Tower T17005 Health Manual Air Fryer Oven with Rapid Air Circulation and 30 Min Timer, 3.2 Litre, Black

This is a review for the Tower Dual Basket VORTX Model: T17138.This is my first experience purchasing and/or using an air fryer.I received my air-fryer next day delivery6 GOOD REASONS TO BUY THIS 10.4 Litre MODEL? (EVEN IF YOU LIVE ALONE).Of all the air-fryers available on Amazon I chose this large 10.4 Dual Basket fryer because :-1. It's large capacity allows roasting a whole chicken and/ or a joint Roast + veg.2. It will cook for 1 or 6 people!3. The 8 Presets allow instant setup of Temperature and Cooking Time at a press of a button.BUT these and any presets will require manual adjustment according to size and quantity of some cooking ingredients. Eg. A small single portion of chips/fries will require less time than large quantities. And skinny fries will require less time than chunky chips.E.G. I adjusted the Chips preset to 8 minutes for a small portion of frozen chips.On the chips packaging it suggested 12 minutes but 8 minutes was enough in the air fryer.Other Tower models of air fryer offer more or fewer Presets, which is neither good nor bad as ANY preset on ANY air-fryer may have to be adjusted.Some recipes require ingredients to be shaken or stirred, so, it will be necessary to withdraw baskets anyway. And if you use silicone liners, then these will block the view of contents in an air-fryer basket with a window.4. This Tower Dual Basket Air Fryer has 'Dual' and 'Sync' functions which allows either batch cooking of same ingredients at same temperature in both baskets OR you can set each basket it's own temperature and time and select 'Sync' to programme the air fryer to complete cooking of both baskets at the same time.5. The 'Shake' function will give an audible and visual alert half way through the cooking process to shake a basket to improve even browning of contents eg chips.'SHAKE' FUNCTIONThe 'Shake' function is useful but not essential as frequent shaking is recommended. And if you're sitting in the next room you can set a timer on your smartphone or Alexa or a manual timer, to remind you to shake the basket/s and stir if necessary.This Tower Air fryer is a nice looking, well made, piece of kit, and is slightly smaller than my Combi microwave oven.6. 3 YEAR WARRANTY/GUARANTEEI have peace of mind having registred the air fryer on the Tower website to claim the 3 year Guarantee. (NB This does not include accidental or damage caused by improper use).RECOMMENDED ACCESSORIESWhen I ordered my air fryer some Amazon reviews mentioned the value of buying silicone liners to make cleaning easier.So, I bought a Combi pack that included 2 x Silicone baskets, stainless steel wire racks and kebab skewers, silicone tipped tongs, and a pair of silicone finger tip gloves for lifting out the silicone baskets.These accessories are definitely worth adding to your purchase.NB The Tower air fryer baskets DO include toasting racks, and both racks and baskets are non-stick. However, removable silicone baskets are much easier to clean.The largest silicone basket inserts I could find are designed for 9Litre fryers BUT these are an ideal size when cooking for1-2 people.TOWER BASKETS ARE NOT DISHWASHER FRIENDLYThese Tower baskets must NOT be put in a dishwasher. Handwashing is easy-peazy anyway, and definitely not a deal breaker.SMELLThe Tower User Manual points out that there will be a strong burning smell on first use of the air-fryer. I therefore followed the advice of an Amazon reviewer and set both compartments of the fryer to cook empty without food at 200C for 10 minutes. This did cause a strong smell associated with first use of a new hot kitchen appliance. I have since cooked with the air-fryer with no further smell.USER/INSTRUCTION MANUALProgramming the air fryer is not difficult, but it does feel a little intimidating at first sight, simply because it's a new appliance.Unfortunately the User Manual layout looks overwhelming simply because it's poorly laid out with blocks of text that are poorly formatted. Consequently I've used a highlighter pen to highlight the most important information.A major improvement in the User Manual woukd be to include more diagrammes and photos. The saying very much applies here, "a picture is worth a thousand words".Pictures and bullet points, and an accessible step by step video need to be made available with the air-fryer.Also the QR code links to the Tower website do not take to you to recipes and other helpful videos. The Tower website has nothing helpful to say about this Model of air-fryer.Consequently, there are likely to be customer complaints and Returns requests simply because the instructions are either unclear or incomplete.Frustratingly, there are descriptions of each function button EXCEPT the 'Shake' button, and I couldn't find information about this on Google or YouTube.But, by experimenting I discovered how to activate and turn off the 'Shake' function which I described above.I now feel that I have a good grasp of how to programme and use my air-fryer and I'm impressed and pleased by it's performance, design, quality of construction, and aesthetic appearance. I unhesitatingly recommend this air-fryer even if you're a singleton.

