Racks and extra levels
Multi-level rack
It adds a level. It does not double capacity: the one manufacturer that publishes loads for its own two-level rack gives less food across two levels than across one.
AirfryerHQ’s verdict
Useful for a specific job
Right for one particular job. If you do not do that job, it will sit in a drawer.
The arithmetic is seductive and wrong. Two layers hold twice as much food and the air still has to reach all of it, so the lower layer sits in the shadow of the upper one and cooks more slowly and less evenly. What you gain is the ability to cook two things at once when neither needs to be crisp; what you lose is the crisping that made you buy the appliance. Bosch's built-in oven manual settles the general point for its own machine: only one level may be used when cooking with Air Fry.
What it actually does
Creates a second cooking level above the first, and in most designs raises the food it holds closer to the element.
A wire shelf, usually with short legs, that sits above the crisper plate to create a second layer. Sold — and currently written up in consumer round-ups — as doubling what an air fryer can cook, which is the claim worth examining, because a manufacturer has now published the numbers for its own.
When it helps and when it does not
When it helps
- Reheating two portions at once, where evenness matters more than crispness
- Cooking a component that does not need to crisp — warming rolls, softening vegetables — above something that does
- Oven-style machines, which were designed around multiple shelves and have the cavity height for them
- Skewers and small items that need lifting off the base
When it gets in the way
- Anything you want crisp on the lower level, which will be paler and slower than the same food cooked alone
- Fatty food on the upper level, which drips onto whatever is below it
- Basket machines with little headroom, where the upper layer ends up close enough to the element to scorch
- Any cook where you would otherwise have shaken the basket, because a rack makes shaking impossible
What it does to the airflow
Adds a cooking level, and shades the one below it
The upper level shades the lower one. Expect the bottom layer to run slower and browner-on-top-only, expect to swap the levels part way if you want them to finish together, and do not expect two layers to take the same time as one.
What to use instead
Two batches. A second batch of chips takes less extra time than most people expect, because the chamber is already hot — and both batches come out properly crisp, which is the whole point.
Using it safely
- Check whether your manufacturer restricts you to its own accessories, or to one level. Both restrictions exist in manuals we have read.
- It must be metal rated for oven use, and it must sit stably rather than resting on the food below it.
- It must not raise food close enough to touch the element. In a shallow basket machine that is a real constraint rather than a theoretical one.
- It must not block the air outlet.
What specific manufacturers say
Statements read from a named model’s own documentation. AirfryerHQ does not infer that an accessory fits a machine from its advertised capacity, and no manufacturer here publishes the dimensions that would let anybody do so.
Bosch built-in oven HBG934B.1 with Air Fry
The manual states that only one level can be used when cooking with Air Fry, and directs the user to cover the dedicated air-fry accessory evenly with food in a single layer at shelf level 3, with an empty universal pan at level 1 to catch drips.
Bosch built-in oven HBG934B.1 — Instruction manual
Philips 5000 Series Dual Basket Airfryer with Steam NA555
The manufacturer's own double layer fits the big pan only, and its table gives paired, reduced loads: 300 g of frozen chicken nuggets above 400 g of thin frozen fries, for 17–20 minutes at 180°C. The same pan's single-level table takes 800 g of thin frozen fries on their own. The table also says which food goes on top, and the manual says to use only original Philips accessories.
Philips 5000 Series Dual Basket Airfryer with Steam NA55x — User Manual
Which machines it suits
Makes sense in: Basket air fryer, Oven-style air fryer, Countertop oven with air fry.
- Dual-basket air fryer: Each drawer is already smaller than a single-basket machine's, so there is rarely the headroom for a second level, and the machine already solves the two-foods problem the rack is sold for.
- Built-in oven with an air-fry mode: The oven has shelves already, and at least one manufacturer restricts air-fry mode to a single level.
Looking after it
A wire rack is usually dishwasher safe where the basket is, but check your own manual — and if it is coated rather than bare stainless, treat the coating as you would the basket's.
