Air fryers…what’s the hype?

[mummy203]

am I being unreasonable thinking air fryers are hype? Or am I just not getting it yet

I’ve been bought a 4L tower one, not used yet because I’m not sure I’m going to keep it. At first I thought fab I will use instead of my oven, but all the tutorials seem to show everything cooked separately chips for 20mins, chicken for 20mins and so on. There’s not enough room to put everything in for a family meal to cook at the same time. I can’t see how this would work cooking a meal for even 2 people. If you have to put half the dinner in the oven anyway then why use the air fryer at all just put everything in the oven at the same time 🤷🏼‍♀️ What am I not getting?

I don't understand how it's cheaper. My oven is 0.8kw, checked my Mum's and it's 0.9kw. My brother's ninja thing is 2.5kw. The blurb says it can reduce energy bills by 65% (I assume by cooking time) which is still more than my oven. I can't fathom how everyone is saying it's cheaper to run. Or have I just got a shit oven?

There isn't a rule saying that all air fryers are more efficient than conventional ovens. But in the main, it's likely to be true.

Due to the smaller volume, heat up time is significantly reduced as is cooking time, especially in my case where I have a range with a single large oven. The difference is 10 minutes for me (warm up). Plus the power difference is 3kW+ vs 2kW.

Sounds like the difference with you might be less but still worth comparing.

They set up a specific means of cooking something that flatters the air fryer and use that as their example.

It's one of those things that gets stuck at the back of the cupboard for decades, like a George foreman grill, a breville sandwich toaster and those abs machines that were going to give us all fantastic abs.

Then thrown out when you move house.

It's one of those things that gets stuck at the back of the cupboard for decades,

Is it? All the people on here that use one daily would disagree. I have a Breville sandwich toaster that is regularly used too.

I did throw the ice cream maker in the back of the cupboard though.

@FarmGirl78

It's hard to compare them on the power ratings alone. The reason being as the power rating tends to be the maximum power draw of the device at any time, rather than how much power is actually consumed per minute, which can depend on a lot of different factors (outside air temperature, what temperature you set the fryer/oven to etc).

The only real way to compare them is using a smart meter. I have an energy monitoring pass through plug that can be used to measure how much energy the air fryer uses. But the cooker is hard wired into the mains supply. This is because the cooker draws so much power it can't be used with normal 13A plug in mains sockets, and it has to be wired directly into a higher power socket (usually 30A) instead (this alone is an indication that my cooker uses a lot more power than the air fryer).

FarmGirl78 Its cheaper because its heating up a smaller area than an oven. So it reaches cooking temperature faster.
2.5kw seems high, mine is about 1400W - thats running at the highest temperature, which we've never used.

When the air fryer came out it was pushed as a way to have fried food with fewer calories, little mention of energy saving.

We had an expensive one at work, loads of people convinced they could eat chips every day with no consequences. That was bollocks too.

Electric cookers, especially those with hobs as well as ovens need a different input (30amp iirc?) as if everything is on at the same time it will draw much more current than a 13 amp plug can provide. Once an oven is up to temperature it hardly draws significant power.

I recently used my smart meter to measure my ovens use, baked 4 loaves of bread in 40 minutes, less than 1kwh of electricity, less than 10p a loaf for energy .

I don't think the name 'air fryer' helps, it's much more than that. Makes it sound like 'whatever you'd do in the frying pan do in this'. Which has turned out no to be the case because we never fried anything anyway.

I think my tiny air fryer actually has a higher peak draw, at 1300 watts, than my fan oven, which I think is only about 1000 watts for the element near the fan. The reason the fan oven needs to be wired into a special circuit is in case I decide to use the the top and bottom elements and the grill and the other oven (it's a double-oven) all at the same time as the fan element.

Nevertheless I expect the air fryer to use a lot less electricity. The smaller volume means it takes two minutes rather than ten to pre-heat, and once it's reached its target temperature it will have the heating element switched off for a bigger proportion of the time. (Ovens stay at a target temperature by switching the heating element off and on, in the same way that your central heating maintains a target temperature by switching your boiler between full-blast and off.)

Prior to the energy crisis, relatively few people were worried about energy consumption of appliances so naturally it wasn't a selling point. Times change and the same goes for electric blankets vs central heating.

What you're describing with your oven and loaves is exactly what makes air fryers more efficient. Faster heat up time and a smaller volume means less energy use overall.

