ElsieD

I called the Instant people earlier today. When I asked if the fan speed was reduced on dehydrate mode he said no. So, if I put a flower petal in there, the fan would not move it, I asked. That's right, he said. To make a long story short, I still don't know what happens to the air speed on that setting. He kept assuring me that whatever was in the fryer "would not blow up". Huh? I ended up ordering the Instant Vortex with the window and odor filter. My decision came down to the Instant or the Cosori and the Instant won by a hair. I did do frozen fries last night at 400F for the recommended 15 minutes but they weren't all crispy so I gave them another 5. Still some not so crispy ones but better. I think my basket was too full. Doing plain chicken wings ronight.

Reminds me of the time we were at a football game and John's sister, who was having a beer, gave a cheering gesture. The beer landed all over the back of the guy sitting in front of her. Unbelievably, he never noticed.

It seems to me that high fan speed would not be conducive to dehydrating anything that is light as whatever one is trying to hydrate would blow all over the inside of the machine, although that would probably not matter for say, beef jerky.

This was their reply which didn't tell me much. I specifically asked if the fan speed had been lowered for this setting which they did not answer. Thank you for contacting us at Instant Brands, we're happy to help you! Please be informed that the air is just hot enough to dehydrate the food inside and that it is enclosed inside a basket. We hope this helps. Please feel free to reach out to us if you have any more questions or if we can offer you further support.

I wrote to Instant and asked them about the dehydration setting. Will report back.

Me too.

Maybe what we should do is, every time we cook something in an air fryer, post to this thread the time and temperature used. I'd be happy to collect the data and produce a chart, which I would update as time passes.

I'll have another look. I haven't ordered one yet.

@mgaretz thank you for posting that link. Very informative.

If you find recipes on the web do you have to adjust cooking times based on the wattage of the machine? Cosori has a nice little recipe book but my sister says she never uses it. She too looks cooking time and Temps up on the internet.

This is pretty much the same as the one I'm looking at. The one I'm looking at also has something called Odor Erase. I didn't think this video was particularly informative, but then I don't really know what I was expecting. I haven't found any other videos.

Tonight I cooked Johnsonville brats. 10 minutes and they were done and I think they were done before the ten minutes were up. I am officially sold on this thing.

Thank you. I'm pretty sure that if I get one it will be the Instant Clear/Odor etc. I've spent a lot of time looking at the different ones. Does it ours come with a booklet of some sort?

@Kim Shook had me lusting after pound cake. In flipping through the Cosori recipe book I saw a recipe for lemon pound cake so I decided to make one for dessert. The recipe said "small" loaf pan, I tried my appx. 3" x 5" pan and had to transfer the batter to another one because it was too small. Strike one for not being more specific. I followed the instructions and pre-heated the air fryer, and when complete, in went the cake. At 30 minutes, the thing dinged and I tested the cake. My toothpick was wet while the top was in danger of burning. My thermopan read 185F. Strike no. 2. Back in it went for 10 minutes with a piece of foil over the top. At the end of 10 it appeared to be done. I flipped it over to a rack and only 2/3 of it released from the pan. Once cool I discovered that just under the top crust there were still some unbaked spots. Small ones, but still.... the cake tasted fine but we both thought it was overly sweet. The blueberry compote and whipped cream were delicious. Now, I doubt very much that I would ever bake anything in an air fryer and so it really didn't matter, but I thought someone might be interested in how well the baking function worked. It might be nice if some company manufactured one with a window.

I started reading the thread and taking notes and one of my notes says you have a Phillips XL. Phillips is one brand I am looking at. I'll check out your comparison posts, I remember reading them but I'll go back and look at them again.

USA Pans is another. I had a problem with one of my 13" Pullman pans and they replaced it. I also got to keep the one I complained about

Hard boiled eggs? How did you make the roasted potatoes? Were they crispy?

Mmmm good! I'll have some of that with macerated strawberries and whipped cream on top!

Looking forward to reading about the result.

One of the reasons I am asking my questions is because I have both the BSOA and the CSO and I am wondering what the air fryer will do for me that my current set up won't. I use both of them to such an extent that I rarely use my regular oven. But, and this may be due to the operator (me) or my current machine, but I don't like the air fryer function on the BSOA. I have room for an air fryer so that isn't an issue.

I have a Zo also. Love that machine.

I do buy a loaf of bread occasionally, mainly what is labeled "Belgian Bread" as it makes great grilled cheese sandwiches. The bread crisps up really well and stays crispy. DH will not eat whole wheat type breads, other than Dave's Killer Bread (thanks to @Smithy). So I bake mainly white bread, make the dough in the bread machine but bake in the oven. The fruit bread I make using my KA for the dough and then the S & F method. I make this as per Peter Reinhart. Once baked and cooled I slice and freeze them. I only make these breads when the loaf is almost finished.

Thanks. I did shake them several times and as they warmed they were sticking togethe. I tried to separate them a bit but they did not want to cooperate.

We did up some chicken wings from Costco, brand name Le Cage that we were happy with. I want to get some fresh ones and see how those turn out. Do any of you use the pre-sets? I asked my sister about that and she says she never uses them.

The sweet potatoes I tried were Alexia straight cut. I have a few left, barely enough to cover the bottom of the tray. I'll do those up to see if part of my problem was quantity.