They’re literally small convection ovens rebranded. They’re not magic.
To be happy…
Submitted 2 weeks ago by CaffeineTwo@piefed.world to [deleted]
https://media.piefed.world/posts/Og/bJ/OgbJlTwoeohHMWQ.jpeg
Comments
terranoid@lemmy.cafe 2 weeks ago
dan@upvote.au 2 weeks ago
They’re impingement ovens, not convection ovens.
Hazel@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
So it’s an overkill blowdrier, got it.
surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Things don’t need to be revolutionary to be life changing. Could I have used the convection oven for this one slice of pizza? Sure. Would I ever? Hell no.
But yeah, microwaves really are neat. We’re going to fling these electrons around in these very specific magnetic fields and out pops light you can’t see.
Souvenir@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
A more efficient and quicker small convection oven you can easily buy for 30 bucks and pop in a cupboard when you’re not using it.
Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it 2 weeks ago
The price really depends where you live, eg: where i live an air fryer can cost 20-40€ , a microwave is often on the 50€ price range
DeLancre@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
When I was working in repairs, we got orders sometimes to repair those microwaves. And the only thing that I learned is that if magnetron (coolest technology name in my opinion) died, then it similar to TVs with dead display — price of repair would be basically close to price of whole device.
Souvenir@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Meh.
I have an old NEFF microwave. Fixing that involved popping in some new mica paper for a few bucks.
cinoreus@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Microwaves are a prime example that if something’s cool doesn’t mean it’s good for it’s job.
Btw, the part of microwave that turns electricity into microwave is called magnetron. Freaking magnetron. I didn’t know real inventions could have names as cool as that.
captainlezbian@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Microwaves are amazing, but they’re best for liquids or things that can be stirred and don’t need to crisp up.
kestrel7_7@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Microwaves are cool in theory but in practice the food is almost always soggy and mushy. Maybe I just don’t know how to use them, but I’m rarely happy with the result. Even reheating leftovers, I’d rather do in a saucepan
wjrii@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
While I had to learn that Microwave ovens don’t magically work on the resonant frequency of water molecules, they do work by inciting motion in dipole molecules, and water with those little H atoms hanigng off to one side is dipolar, so microwaves are rather good at heating them up. This means that you’re sort of working in the same realm of temperatures and humidity as steaming or even boiling, for good or (mostly) for ill.
Heating frozen food specifically engineered to come out okay from a microwave? Well, it’ll come out okay. Re-heating soup or re-steaming tamales (mmmmm. tamales…)? Pretty decent. Heating up anything that wasn’t meant to have “wetness” as a major part of its mouthfeel will go poorly, often disastrously if you don’t try to work around the microwave’s limitations.
Souvenir@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Great for vegetables, IME.
architect@thelemmy.club 2 weeks ago
I almost never use my microwave or oven because of the air frier.
TheRealKuni@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
Microwaves are cool, sure, but they have a completely different utility. If I want a small amount of food hot, it goes in the microwave. If I want a small amount of food crispy, it goes in the air fryer. If I want a large amount of food hot or crispy it goes in the oven, with convection on or off depending on the end goal.
Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
If you want crispy, heat with the air fryer.
If want moist and hot, use a microwave.
Don’t cook soup in the air frier or toast in the microwave.
rain_enjoyer@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
you know what would be a lot cooler? same thing not needing electricity (concentrated solar can get hot enough and heat can be stored in hot oil)
Bruhh@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
But it wasn’t sunny today and I wanted fries :(
howrar@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
You can store the heat in oil, but how do you transfer it into cooking oil? It’s not like you can store it directly in cooking oil since it breaks down with heat.
daggermoon@piefed.world 2 weeks ago
affordable housing and healthcare
snoons@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Best I can give you is corporate pittance for menial labour.
raspirate@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The first night I owned an air fryer, I tossed in some shitty frozen tater tots that had been in my freezer for way too long, and they came out so delightfully crispy that I cooked two more servings.
I realized immediately that this would be a problem. It’s a bit too easy to make delicious stuff that’s pretty bad for me. I nearly made myself sick of wings within like 2 weeks. That was a close one. Fuckin love wings.
DoctorWhoDMC@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I got rid of my home deep fryer for health reasons. It is dangerously easy, cheap, and quick to make quality fries…
kayohtie@pawb.social 2 weeks ago
But it’s also quick and cheap to make absurdly-delicious roasted veg.
My favorite: take a bag of frozen broccoli florets, mist it with some oil (it’ll harden on them), sprinkle with some salt and pepper and toss in it at 400 degrees F for like, 15 minutes. Halfway through I pull the basket and drain the accumulated water in the bottom to increase browning.
