Airfryer - which one is best?

[farmerbarleymow]

Right, I want to buy an airfryer so I can live on nowt but chips. So which one is best in your experience (links please)?

Budget not an issue (within reason). Apart from chips I would like the device to be able to cook roast veg and other stuff too - mainly for one.

 

[cupid_stunt]

I could do with a 'airfryer' on my roof, to take out all those bloody seagulls.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

I could do with a 'airfryer' on my roof, to take out all those bloody seagulls.

I'll shove a dead seagull up yer arse.

 

[cupid_stunt]

I'll shove a dead seagull up yer arse.

Pervert.

 

[cybershot]

We’ve got the tefal actifry. Honestly it’s great. It’s dropped in price a bit so I assume a new model is on the way. We got it from b&q during the Black Friday week last year I think for something ridiculous like £75. So if you can hold out for a deal then it might be worth waiting. If I see a good deal pop-up on Hotukdeals in the meantime. I’ll drop it on here.

 

[Looby]

We’ve got an ActiFry too. We splashed out on the one that has a cooking tray too so we can cook other stuff in it too like chicken or burgers etc

We don’t use it loads but the chips are really good and roast potatoes aren’t bad if you’re trying to cut down on fat.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

We’ve got an ActiFry too. We splashed out on the one that has a cooking tray too so we can cook other stuff in it too like chicken or burgers etc

We don’t use it loads but the chips are really good and roast potatoes aren’t bad if you’re trying to cut down on fat.

Cheers - what model do you have?

 

[Looby]

Cheers - what model do you have?

The 2 in 1.

It’s quite big and takes up a lot of counter space.

 

[Saul Goodman]

I'll shove a dead seagull up yer arse.

A friend would like to know how much you charge for that service?

 

[Artaxerxes]

Are air friers any good at doing stuff like breaded fish or karaage?

 

[editor]

Of probably no use to anyone, but I bought a £1 gauze thingy from Poundland as it claimed to cook oven chips more evenly and faster. And by gum, it does just that. It's been an excellent investment.

 

[cybershot]

They’ve got actifry’s in my local Aldi, so probably nationwide. £95 though, not sure if it was the 2 in 1.

ETA: It’s the original and you can also buy it online. Tefal Actifry

Not sure if competitive price, will probably be cheaper in the run up to Christmas.

 

[maomao]

I still haven't worked out the difference between an airfryer and an oven which makes me reluctant to buy one as I have an oven already. I mean they just heat up the air in a chamber which is then used to cook stuff right? That's an oven.

 

[maomao]

Of probably no use to anyone, but I bought a £1 gauze thingy from Poundland as it claimed to cook oven chips more evenly and faster. And by gum, it does just that. It's been an excellent investment.

Those are brilliant. I have three of them now. Great for any frozen oven stuff, frozen fish etc.

 

[Fez909]

I still haven't worked out the difference between an airfryer and an oven which makes me reluctant to buy one as I have an oven already. I mean they just heat up the air in a chamber which is then used to cook stuff right? That's an oven.

Exactly what I was about to post.

They're portable ovens.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

They’ve got actifry’s in my local Aldi, so probably nationwide. £95 though, not sure if it was the 2 in 1.

ETA: It’s the original and you can also buy it online. Tefal Actifry

Not sure if competitive price, will probably be cheaper in the run up to Christmas.

Yeah, I saw that the other day. The price seems pretty much the same from other places from what I could tell.

 

[MrCurry]

I bought an airfryer in the Black Friday sales, because it was under £25. Not an actifry, just a basic “take the basket out and shake it” job. Now I have to work out what to use it for.

Those of you experienced with these things, what are you finding it useful for, and how do you get the best from it?

 

[friedaweed]

I bought an airfryer in the Black Friday sales, because it was under £25. Not an actifry, just a basic “take the basket out and shake it” job. Now I have to work out what to use it for.

Those of you experienced with these things, what are you finding it useful for, and how do you get the best from it?

Fried chicken

 

[farmerbarleymow]

I have resisted buying one so far.

 

[maomao]

Fried chicken

Baked chicken. Or roast chicken maybe.

 

[Detroit City]

Right, I want to buy an airfryer so I can live on nowt but chips. So which one is best in your experience (links please)?

