese sticks or french fries I've noticed that if you simply put the food in and cook it there will be no difference from the oven other than maybe it'll be a little faster. However if you spritz a little oil on the food it does get that deep fried texture and taste but with a fraction of the oil. For that (and my health) I am thrilled. I've yet to do things like homemade fried chicken or fresh cut fries in it. I also love that I don't really have to pre-heat the air fryer so most things I cook in it are done by the time my gas oven is done pre-heating. I have a unit that has a lid on top that opens like a garbage can and it has a window with a bright light so I can see the food cooking rather than having to keep pulling out a basket to see if things are done. I also put a pre-cut foil sheet on the bottom of the pan to make clean up easy. My only real complaint is that I can't cook a lot more food at once and I'm likely to eventually buy one of the toaster oven sized air fryers.

Lastly I can get lazy in the kitchen and I don't feel like cooking all the time. It's much easier to throw a burger in the air fryer and check the doneness with my Thermapen than to deal with the mess (and grease) of frying on my stove or going outside to grill (let's say it's nasty outside).

Ram4 wrote:I have to admit it - I finally bought an air fryer 6 months ago and I probably use it more than any other appliance now.

Same here. I've had mine for over 2 years.
Squirting oil on most food is a must. I useBamboo Steamer Liners, Premium Perforated Parchment Steaming Papers for easy cleanup

Ram4 wrote:I have to admit it - I finally bought an air fryer 6 months ago and I probably use it more than any other appliance now. .

Which one did you buy?

HonestMan wrote:

Ram4 wrote:I have to admit it - I finally bought an air fryer 6 months ago and I probably use it more than any other appliance now. .

Which one did you buy?

It's a Chefman RJ38-R8 Air Roaster. I've been using a huge Costco box of 500 pre-cut foil sheets to line the bottom each time I use it.

Prime Day and some birthday gift cards landed me with an Air Fryer delivered today.

I will report back once I use it.

I just purchased a Farberware 3.2 QT Air Fryer last month.

If you are expecting fried goods that are as good as those coming out of a deep fat fryer, I think that you will be disappointed. However, if you are looking for food that is fairly similar without all of the fat and costs of deep fat frying, it is a pretty good alternative.

It did an excellent job on a panko-breaded chicken breast. It does very well on chicken wings as long as you do NOT follow the instructions that are in the cookbook with the fryer. It does great on tater tots as well as garlic-rosemary potatoes.

One problem is that the cookbook with the unit is mediocre. If you follow the cooking times, the food will be undercooked.

I have only had the unit for a month and have not used it as much as I had planned.

The unit is now down to $35 at Walmart.com. If you buy it in the store, I think that the price is about $69. Believe it or not.

Helen Rosner wrote a good article about air fryers. Biggest takeaway for me was that if you think of them as a machine to cook food, it'd be easier to wrap our minds around it.

She echoed similar sentiments as other posters. Great in some cases and not so great as a replacement for deep frying.


https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newyor ... season/amp

Looking for fresh info, opinions, recommendations, experiences, etc. If anyone has any, I'd love to hear about them.

Thanks,

=R=

I have a couple of air fryers. One is a large basket style and the other is a Nuwave Bravo XL toaster oven style. I don't use the basket style as much because it's not dishwasherable and is a nuisance to clean. Plus, the Nuwave is permanently on the counter.

As everyone says, it's not the same as deep frying. But, since I rarely deep fry at home because of the odor and the expense for oil, that seems to me to be a moot point.

I've found several categories of things that work reasonably well and a few that don't. Some successes are imitation fried: Egg rolls, won tons, French fries, breaded mozzarella. Almost any frozen pre-breaded food comes out better from the air fryer than from the large oven. Aldi's Red Bag Chicken, for example, comes out very close to Chick-Fil-A. I've done some "fried" baked goods from scratch: doughnuts, choux paste beignets, pizza puffs. And a few oddballs like roasting peanuts and chickpeas.

For reheating anything that's not wet, air frying is nearly as fast as a microwave and doesn't destroy the texture of pizza, leftover bakery or fried foods.

My biggest disappointment so far is not being able to make jojo potatoes after several tries. And I've not found a way yet to make wet batter coatings or tempura.

I do a lot of things in the Nuwave that aren't really air frying but work better in it than in the regular oven or other appliance: Roasting small pieces of meat and vegetables, baking small dishes like individual pot pies or muffins. That's one area where the toaster oven style are superior because small normal pans will fit. The basket styles require a lot of compromises on pans. Some toaster oven styles have temperature controls that range to fairly low temperatures. That's a useful feature for short fermentations like yogurt, proofing doughs or thawing. Coupled with the fan, they can be used as dehydrators. I haven't tried dehydrating myself.