Delicious, crispy, I can devour an entire pound of broccoli that way in like 5 minutes.
polle@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
airfrier
The appliance that mostly everybody already had under another name (at least in Europe). An then they renamed it as another thing and everyone bought one. The marketing worked.
makeshift0546@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
Not it’s not and I’m tired of the nerds screeching.
A Ferrari is very different from a Honda.
Air friers have a much lower total volume while moving a much higher volume of air. The effect is far more pronounced and cook times are halved.
ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Being smaller also means cleaning is much easier.
polle@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Well, the only person who is screeching are you with your car manufacturer comparison, which does not make any sense in that context. As if airfrying is ferrari and ofen with a fan is honda?
PieMePlenty@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I think its the small volume that makes it worth it (faster to heat up, efficient) so I can see why people would buy one.
I personally don’t have one because I don’t exactly value my time. I throw my food in the cold oven and set it to whatever and check back later. I don’t have any motivation what so ever to care about pre heating or having my food ready 10 minutes earlier.
Calfpupa@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Most countries have ovens
affenlehrer@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Umluftofen!
iamericandre@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Same with the electric kettle. I remember being so surprised half the world had been using them for years.
architect@thelemmy.club 2 weeks ago
What are you talking about? An oven? An oven cooks like shit compared to an air frier.
Vespair@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
The first commercial convention oven was invented in the 1940s. The first prototype of the general concept happened in the 1910s.
Even if you mean the modern household tabletop convenience version, the Nuwave convection oven was already an informercial staple by 2003.
WoodScientist@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
When talking about air fryers, my husband once rightly pointed out that air fryers are just countertop convection ovens.
I walked over to him, held my index finger up to his lips, and said to hmm, “shhh. Air fryer. AIR FRYER.” 🤣
mechoman444@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yes. And I think it’s important to understand exactly what a convection oven actually is.
At its most basic, it’s an oven with a heating element and a fan that circulates hot air around the cooking chamber. That’s it. The circulating air improves heat transfer and helps food cook and brown more evenly.
Now, manufacturers have increasingly started calling a particular implementation of convection an “air fryer” and charging a premium for it, as though they’ve invented an entirely new cooking technology. They haven’t. Convection cooking has been around for decades.
An air fryer is essentially a compact, highly optimized convection oven: hot air is circulated rapidly around the food, usually with a basket or perforated tray that allows that air to contact more of the food’s surface.
So when you’re shopping for a range and you see one advertised as having an “Air Fry” function, don’t automatically assume you’re getting some revolutionary new appliance. In many cases, you’re paying extra for a marketing term applied to a convection system that has existed for generations.
OozingPositron@feddit.cl 2 weeks ago
Wouldn’t the presence of a fan turn them into a forced convection oven?
filcuk@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
Companies like Ninja charge premium for everything. Air fryers are stupid cheap otherwise, which makes sense for what they are (heating element, fan and a drawer).
HerbGrower@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
Air fryers, and to a lesser extent fan ovens, use a fan to move the air rather than just using air convection currents.
Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
To put it in perspective, that’s just over 100 years out of 4.5 billion the earth has existed. Or 300 million years or so complex life existed (that mostly wouldn’t be able to fathom the core concepts you’d need to know to even understand what having an air fryer means, where I’d consider “figured out that forest fires can contain more delicious food in some places (where intensity is high enough to cook plants and animals but not enough to turn them to charcoal)” to be pretty smart). Or several million that hominids have existed and using stone or better tools. Or several thousand since we figured out how to manage our food production rather than depend on always finding it. Or several hundred since we got much better at harnessing energy.
Also, I’d push back on a) the invention date being more relevant than the mass release date, and b) early convection ovens counting as “air fryers”, so that 100 years should probably also be reduced.
SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
Wait until you find out about microwaves!
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
As I understand microwaves, they are essentially powered by magical runes we trap inside.
0x0@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Hextech
SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
Oh is that it? I always thought there was a little French guy that lived inside the compartment, and when you turn it on, it electrocuted him which caused his little tiny balls to boil inside and he screamed super loud but he was small enough that we couldn’t hear it, and the supersonic screaming agitated the food into being hot on an atomic level.
melsaskca@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Weren’t we frying shit in the air with old cast iron stoves as well?
Airfried@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
We probably did in old Mesopotamia with clay ovens or something.
Souvenir@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
And breathing in fly ash from the coal, which contains increased concentrations of uranium and thorium.
Compared to that an airfryer is a god send.
Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Is an airfryer just a small fan oven?
uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
I think air frying technology isn’t so grand as a stable, functioning society.
Essentially we got fucked once Falwell figured out anti-abortion-access radicals will vote against their own interests. It didn’t hurt that white America really hates blacks.