Evidence and confidence
- Applies to
- Applies generally
- Why this rating
- The manufacturers cited go in different directions and each is right about its own machine, which is the argument this page makes: a rack belongs in a cavity built for shelves and is a compromise in a drawer. The capacity claim is contradicted twice over — by one manufacturer that forbids a second level in air-fry mode, and by another whose own two-level rack is published with 700 g across two levels where one level takes 800 g. The round-up that repeats the doubling claim says of itself that it tested nothing.
- Last reviewed
- 2026-08-30
What this does not cover
- No measurement of the difference between an upper and a lower level has been carried out. The direction is established by the mechanism and by manufacturer guidance; the magnitude is not.
- AirfryerHQ has not bought, fitted or used any accessory. Every judgement here is reasoned from what the accessory does physically and from what manufacturers publish about it.
Sources (5)
Bosch built-in oven HBG934B.1 — Instruction manual (PDF)
BSH Hausgeräte GmbH (Bosch) — Manufacturer manual (United Kingdom and European Union)
Relied on for: That only one level may be used when cooking with Air Fry, and that food should be spread in a single layer on the dedicated accessory — a manufacturer contradicting the double-your-capacity claim for its own appliance.
States this directly
Passage read and verified
Retrieved 2026-08-13 from media3.bosch-home.com
Breville Halo Rotisserie Air Fryer Oven VDF127 — Instruction Manual (PDF)
Breville (Newell Brands) — Manufacturer manual (United Kingdom)
Relied on for: That an oven-style air fryer ships with air-flow racks as its normal cooking surface, and that its own recipes place food on them — establishing that racks are architecture-appropriate in an oven-style cavity.
States this directly
Passage read and verified
Retrieved 2026-08-13 from argos-support.co.uk
Retrieved from Argos's manual library for Argos product 961/3931.
Philips 5000 Series Dual Basket Airfryer with Steam NA55x — User Manual (PDF)
Versuni Netherlands B.V. (Philips Domestic Appliances) — Manufacturer manual (United Kingdom and European Union)
Relied on for: A manufacturer's published loads for its own two-level accessory — 300 g of nuggets above 400 g of fries — against 800 g of fries on one level in the same pan, and the restriction of that accessory to the larger pan.
States this directly
Passage read and verified
Retrieved 2026-10-09 from dam.versuni.com
8 great accessories for your air fryer
Which? — Reference work, archive or contemporaneous report (United Kingdom)
Relied on for: That stackable racks are currently described to buyers as doubling an air fryer's capacity, in an article that states its laboratory did not test them. Cited as the claim examined, not as support for it.
States this directly
Passage read and verified
Retrieved 2026-10-09 from which.co.uk
AirfryerHQ assessment of airflow, element proximity and material behaviour
AirfryerHQ — Calculated or inferred by AirfryerHQ (Not jurisdictional)
Relied on for: The mechanism this is read against: forced convection, boundary-layer disruption and a small chamber.
AirfryerHQ's interpretation of what it says
Citation checked — the document exists and is described correctly
AirfryerHQ sells nothing and earns nothing here. There are no affiliate links, no sponsored placements and no brand recommendations anywhere in this section. The verdict above is what we think, arrived at before anybody asked whether it would sell anything.
Can it go in? The material questions
- Metal tins, trays and cookware — Explicitly permitted by one manufacturer for baking, and recommended by three others whenever a batter is involved.
- Aluminium foil — One manufacturer prohibits it and says why. Another puts it in its own recipe. Your manual decides, and this page explains what each of them means.
If this is why you are here
- Food cooks unevenly — Airflow is not reaching every surface equally, and where it does not, food does not cook.
- Food is not crisping — Almost always moisture that cannot get out, and almost always because there is too much in the basket. One manufacturer says so directly.
Cooking pages this affects
Worth reading
Others in this category
You probably do not need this
Dehydrating rack
Only useful if your machine goes low enough to dehydrate at all, and most of them do not.