As far as specific models, I got the basket style one really cheap on sale at Menards sort of on a whim a few years back. Mostly I wanted something large enough to make food for 2 or 3 people, with digital controls. I got the Nuwave Bravo XL last summer after studying zillions of reviews of all sorts of toaster oven fryers. Pros: Good all-around performance, very accurate temperature control, near overkill on features and settings, ability to manually change lots of parameters. Cons: No rotisserie, not the fastest fryer, terrible rack design. My second choice was the Cuisinart digital air fryer oven. According to reviews, it fries faster and crispier. But it lost out due to far less ability to override presets and higher cost.

ronnie_suburban wrote:Looking for fresh info, opinions, recommendations, experiences, etc. If anyone has any, I'd love to hear about them.

Thanks,

=R=

Advantages of an air fryer:

1) You can get food similar to fried without all of the oil. You can pretty much limit the oil use to a couple sprays with a cooking spray like Pam.
2) It is really easy to clean. You remove the basket and since most of them are non-stick, it takes at best a minute to clean.
3) In this climate where 100F+ days are frequent, the air fryer does not heat up the kitchen as much.
4) When your oven is out of commission you can also use it to roast and bake although the space is limited.
5) You can reheat items like french fries and hamburgers and other leftovers and they taste a lot better than using an oven or a microwave.

Most of my friends have wanted to buy an air fryer but have bulked either due to teh cost or the lack of space as our kitchens are not very large at all. We have had several "air fryer parties" pre-Covid where we have tried different things.

Most of the foods that we have tried are generally those that are fried. The ones that we have found successful include:

1) Chicken wings - we have tried these a dozen ways. Our preference is to thaw the wings before cooking, roll the wings into a container of very seasoned cornstarch and then use the air fryer. We preferred the whole wings over the wingettes and to toss the wings into the sauce AFTER cooking.
2) Roast Cornish Hen - It did a great job on the bird. It was juicy and turned out really well.
3) My wife's favorite is fried OKRA. We have not been very successful in reproducing it in the air fryer. However, we like to take our home grown okra, place it in a plastic bag, add Cajun seasoning (preferably Joe's Stuff from the NOLA School of Cooking), add a little olive oil and roast it for about 12 minutes. The okra has never been slimy as it is usually consumed the day of picking. Other roasted vegetables will do well.

If you are looking for a lot of off the wall ideas involving an air fryer is Pro Home Cooks by Mike Green on YouTube.

https://www.prohomecooks.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtGBQw_ ... oHomeCooks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEcIkbZ ... oHomeCooks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdWhFjm ... oHomeCooks

Mike does wild things like cinnamon rolls, pizza, and the like.

Disadvantages:
1) You have very limited space. A 3.1L air fryer is only good for about two people. If I have wing night for several friends, I have to cook in advance of borrow an additional fryer.
2) Trying to do popcorn can cause a fire.
3) While the fryer does a lot of good things, there are better ways to do some items.

Something I never knew.. Toss a Hunk of Ginger in Your Air Fryer

So, to recap: All you have to do to avail yourself of tender, deeply sweet ginger is place a washed, unpeeled piece of the root in the basket of your air fryer, set the temperature to 400℉ and the time to 30 minutes, then walk away and let the air fryer do its thing, returning once to flip it over somewhere in near the middle. Remove from the air fryer, blend it into things, and repeat as needed.

Thanks for all the new info. So, if I understand this correctly, they're basically small convection boxes, some designed to be more multi-purpose than others. They don't really fry, their capacity is relatively small and they can be difficult to clean.

That leads me to the following questions:

1) What's the draw of an air fryer?
2) If one already owns a convection oven or toaster oven, is there any significant advantage to adding an air fryer?
3) Are there some brands that are more reliable than others?
4) Are differences in pricing (there is a wide range) indicative of anything in particular? Quality, features, capacity?
5) Are there any brands on which all the applicable parts are truly dishwasher safe?
6) Given the nature of the cooking done in these machines, does their volume capacity really matter? Since you wouldn't stack food, wouldn't area capacity be the only relevant measure of capacity?

Thanks,

=R=

Ronnie,

Here is what I think:

1) I like having the taste and texture of fried foods (Fried chicken, french fries, etc.) without having a 350F vat of oil on my stove. I also do not like to have a vat of oil that has to be cleaned after each use. I also do not want to add all that fat to my diet.

2) Never owned a toaster oven.