Love this Air Fryer - so good I bought one for my sister and she loves it too!Food cooks easily and no mess as such as food and spits'n'spats stay inside - food comes out moist and tender. This air fryer has renewed my interest in food and makes cooking so much easier for me and so much more economical … a win win situation.I have cooked salmon, chops, home made chicken and pork schnitzel, home made beef burgers and with cheese, cheese on toast even tried various cheeses inside bread like cheddar/mozzarella/smoked/brie, muffins using paper cases in aluminium cups (no mess ad easy to clean), small sponges - I bought the 4inch cake tin for these although I think the 6inch would fit (not actually tried though) also used these cake tins for home made chicken and Brie pies and beef and mushroom pies - all delicious. lots of recipes easily available on-line etc.I bought a spritzer for the olive oil I cook with and I use a tea-light candle metal dish warmer to keep the food hot if I am cooking for more than two of us or if say cooking chips and then schnitzel - part cook chips keep warm, cook schnitzel swap over keeping meat warm and finishing off chips - using a little imagination, common sense and trying things out works wonders! With toasted sandwiches where the filling can get runny as with cheese, I use cocktail sticks either end to hold the top in place. Another tip that might help, sometimes I use a little water in the bottom which helps to hold onto the fat - not too much as you don't want to steam your food???Love my Tower Air Fryer - well made, easy to handle and clean, tall rather than wide so takes up less room on the kitchen surface - perfect and out ways my expectations!

This device works well and as my first Air Fryer found it easy to use. My only complaint is that the internal coating of the pan is not very durable. Only using it once a week, the coating came off within a year. The pan was replaced and the same thing with that. The third pan lasted less than the others, meaning I'd had 3 pans within 2 years. Apparently the Pans do not come under their Warranty. Dissatisfied with this I binned it. Something that goes again the grain as I don't like disposing of things that can be repaired, but this was just not practical or economical to keep replacing the pan every 10 months.

Easy to use features on this large stylish dual drawer air fryer which produces great cooking results and is very easy to clean afterwards.

Love it all, size is perfect, easy to use and I’ve used it almost every day I’ve had it.

Being an old fella thought this was yet another gimmick but after my daughter badgered me to get on as a present for her b/day. She has never owned a chip pan so she thought to try one of these instead. Well I was impressed so much I bought one for myself and its a revelation ! It cooks so well and fast , I have been keeping a record of cook times as this is essential to stop under and over cooking.The air fryer is easy to use this one uses a mechanical timer and temp. controller . I tend to warm the fryer first as recommended but generally ignore the timer and use a normal kitchen timer. some say you have to physical the start/timer if its too long to stop it ,no need as soon as you remove the drawer it stops If I have finished cooking and it still has time on it don't put the drawer back in just let the timer wind down on its own and cooling as well this stops and surplus heat cooking on and oils left in the drawer. Easy to clean wipe out surplus oils and add a drop of detergent and hot water and leave a while and brush it out job done.Overall its a great tool for the kitchen and I can't fault it and made my chip fryer almost redundant. Caution though when cooking pastries from frozen spray a little oil on surface and keep the temp. fairly low or pastry cooks/ burns before content cooked, a little care and a digital temp. probe will do the trickPS I have bought an after market wire rack kit for it, doubles the capacity to cook.