Budget not an issue (within reason). Apart from chips I would like the device to be able to cook roast veg and other stuff too - mainly for one.

the Philips HD9630/98 Avance Airfryer XXL, i love mine, bought it for around $200 from amazon

 

[Detroit City]

sorry, here is the link:

The Best Air Fryers of 2019

 

[Epona]

I've got a Phillips one, it's not the expensive one in that article though but the previous version (although it is essentially the same) which I got at a bargain price when the new model was hitting the shelves. I didn't like it at first, but now regularly use it to do fries, it's quite good and I have come to appreciate its presence in my life (and on my kitchen counter, where it takes up a bit of space).

I haven't actually used it for anything other than potato in various forms but it does that well

 

[Chz]

Had an ActiFry for many, many years.

Plusses: Cooks things really well. Makes fantastic chips, is great for roast veggies, there's now a tray for things that the paddle will utterly destroy like jalapeno poppers. (Granted that just turns it into a small oven, but who wants to heat up the oven for a half-dozen jalapenos?)

Minuses: T-Fal quality. This is our third one in 10 years and I've already replaced the fan in it. Still can't do fried chicken worth a damn.

 

[petee]

chips, no gulls

btw i think your airfryer is what I would call a convection oven.

 

[maomao]

think your airfryer is what I would call a convection oven.

A convection oven is just called a fan oven over here. It's like a tabletop fan oven but they made it round and a bit see through so you won't go 'look it's just a fucking oven'.

 

[MrCurry]

btw i think your airfryer is what I would call a convection oven.

Is a convection oven the same as a halogen oven? Those glass bowl things were briefly popular but seem to have been replaced by airfryers as the new big thing.

Well I’m still getting to know my airfryer and learning what I can do. What I can say for sure is the popular view “it’s just a fan oven” is total bullshit. I assume the people who say this have never used an airfryer.

This isn’t just a fan oven - my last four cookers (including current one) have had fan ovens and I know what they can & can’t do. This airfryer is something different and I’m getting much better results than I’ve had from a normal fan oven. It’s like a cross between a grill (broiler if you’re American) and a fan oven, but with a much smaller total air volume, which keeps the food much more moist than in a fan oven (and also allows the thing to warm from zero to cooking temps in a couple of mins, without a 10 min preheat like a fan oven). Overall it cooks in around 2/3 the time a fan oven would take and less still if you take into account the lack of preheat time.

The fan part and the radiant grill element compliment each other and each adds to the effect of the other. The fan makes the browning from grill element more even and more useable than any grill on a conventional kitchen cooker. You can get a deep, crispy finish without it burning and blackening as the temperatures run out of control, as often happens under a normal kitchen cooker’s grill. The radiant element gets a nice tasty sizzle on the food which you can’t achieve in a fan oven without running it at the kind of temps which dry out and overcook the food.

It’s definitely no replacement for a deep fryer and i think the “fryer” part of the name is probably misleading. I’d call it a grill oven, but that would confuse Americans who think a grill is a griddle plate. The airfryer is a cooking appliance which deserves a look. It’s good for any food which needs a bit of a sizzle on it and which you’d appreciate being cooked quicker, more cheaply and just better than a fan oven can manage. I cooked a whole roast chicken in 40 mins earlier, start to finish. In the summer I’ll be using this to avoid warming my kitchen up by switching the big oven on.

 

[Badgers]

Would this be cheaper than a electric oven?

 

[MrCurry]

Running one of these tabletop devices is deffo a lot cheaper than the electric oven in your cooker. Apart from anything else, because they cook with radiant heat, you can normally cook in an airfryer with no warm up time. The heating element is a lower wattage too. My cooker’s fan oven is pretty useless before it’s been on ten mins to warm up.

This is the one I ended up with. It’s 1300W and my main oven is 2100W, so you’d have to run the airfryer about 50% longer for the same electric consumption. In reality, the airfryer gets run about 2/3 of the time of the main oven to cook the same thing. No good for pizzas sadly, it’s not big enough. But didn’t I see someone cooking “airfryer Pizza” in another thread using an opened out hotdog bun as the base?

 

[moose]

I just watched someone on TikTok making cheesy garlic bread with a stack of crumpets and thought of you, farmerbarleymow