Guides

Reviewed arguments about technique, choice and use — including where the appliance came from, what it is genuinely good and bad at, and what can honestly be said about the health claim it was sold on.

• Do you need to preheat an air fryer?

  The manufacturers disagree, in writing, in their own manuals. That is the answer, and this page shows you which of them is talking about a machine like yours.

• What size air fryer do you actually need?

  Advertised litres are close to useless. What decides the answer is the area available for a single layer.

• Where the manufacturers disagree, and what to do about it

  Four live disagreements in this catalogue, each with both positions published and neither averaged away.

• Air fryer error codes

  There is no cross-brand code table, there cannot be one, and this page explains why before it tells you what the manufacturers who publish anything actually say.

• Where the air fryer came from

  Not invented in 2010, not invented by Philips, and not really a fryer. The checkable version of a story most sites get wrong.

• What air fryers are good at, and what they are bad at

  An honest list, with the conditions attached. Most claims about air fryers are true for one or two portions and false for a family meal.

• Are air fryers healthier? What can honestly be said

  Less oil than deep frying is a real and narrow claim. Almost everything built on top of it is not, and one genuine chemical question is worth knowing about.

• What actually matters when choosing an air fryer

  Four things matter, several advertised things do not, and the number printed largest on the box is the least useful one there.

• Repair, replace, or stop using it

  There is no honest average lifespan, and there are clear answers to the three questions that actually come up.

• Replacing a part, and what to ask for

  Not one of the instruction manuals we have read publishes a spare-part reference. Two manufacturers publish them in their own parts listings, and for the rest here is how to get one anyway.

• Looking after an air fryer

  Five minutes a week and one check a month. Almost all of it is about grease, because almost everything that goes wrong with an air fryer starts as grease.

• Where to put it, and where not to

  The commonest placement mistake is the one that is hardest to undo, and it is about where the hot air comes out rather than where the machine sits.

• Smoke, grease and smells: one problem, three symptoms

  Smoke, a lingering smell and a machine that seems to have got worse are usually the same fat in the same place, and one of them is an emergency.

• How much electricity does an air fryer use?

  Not what the label says. The number on the back is the most it can draw, not what it uses — and the gap between those two is the whole subject.

• Is an air fryer cheaper to run than an oven?

  For one or two portions, decisively. For a full meal, it depends on how many times you have to run it — and that is the term nobody includes.

• Measuring what your own air fryer uses

  Half an hour and a plug-in monitor replaces every assumption on this site with a number about your kitchen. One safety check first.

• What litres actually mean, and why they mislead

  Litres measures the box, not the cooking. The number that would answer your question is published by nobody, and this page explains what to do about that.

• Which air fryer specifications actually matter

  Four things change how a machine cooks. Most of the rest is comparison-table filler, and the most important number is not published at all.

• What the settings on an air fryer actually do

  Most buttons are a stored time and temperature. A few are a genuinely different way of heating, a few change only the timing — and for many, the manufacturer does not say which.