Unfortunately you can't legislate against stupidity and if people think they can eat chips every day, it's got nothing to do with the fryer but the people using them. That doesn't detract from the basic premise that they're a good thing overall.

I agree, you could probably just do chips in that so I’d return it for something more suitable

Mine is 5.7l, it’s a great size for 1-2 adults or 2 adults and a child I would say, for a larger family maybe you need a 2 drawer one?

I have the vortex and I LOVE it - quicker & cheaper than an oven, love that it switches itself off so good can’t burn if you get caught up in other things

I cook everything in it - from sausages, chips, meatballs, to home baking (pies, cakes, making a small number of scones, cookies etc). Great for reheating things etc

Probably more useful for you if you sometimes prepare separate meals/eat at different times

Can you bake bread in it?

Haven’t read the whole thread so advice would be buy a bigger one with two drawers use lining paper (from Amazon). Hopefully moving into new home and can’t decide this route or a mini cooker with oven.

There will be some people who will make a reasonable return ( people who heat single things up frequently), but I would suggest the majority of people will never use one enough over the course of its life to recoup the outlay.

Modern electric ovens are far from inefficient, as my bread experiment showed.

There is no magic wand to cut electricity usage, just as there was no magic wand for eating chips everyday, they just implied it.

I think there is a lot of justification going on on this thread, people have laid out considerable sums and now they need to prove it wasn't a waste.

Can anyone show me the maths?

@BlackForestCake Yes you can, and you can prove the dough in it as well.

Thanks I’ll stick with mini cooker I think and microwave.

So much more economical to cook food we really enjoy for the two of us in the air fryer compared to heating up the whole oven, including just for the last few days roast veg, leeks au gratin, roast chicken and chicken breasts.

No junk food in our house.

The timer is an added convenience for someone who has been known to get distracted only to discover the roast meat has actually been cremated.

Yes. And cakes/muffins etc. I use the silicone moulds.

@Nolongera

Yes.

I used to use my oven 2x per day for 1/2 hour. It averages about 2kw during that time (from meter), so total usage = 20.52=2kwh per day multiply by electricity unit price 0.35p per kwh produces a total cost of 70p per day.

Air fryer I use 2x per day for 20mins. It averages 0.9kw during that time (from meter) so total usage 0.90.332=0.6kwh per day multiply by electricity unit price 0.35p per kwh produces a total cost of 21p per day.

The unit cost £30 from HotUKdeals and from the above saves me 50p per day. So it pays for itself in 2 months.

Actually wish I had bought a better one now and paid out a bit more money, but not sure that that is entirely relevant.

It's really not that hard. And is the same principle as the heated throw vs. central heating. The heated throw keeps you warm by heating you rather than the whole house, allowing you to keep warm with less energy while not heating bits of the house you don't use. The air fryer is pretty much the same. It's not "magic" or breaking the laws of physics. It's simply offers a more appropriate amount of cooking capacity (and therefore energy consumption) for the task you wish to do.

I can see me getting one I’m really tempted.

@KingCharlespen
Now that's really interesting.

My mum came over from Eastern Europe in the mid sixties and she brought one over as her mum used one all the time.
Unfortunately, it wasn't compatible with UK electricity, so she didn't use it.

Whenever she reminisced about it I'd suggest getting an adapter but I think she felt it was old-fashioned and wouldn't bother.

It was really interesting to see it become a Lakeland bestseller a number of years ago, long before air-fryers became a thing.
I'd toyed with the idea but felt that it would just be another faddy gadget.

I'm clearly wrong and think I'll give one a go. It seems more versatile than an air fryer and with a larger capacity yet takes up less space.

Thank you for reminding me!

Thanks @GasPanic for doing the sums. I was about to but you've done the hard work for me 👍

I spent £140 on mine and it's rendered my range redundant bar the occasional Sunday roast.

@Nolongera my calculations are heavily skewed as I bought a £140 air fryer so I didn't have to buy a new range for £2000. An outlier but it's saving me a fortune!

the podcast I mentioned in my previous post tests both an air fryer and an oven and does the sums if anyone is interested

its proving difficult finding a ninja 400. Out of stock in argos John Lewis currys and my local euronics shop. Im on email alert!

Well I used mine today and I’m totally converted! I cooked my 4 children’s dinner in it and it’s a 6l one, was worried after reading some of these comments saying they use a 12 l for 2 people 😳 but it was big enough to fit in their dinner and I could have added more but didn’t want to over fill it, couldn’t believe how quick it was either!