Air fryer v oven

SMcGill

When I am not using it, I just store it in the main oven so it is out of view.

Genius! It would never have crossed my mind to use my oven as storage

maisie_cat

Rodders53 said:

My mini air fryer is no faster than the same product at same temp in the main fan oven.  Many report shorter cook times but I am sceptical. 
Emperor's New Clothes?

Cheaper only when doing a little of anything imho.  They do have a thermostat switch on/off - otherwise there'd be no temperature control when cooking.  They tend to scorch the top layer unless shaken often, especially if 'full' of food.

A useful gadget but not superior or significantly cheaper than using a good oven.

My instant pot air fryer is certainly quicker than our Smeg fan oven, perhaps it depends on both appliances.
It will also depend on the amount of food cooked, if you have a family of 6 eating oven chips it will not be quicker, but roasting veg or cooking sausages for 2 will be.

[Deleted User]

Bought the wife a Tefal air fryer 2 weeks ago. She hasn’t used the oven since. 

For the two of us, the AF is ideal. Noticed a slight drop in leccy usage.

She has already mentioned removing the oven and shelving out the bay for storage. 

[Deleted User]

Deleted_User said:

Noticed a slight drop in leccy usage.

How much £ is "slight"?

Enough to payback to £100-£200 spent on the air fryer?

The typical electric oven would use 40p per day, if the air fryer uses a "slight" amount less, say 5p, then it will take 2000 days for a £100 air fryer to break even - 5.5 years. For a gas oven nearer 15 years. £200 air fryer 11 years / 30 years at said rate.

Can't really claim money saving without hard data - have you got numbers on the "slight"?

ariarnia

Deleted_User said:

Bought the wife a Tefal air fryer 2 weeks ago. She hasn’t used the oven since. 

For the two of us, the AF is ideal. Noticed a slight drop in leccy usage.

She has already mentioned removing the oven and shelving out the bay for storage. 

i want to do this. i have some problems with lifting and carrying so we've used a mini oven more or less completely for the last 10 years or so. and now between the mini oven air fryer slow cooker and instant pot i can't see really ever needing a full size oven. even christmas last year wasn't an issue with some planning. i dont think we even turned the oven since we moved in and i think its a huge waste of space.

the kitchen needs doing anyway really but its been a complete nightmare to try and find someone who will design us a kitchen without an oven! i even posted a thread on here (on the diy board) and got some really extreme reactions. we're still planing on doing it but now its going to wait until we have an extension on the back of the house in the next 4 or 5 years and get it all done at once. 

Spies

Of course it's cheaper to run but not because it cooks at a lower temperature but because your heating 2.2 litres of air vs 65 litres in a standard oven. 

facade

I use my actifry to cook chips*, rather than a deep fryer.

It used 0.32kWh to cook a portion, which costs about 11p, and is 2/3 of the estimated consumption based on the power rating and time, so yes there is a thermostat switching the heater- in fact the power alternates between 50W and 1500W. It stirs the chips nicely so I can forget about it until the timer goes off.

Has it paid for itself?  Possibly if you factor in the time & solvent cost in cleaning the kitchen surfaces from the fog of chipfat that came out of the fryer, plus the cost of the chipfat I don't use.

*It makes enough mess inside with congealed oil just cooking chips. I can imagine the horror of tring to clean the baked on residue from chicken, beefburgers, sausages etc!

ariarnia

facade said:

*It makes enough mess inside with congealed oil just cooking chips. I can imagine the horror of tring to clean the baked on residue from chicken, beefburgers, sausages etc!

ours goes in the dishwasher with everything else. 

k_man

Spies said:

Of course it's cheaper to run but not because it cooks at a lower temperature but because your heating 2.2 litres of air vs 65 litres in a standard oven. 

I don't think the air volume is significant, as the specific heat capacity is very low):

By my (very) rough maths, ignoring change in air density, the energy to heat air from 20C to 200C is 50Wh per m3 (1000 liters).
Or 0.05Wh per litre.

So to heat the air only

2.2l 0.1wH

65l 3wH

But the mass of the oven itself, which also gets heated, is much more significant, and main ovens are bigger, heavier and have larger surface areas to leak/lose heat.
This is offset by the improved insulation of main ovens.

As with most simple questions, the answer is it depends, and there is no obvious glaring, clear cut correct answer.

I think the mass enthusiasm (hysteria?) about air fryers etc. is partly due to the fact it is an easy solution to suggest, and gives people the excuse to buy a new thing!

Alnat1

Mrs next door got one (we took in the parcel as they were out) she doesn't cook much and they order a lot of takeaways. But I think she likes shiny new things.