3) I have had friends that like Ninja which are pretty expensive. Since I was unsure of the purchase, I bought the cheapest 3.1L air fryer which was the Farberware at Walmart.com. The cost at Walmart.com was $59 vs $79 in the store. I have had the Farberware for 18 months and it has worked very well.

4) I do not know. When I make a purchase, I am more interested in getting something that is functional as opposed to the best. Think the Toyota Camry vs the very similar Lexus.

5) The only parts that are washable in my unit is the basket and the outer basket. I don't wash any pots or pans in teh dishwasher but I do not see why I could not.

6) I would not buy anything smaller than 3.1L if you are cooking for two. I cannot see that getting the larger one as teh capacity of the larger ones don't seem to be that much bigger. What I would say is that one of my friends in Arkansas decided to buy a second one as they were cooking for 3-4 people.

An Air fryer won't heat up your kitchen. There are parchment papers cut specifically for air fryers that stop foods from sticking and make clean-up a lot easier.

Ron, replies to your questions:

#2: An air fryer moves a lot more air than the typical convection oven. The basket style ones have such strong fans that lightweight foods will blow around in them, sometimes with bad results. Very bad.

I replaced a convection toaster oven with a toaster oven air fryer. The second does everything the first did plus air fries. There's even one brand of air fryer range with a higher capacity fan than a convection range.

#5: Maybe. I asked this question on reddit a while back. Supposedly there are some basket styles with dishwasher safe drawers and baskets. And many of the oven style have dishwasher safe racks and drip pans. All the food contact areas are dishwasher safe but the walls and ceiling will eventually need hand cleaning to scrub off the vaporized grease.

#6: Yes, rack area is the limiting factor. Some have multiple levels of racks, though. See Nuwave Brio for example. Also consider height of foods. The Ninja Foodi foldup oven has a very short cooking chamber, too short for some foods.

jlawrence01 wrote:Ronnie,

Here is what I think:

1) I like having the taste and texture of fried foods (Fried chicken, french fries, etc.) without having a 350F vat of oil on my stove. I also do not like to have a vat of oil that has to be cleaned after each use. I also do not want to add all that fat to my diet.

2) Never owned a toaster oven.

3) I have had friends that like Ninja which are pretty expensive. Since I was unsure of the purchase, I bought the cheapest 3.1L air fryer which was the Farberware at Walmart.com. The cost at Walmart.com was $59 vs $79 in the store. I have had the Farberware for 18 months and it has worked very well.

4) I do not know. When I make a purchase, I am more interested in getting something that is functional as opposed to the best. Think the Toyota Camry vs the very similar Lexus.

5) The only parts that are washable in my unit is the basket and the outer basket. I don't wash any pots or pans in teh dishwasher but I do not see why I could not.

6) I would not buy anything smaller than 3.1L if you are cooking for two. I cannot see that getting the larger one as teh capacity of the larger ones don't seem to be that much bigger. What I would say is that one of my friends in Arkansas decided to buy a second one as they were cooking for 3-4 people.

Thanks, Joe. These are all really helpful insights. I suspect that if I do take the plunge, I'll saddle up on on something cheap and ride it until it conks out.

Artie wrote:An Air fryer won't heat up your kitchen. There are parchment papers cut specifically for air fryers that stop foods from sticking and make clean-up a lot easier.

Yeah, I can see that being a nice advantage. I have a fairly nice toaster oven that also spares the kitchen from getting too hot. Many years ago, I bought a large box of halfsheet-sized parchment paper, so I'd be cutting down from there. But beyond that, I really want something that's entirely dishwasher-safe (understanding that the unit itself cannot be).

tjr wrote:Ron, replies to your questions:

#2: An air fryer moves a lot more air than the typical convection oven. The basket style ones have such strong fans that lightweight foods will blow around in them, sometimes with bad results. Very bad.

Yeah, I've read about some experiences, especially with baking, where the batter can actually get blown around.

tjr wrote:#5: Maybe. I asked this question on reddit a while back. Supposedly there are some basket styles with dishwasher safe drawers and baskets. And many of the oven style have dishwasher safe racks and drip pans. All the food contact areas are dishwasher safe but the walls and ceiling will eventually need hand cleaning to scrub off the vaporized grease.

Yep, understood. I could live with hand cleaning the unit itself if everything else could go into the dishwasher.

tjr wrote:#6: Yes, rack area is the limiting factor. Some have multiple levels of racks, though. See Nuwave Brio for example. Also consider height of foods. The Ninja Foodi foldup oven has a very short cooking chamber, too short for some foods.

Okay, got it. Good info. Height can matter, to a degree.

All: Other than space limitations/considerations, what is the CW on the advantages/disadvantages between top-loading and front loading (aka drawer)?

=R=