Anyhow, that helped to get Reagan in to power and the economy turned K-shaped and never recovered, and at that point liberal democracy in the US was doomed.
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Agree to disagree. A society would be fine, but I’ll take the air fryers.
kandoh@reddthat.com 2 weeks ago
I haven’t used my oven at all since I got the air fryer.
bountygiver@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Oven still gets the last laugh when you learn what air fryers are
boonhet@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
And as he says in that video, air fryers are much better at making things crispy quickly
Turns out you don’t need such a huge amount of empty space for a lot of things and once you get rid of it, it works much better
Though the name is still stupid. There’s no frying going on
spicehoarder@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Yeah, but an oven heats up your whole house when turned on…
locahosr443@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
They are good for quick small batch stuff, but way less efficient than modern fan oven for anything bigger. Once you run for long enough to mitigate heating the ovens larger thermal mass, oven always wins.
ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
ikidd@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
I hope that’s real brick behind that. I’ve seen some pretty gnarly damage from people using their BBQs too close to the side of the house.
BeMoreCareful@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I hate that I ever, or will ever, eat food that didn’t involve this. What is it?
ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
A wok burner. It’s used a lot in Southeast Asia, and is specially associated to Cantonese cuisine.
That being said, fried rice is universal, and you might be able to buy or set up something similar yourself.
fyzzlefry@retrolemmy.com 2 weeks ago
Healthcare
Naich@piefed.world 2 weeks ago
Frying with air = baking.
dan@upvote.au 2 weeks ago
Baking is letting the food sit in hot air for a while. Air frying is blowing the heat directly onto the food. They also vent the air to release excess steam and moisture, which is why air fried things are crisper.
ftbd@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
You mean like the convection oven I use for baking?
QueenHawlSera@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
Airfryers make me feel old because I don’t know how to use one.
ms_lane@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
It’s just an oven optimised for airflow.
Even fan-forced, a normal oven recirculates the same air around, which carries moisture evaporated from whatever you’re cooking.
Air Fryer is just a much smaller oven, with a similar sized element and a bigger fan, that also has an exhaust, so moisture-laden air is expelled from the unit and the air hitting the food is always hot and dry.
But all-in-all it’s just a type of oven and you can absolutely use one as a regular little oven or if you crack the door a little and turn the heat up a bit, you can use regular fan-forced oven as an ‘air fryer’
czl@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
I used to hate air-fryers. “They still need some oil, it’s not really FRYING ANYTHING WITH THE AIR”.
My parents got me one for Christmas and I didn’t show it, but I was livid. I do t need this shit.
Then I realized it’s just a small oven. And now I love my small, really quick heating, slightly less easy to clean oven that can make passable fries.
beejboytyson@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Didn’t not expect this post to turn into “how it’s made” about air fryers.
FreddiesLantern@leminal.space 2 weeks ago
And with the results of climate change going on, you don’t even need an airfryer anymore. Just a bucket of air will do the trick.
Thebeardedsinglemalt@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
“I was born in the wrong generation” says person who just discovered The Beatles or Led Zeppelin
jlow@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
Cool, where can I trade in my air-fryer for a capitalism-free world that isn’t ai-enhanced descend into fascism while the planet is burning?
chunes@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
why do people like air fryers more than toaster ovens? i don’t get it
lemmygarden@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
I’ve never tried an air fryer. I don’t have the counter space for one and am concerned I’d eat more unhealthly more often if I owned one but it’s possible that’s not true.
FiniteBanjo@feddit.online 2 weeks ago
I’d like to not be reliant on a small handful of corporations and cheap plastic devices, tbh.
Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Yes but can you afford anything to fry with this air?
lemmygarden@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
We’re air frying the world too
wuffah@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Also, check out the size of that absolute fucking loomster in the back of the basket.
If they can make a crinkle-cut fry like that, anything is possible. If this is what we get, imagine what the military has!
HerbGrower@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
I prefer to fry potatoes, but you can fry shit if you like. Just keep it in your air fryer.
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
My grandma could do that already.
UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Housing and Healthcare
0x0@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Stefan_S_from_H@piefed.zip 2 weeks ago
One of my best investments in the last few years.
rustyfish@piefed.world 2 weeks ago
I want to gather the boys with the Normandy and get hammered on Tuchanka. Did I ask for too much?
Take your hot air machine and shove it up your ass.
slaacaa@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
We can fry shit with the air, so nice
Image
Malica@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Alps look ok!
arrow74@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
The glass is half not boiled kinda guy
Redjard@reddthat.com 2 weeks ago
20° where there used to be glaciers :|
beejboytyson@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Hannibal panting with excitement