Is an Air Fryer just a Convection Oven? Let's put it to the test.

is an airfryer just a convection oven scientifically yes but there is more to it than that so today we're gonna put the two to the test air fresh have become very popular over the past several years for getting crispy food without the use of excess oil I've been interested in the practical application of air fryers namely what does it do well what does it do not so well and should you consider adding one as an appliance to your kitchen arsenal air fryers work by convection which is the heat transfer by mass motion of a fluid such as air or water basically hot air is constantly circulated around the food which eliminates cool spots cooks food faster and allows the mayor or Browning reaction to occur this is what leads us to crispy and delicious food that we know and love convection ovens work the same way on a bigger scale as larger fans are going to circulate the air around the oven so yes an air fryer is a convection heat source just like the oven with a convection setting but there's two questions that I want to answer today number one is does an air fryer cook food faster than a convection oven number two does an air fryer make food crispier than a convection oven today we have three food items homemade chicken bites some roasted vegetables in everyone's favorite potato wedges these are going to be tested across two different experiments number one is cooking the food items at the same temperature and the same amount of time then number two is cooking at the same temperature and to the same doneness once the foods are done cooking we're going to answer these questions based on their texture number one how crispy is it by hand feel scale one through five number two how crispy is it by mouthfeel scale one through five and number three visually how golden brown and crispy does it look scale one through five the taste this will be blindfolded and presented both options then we will switch places and do the same before we dive right into the experiments though I do want to talk about how food gets crispy in the first place and some general rules that you can incorporate regardless of your cooking method getting through crispy is basically a dehydration process free water evaporates from the food being converted to steam at 212 degrees Fahrenheit with most of the free water evaporated the mayo or browning react we'll take place rapidly at these high temperatures this is what gives our food that golden brown and crispy texture we love given that information here are some basic guidelines that you can incorporate to make your foods crisp better number one drier is better since we need the free water to evaporate the faster that happens the faster browning will start to occur patting dry or wet vegetables like potatoes or adding a dry coating like flour or cornstarch to chicken works well for better browning number two do not crowd the food and I cannot stress this enough since the water needs to evaporate the more space between the food the more space the water has to evaporate and the faster it will do so if the food is crowded the temperature will stay lower for longer or may not Brown at all these guidelines were held consistent for all of our tests we made to ensure ample space was between the food that we were cooking and that all the surfaces were dry as possible let's look to answer that first question with experiment number one [Music] since the airfryer is smaller and has less space to heat up you would assume that it does so much quicker than a convection oven however the convection oven could have a more powerful fan so we need to put it to the test as far as preheating goes it took the convection oven 12 minutes and 45 seconds to preheat from zero to 400 degrees Fahrenheit in the airfryer's case most recipes will not have you even preheat the air fryer before you put your food in however in our case we thought it was best to let that come to temperature at least 3 to 5 minutes before adding in the raw food first let's discuss the time controlled test we took the chicken bites vegetables and potato wedges and prepare them the exact same way roughly the same size we raise the temperature to 400 degrees Fahrenheit and cook them the exact same times 12 minutes for the chicken ten minutes for the vegetables and 25 total minutes with a flip for the potatoes we pulled each one out and performed our texture tests of touch mouthfeel and visual and here are the results as you can see after 12 minutes the chicken bites were noticeably crisper than its airfryer counterparts after the same 12 minutes for the roasted vegetables it was hard to tell the difference but overall the airfryer turned out a more crisp lastly the potato wedges were essentially the same in terms of crispness from this there was a noticeable difference in the chicken bytes but everything else fared the same now instead of controlling the time let's look at the doneness results for this test we pulled the food when it reached our desired doneness when controlling for this the chicken bites the roasted vegetables and the potato wedges were all really close in terms of crispness it was really hard to discern the difference between them the roasted vegetables though were the biggest one where we could tell a difference but again not by much based on the results we find that whether controlling for time or doneness a convection oven and an air fryer will produce about the same levels of crispness based on these results you may conclude that you shouldn't buy an airfryer but before I talk on that let's revisit something first so if the experiments done and the results tally let's go back and look at those questions we wanted to answer number one does an airfryer cook food faster than a convection oven based on our results in a airfryer does not cook food faster than a convection oven when food was cooked at the same temperature and time the cris penis was essentially the same and in some cases like the chicken bites it was actually slightly more crispy if factoring in the preheating time you will have other things to do for around 10 minutes but for as far as when the food is in the oven one does not cook faster than the other number two does an air fryer make crispier food than a convection oven again based on the results an air fryer does not make crispy or food than a convection oven when the food was cooked to the preferred doneness it was very hard to differentiate between the two both the convection oven and the airfryer made food that was plenty crispy now that we've answered those two questions should you consider buying an air fryer for your home kitchen let's us out some pros and cons for the pros it's an alternative for a convection oven it uses less energy than the convection oven and it also has less preheating time additionally I would argue that it's easier to clean as for cons it's an extra appliance that you have to store and it can be expensive depending on the model you choose and you can also our limit it into small qualities of food that you couldn't cook personally I don't feel the need to purchase an airfryer because if I want crispy food I have no problem deep-frying it or achieving those results in the convex oven I also prefer the option of being able to cook larger quantities of food in the oven that being said an air fryer could be great if you don't have a convection oven maybe you cook for one to two people and actually having that smaller quantities is actually a benefit to you and the speedy preheating time means you can do some other things around the house that you've been meaning to get done so even though I will not be purchasing an airfryer if it helps get more people in the kitchen and excited about cooking that is an appliance that I can support it's safe to say that there's much worse kitchen tools out there [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Ethan Chlebowski

Views: 1,182,562

Keywords: Cook with E, air fryer, convection oven, is an air fryer worth it, is an air fryer a convection oven, how do air fryers work, air fryer chicken, air fryer roasted vegetables, convection, oven, how does an air fryer actually work, oven baked chicken, roasted vegetables, air fryer vs convection oven, should you buy an air fryer

Id: 9sTwQ2xewIk

Length: 7min 41sec (461 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 15 2020