Air fryer v oven

ariarnia

wild666 said:

With air fryers it's best to check periodically through the cooking time and test the internal temperature with a thermometer to check the temperature is above 75 degrees.

which is something people should be really also doing with oven cooked food and microwave reheated if they're concerned. following the packet instructions doesn't mean food is cooked properly.

Astria

wittynamegoeshere said:

The instructions are usually a worst case with a bit of safety margin.  For the same sort of reason that my car's speedo reads 32 when I'm doing 30.

You should be usually OK if following the instructions, it's not a guarantee but a good guide.  Using a thermometer would be playing it safe.

But deliberately ignoring the instructions and thinking it looks cooked despite having half the cooking time is not clever.

Air fryers don't do anything different to the food that a standard oven doesn't do.

Apart from being much smaller than a standard oven and so being able to get upto temperature much quicker and concentrate the heat directly on the food causing it to cook quicker.

For example, I bought a chicken a few days ago and it said 2 hours to cook, I put it in the air fryer upside down for 30 minutes, then turned it over and put it on for another 30 minutes. Afterwards it was perfectly cooked. I left it for 15 minutes to cool down then sliced it up. It definitely didn't need 2 hours but it probably would in a standard oven.

ariarnia

Astria said:

wittynamegoeshere said:

The instructions are usually a worst case with a bit of safety margin.  For the same sort of reason that my car's speedo reads 32 when I'm doing 30.

You should be usually OK if following the instructions, it's not a guarantee but a good guide.  Using a thermometer would be playing it safe.

But deliberately ignoring the instructions and thinking it looks cooked despite having half the cooking time is not clever.

Air fryers don't do anything different to the food that a standard oven doesn't do.

Apart from being much smaller than a standard oven and so being able to get upto temperature much quicker and concentrate the heat directly on the food causing it to cook quicker.

For example, I bought a chicken a few days ago and it said 2 hours to cook, I put it in the air fryer upside down for 30 minutes, then turned it over and put it on for another 30 minutes. Afterwards it was perfectly cooked. I left it for 15 minutes to cool down then sliced it up. It definitely didn't need 2 hours but it probably would in a standard oven.

i think thats the thing a lot of people who have never used an air fryer dont get. they do cook the food faster. not being able to explain why and how using precise numbers can't replace that they do and if you try and cook things the same time as you would in a big oven then the food is burnt to a crisp.  

someone tried to explain it to me once but i didn't really understand (OH might know better when he gets home) but it was something like a fan oven cooks faster than a regular oven because the hot air moves the moisture away faster and keeps the heat circulating. so an air fryer (which is basically just a small fan oven) cooks faster than a big fan oven because the fan is comparatively higher power and closer to the food and the space is smaller so the air circulates faster and stays hotter than moving all around a bigger space. like a hair dryer 6 inches away versus 2 inches away. same heat from the energy in but the thing being heated gets hotter because its more consentrated in a smaller area. 

matelodave

If you dont want one, then thats fine, but isn't about time you gave up on the criticisms and let those of us who are happy to have one get on with enjoying them.(especially as it seems you dont have one and so dont really know what you are talking about).

Just my opinion as a happy and contented owner

Astria

wittynamegoeshere said:

"Concentrate the heat directly on the food" sounds like air fryer marketing, not science.  How do you concentrate heat onto something, other than by making it hotter?

There's no special magic in these things, it's just a box that gets hot.  If it makes it look cooked faster than an oven would then that's because it's making the surface hotter than it would get in a standard oven.  The rate at which this heat conducts into the centre doesn't differ.

If you're going to deliberately ignore cooking instructions for cooking one of the most dangerous meats then at the very least get yourself a thermometer probe so you can know whether the centre is up to a temperature that would kill bacteria - this is beyond the temperature at which it begins to look "cooked".

Exactly that - you connect the heating element directly with the food, with very minimal wasted space, unlike a regular oven.

So yes, if you set it for 100c the food may receive temperatures well in excess of that, but the average will still be the same as the element is cycled, this can happen because the device can react far faster than a typical oven because of the smaller area.

Thanks for your recommendation of a thermometer, but I've been cooking food for the last 30 years without a problem, so considering that I'm not serving the public I'll just use my own experience to cook the food and know when it's cooked from sight and smell.

ariarnia

Astria said:

wittynamegoeshere said:

"Concentrate the heat directly on the food" sounds like air fryer marketing, not science.  How do you concentrate heat onto something, other than by making it hotter?

There's no special magic in these things, it's just a box that gets hot.  If it makes it look cooked faster than an oven would then that's because it's making the surface hotter than it would get in a standard oven.  The rate at which this heat conducts into the centre doesn't differ.

If you're going to deliberately ignore cooking instructions for cooking one of the most dangerous meats then at the very least get yourself a thermometer probe so you can know whether the centre is up to a temperature that would kill bacteria - this is beyond the temperature at which it begins to look "cooked".

Thanks for your recommendation of a thermometer, but I've been cooking food for the last 30 years without a problem, so considering that I'm not serving the public I'll just use my own experience to cook the food and know when it's cooked from sight and smell.

i do use a stick thermometer when i'm cooking joints of meat or trying some new things. a lot of our meat comes from the butcher so no instructions anyway but i normally find the old advice of an 60/50 mins per kg plus half an hour for pork/chicken is way to long. i think some people will never beleve things can cook faster/using less energy unless they try it themselves. and because there already convinced it wont then they'll never try. catch 22. 

Astria

wittynamegoeshere said:

If people want to believe that half-cooking their food is fine and get offended at any non-believers from outside of the cult suggesting otherwise then carry on, it makes no difference to me.

We aren't getting offended, but you don't seem to understand that smaller space to heat = less time to cook.

If you cooked the recommended time in an air fryer compared to a normal oven you would always end up with either burnt food or food so dry it's inedible (ie, overcooked).

peter3hg

wittynamegoeshere said:

To be fair, I have googled and found lots of sources suggesting an hour-ish for a whole chicken.  That may be an exception, as it has a huge air cavity in the middle so the hot air will be able to get inside it, so it will get heated through more efficiently than in a less windy standard oven.

Forums are probably not the place for a nuanced sensible discussion though, especially not this one, it appears I'm now being portrayed as the evil anti air fryer baddie so must be hounded out of existence.

I think the reason you've had such a negative reaction is that you are insisting that people's real life experience is wrong, despite not having any direct experience yourself. The implication is also that people are incapable of judging when their food is cooked.

My personal rough guideline is that setting the air fryer 15C lower and for 20-25% shorter time compared to the fan oven achieves the best results. I found that using the same temperature as a fan oven would often lead to an overcooked outside at the point the inside was cooked through.

The_Green_Hornet

Astria said:

wittynamegoeshere said:

If people want to believe that half-cooking their food is fine and get offended at any non-believers from outside of the cult suggesting otherwise then carry on, it makes no difference to me.

We aren't getting offended, but you don't seem to understand that smaller space to heat = less time to cook.

If you cooked the recommended time in an air fryer compared to a normal oven you would always end up with either burnt food or food so dry it's inedible (ie, overcooked).

I must admit I'm struggling with this smaller space to heat = less time to cook statement. I would expect a smaller space to heat would mean it would use less energy to cook but not time unless you mean initial warm up time.

What am I missing?

flopsy1973

So after asking the question originally and  all this debate no hard facts and conflicting information  if the air fryer is cheaper to use than oven. I would be buying the cheaper ones or is it better to batch cook and fill the main oven when on ?