jonathan18: Thanks so much for bringing this topic up – you’ve planted the idea in my head, and now even my wife’s keen!

Partly it’s because I’m sick of the smell left in the house when we even relatively shallow-fry stuff like papadoms, with a residual smell hanging around for a day or so. Plus there’s that definite health benefit of significantly reducing oil consumption- our kids love their chips so we could hopefully avoid having to buy F&Cs any more! (I hasten to add we don't have a deep fryer and very rarely fry stuff - primarily because of the levels of oil.)

My only problem is that I’d love to test it out before buying – it’s a significant investment to make without being sure it’s right. I wish shops had a ‘try before you buy’ option!

Looking at the various models, I’ve indeed read many worrying things about the Tefal model (a pity given it’s from the king of discounting, Briscoes), including parts melting!. I also am not keen on the stirrer in the Tefal damaging stuff that’s cooking. The cheaper Philips models (which seem to indeed get better reviews) are relatively small, though, with 800 g capacity – which means we’re looking at over $500 for their larger model ().

Does anyone have experience with other brands/models they could recommend? Or ideas of how to test them out before purchasing?

Hammerer:

joker97: ...
do you need to separate individual fries to get exposed to hot air or will it fry evenly all round

Where you have two fries stuck to each other they won't be crisp on the joined sides. That is the case in a deep frier too because air can penetrate pretty much anywhere the oil does.

If you don't let the frier heat up correctly or you overload the baskets then the food won't seal as well as it could because the temperature is drops too much. This allows more water to escape from the food which makes it drier on the inside and soggier on the outside. To fix that you have to cook it for longer to get it the surface to coagulate/become crispy but if it has lost too much water then food generally becomes tougher and less succulent.

As JWR points out, deep frying's big problem is how to preserve the oil for more than one use. It's big advantage is that the hot frier oil is a larger thermal mass which means that the temperature doesn't drop too much when you add the food. The benchtop air fryers don't have the same thermal mass so they cook smaller quantities.

If you are interested in the health benefits then less oil will be better but no heated oil might be better for our health.

I assume you like the taste of fried food so you should consider the type and quality of oil you use. This is important because oil breaks down into less healthy compounds in the presence of heat and oxygen. The type of fats in the oil have a big impact on the oil breakdown (becoming rancid) which occurs more quickly based on the number of double bonds in the fats: saturated fats don't have any so they breakdown slowest, monounsaturated fats have one so they are relatively resistant, but polyunsaturated have two or more so they breakdown a lot faster. On the other hand, there are the health issues associated with eating saturated fats. Cheap vegetable oils are often unsuitable for deep frying not just because they are polyunsaturated.

[Edit: Corrected grammar]

• Philips Airfryer HD9220
• Price: $400
• Rating: 2 stars

joker97:

Hammerer:

joker97: ...
do you need to separate individual fries to get exposed to hot air or will it fry evenly all round

Where you have two fries stuck to each other they won't be crisp on the joined sides. That is the case in a deep frier too because air can penetrate pretty much anywhere the oil does.

If you don't let the frier heat up correctly or you overload the baskets then the food won't seal as well as it could because the temperature is drops too much. This allows more water to escape from the food which makes it drier on the inside and soggier on the outside. To fix that you have to cook it for longer to get it the surface to coagulate/become crispy but if it has lost too much water then food generally becomes tougher and less succulent.

As JWR points out, deep frying's big problem is how to preserve the oil for more than one use. It's big advantage is that the hot frier oil is a larger thermal mass which means that the temperature doesn't drop too much when you add the food. The benchtop air fryers don't have the same thermal mass so they cook smaller quantities.

If you are interested in the health benefits then less oil will be better but no heated oil might be better for our health.

I assume you like the taste of fried food so you should consider the type and quality of oil you use. This is important because oil breaks down into less healthy compounds in the presence of heat and oxygen. The type of fats in the oil have a big impact on the oil breakdown (becoming rancid) which occurs more quickly based on the number of double bonds in the fats: saturated fats don't have any so they breakdown slowest, monounsaturated fats have one so they are relatively resistant, but polyunsaturated have two or more so they breakdown a lot faster. On the other hand, there are the health issues associated with eating saturated fats. Cheap vegetable oils are often unsuitable for deep frying not just because they are polyunsaturated.

[Edit: Corrected grammar]

is canola oil good or bad?

for low heat cooking i use extra virgin OO (NZ ones, that's the freshest i've sampled from about 5 different brands inc the aussie ones)

but for high heat, all vege oil i can find has trans fats. *sigh. gotta die of something. even if it didn't have trans fats high heat creates something starting with A that is incredibly toxic. but i just close my brain and open my mouth

JWR:

joker97:

is canola oil good or bad?

for low heat cooking i use extra virgin OO (NZ ones, that's the freshest i've sampled from about 5 different brands inc the aussie ones)

but for high heat, all vege oil i can find has trans fats. *sigh. gotta die of something. even if it didn't have trans fats high heat creates something starting with A that is incredibly toxic. but i just close my brain and open my mouth

I mostly use rice ran oil.

It gives nicely browned result and doesn't have that oily smell about it.

Hammerer:

JWR:

joker97:

is canola oil good or bad?

for low heat cooking i use extra virgin OO (NZ ones, that's the freshest i've sampled from about 5 different brands inc the aussie ones)

but for high heat, all vege oil i can find has trans fats. *sigh. gotta die of something. even if it didn't have trans fats high heat creates something starting with A that is incredibly toxic. but i just close my brain and open my mouth

I mostly use rice ran oil.

It gives nicely browned result and doesn't have that oily smell about it.

We also use rice bran oil as it has a high smoke point (~250C) and it is virtually flavourless. We buy it at wholesalers (Davis Trading, Moore Wilson) in 10-20 litre packs.

PS Wikipedia has a good list of Smoke points for fats

joker97:  whatever oil you use you're going to die of something. unless you eat only organic veges and fish

livealittle: Hi

 Was given a Philips Air Fryer as gift.
LOVE IT.