6-Quart Instant Vortex Plus Air Fryer Expired

I have an Instant Vortex and it's a beast. Changed my view on air fryers. As far as trays or bucket, they have their pros and cons. Bucket is easier to dump everything in and then toss midway through cooking cycle. I also have a Ninja Foodi Oven (typical tray) with air fry ability. The Instant is so much quicker and better as far as air frying goes. Much better even-ness in browning.

It really does depend on what your cooking. Obviously cakes and cookies aren't the best for air fryer, but they can be used. Bucket air fryers get hotter and circulate air quicker, great for roasted veggies and meats, frozen food items, etc.

They are both a little annoying to Clean. You have to wash the big bucket every time and the tray air fryers are also annoying to clean the bottom if there's anything with crumbs. With the bucket you can throw the whole thing in the sink. Fryers with trays the insides need to be wiped.

What great timing - I've literally been planning and waiting on buying this once it hit a sale just two days ago.

For basket vs tray - BASKET ALL THE WAY. I purchased the Sur La table tray air fryer combo from Costco, which I 'upgraded' from the Gourmia basket and had huge regrets. Although it comes with a basket, you cant shake your food halfway during cook time because of the holes underneath will make all the little crumbs of your food fall onto the counter or the floor. A catch basket for my air fryer is a huge must.

Thanks for the post! in for one

Buckets vs trays. Which is better? I guess it depends on what you plan on cooking? Definite advantages to bucket style for Nachos and fries.

I've only used an air fryer once and returned it but rethinking getting one.

I say bucket all the way. We had another 6 qt Instant Vortex model that just bit the dust. We had it for less then 2 years, but it was a hand me down. That being said, I'm not sure it lasted 3 years total which is a bit of a red flag to me to buy Vortex again, but since I wasn't involved in the purchase of the first I'm giving them another chance because I really really liked the machine.

The only real problems we had with it (and BTW it was almost an identical model to this without the window) were:

1) The little silicon nubbins on the removable tray wore out after we had it for less than a year. They started to degrade and I needed to order new ones which also seemed to get pretty messed up in about the same amount of time. You can replace these (you can usually find them online for less than $10) and replacing them is not a necessity. You want some semblance of them on there or the tray will scratch the bucket. But other people might have more of a tolerance for there level of degradation than I.

2) Started getting residue that couldn't be removed from the tray. I'm not sure how much was on there before we got it. I think they say not to use any non-oil sprays, but honestly I might not have read the book. Compared to my sister's tray fryer mine still looked really good, so maybe i have unrealistic expectations for how spotless the bucket should continue to look.

Anyway, about a month ago when it bit the dust I bought this:

https://www.costco.com/sur-la-tab...53149.html

I didn't like the idea of what looked more like a glorified convection oven then an air fryer. But what sold me was all the attachments (including bucket and shelves) as well as my sister replaced her bucket fryer with this and said she loved it.

I didn't.

For one, it doesn't cook as hot. For instance all the fryers pretty much go up to 400 max. I had frozen tater tots in this one for like 20 minutes and they still weren't really crispy. My Instant Vortex would have had them burnt to a crisp at that point. I could tell with other things too - they just took longer and didn't get as crisp as I wanted.

Most of the attachments are a gimmick. The kebab rotisserie was a mess and a fail to use.
I thought I would use the bucket instead of the shelves, but it had multiple issues: For one, it had holes in it, which made cleanup worse on the inside of the oven (had to clean drip tray too). Also it had a removable handle which wasn't very sturdy and after using it to shake a basket full of fries a few times I didn't think it would last.

Despite stating it is almost twice as large (13qt vs 6qt) you really won't get that usable space for most stuff. It's true that using the shelves allows you to stack things but there are drawbacks there too: They cook unevenly and the top tray will drip on the bottom (depending on what you make). In my old one I could fit 4 burgers in the bucket. The bucket on this one was smaller and so I needed to put them in 2 trays, so the upper ones dripped on the lower ones which all dripped down into the drip tray. The "new" nonstick coating was super easy to clean, but I don't know how long it will hold up and then you are cleaning 3 trays instead of one bucket. Plus, the shelves have holes in them so if you pull one out to flip a burger the grease drips everywhere outside the oven.

To me, it boils down to this:
1) The true basket air fryers cook better than the ones with shelves which are really glorified convection ovens.
2) Baskets are superior to shelves in most instances, especially if you are cooking things that drip. So unless you have a specific need for one that can fit a rotisserie or you want to cook bigger batches of things that don't drip (and can't be tossed which you can easily do in a bucket to rotate), you should go with a bucket fryer.

I'm glad I came here to SD to check and found this deal, I've just ordered it and this other one I got from Costco is going back as it has made me from loving an air fryer to tolerating it.

Have you looked into ninja? That seems to be top one in terms of cleanup and overall customer satisfaction according to Amazon reviews at least. They have 4.8 stars and 100k+ reviews on their premiere unit while this one has 4.5 stars and way less reviews. Both are around the same price now so I'm unsure which to get.

Do you think the dual trays on the ninja are necessary? Haven't pulled the trigger yet because I can't decide if it's worth it

The lower ratings on this unit are due to it being a multi listing with the 'toaster oven' style unit which appears to have some quality issues. The 'basket' air fryer units have much higher reviews and don't have the issues the rack units have. Check the 1 star reviews, the majority of them are for the toaster oven. I'm also not sure where you're seeing 100k+ reviews for a Ninja air fryer, their highest reviewed product is at 51k. Likewise that product you're comparing it to is a 4 qt unit for $20 more, so twice the price per qt as this unit. The 5.5 qt Ninja unit is $130 and has less reviews than this one, if review volume is something you actually care about at this scale (and probably has the same or lower score if you removed the toaster oven score from the overall score on this unit).

I think it's a specific use case for 2 trays. I don't think i've ever used 2 trays, so I can't speak from experience. More food, means longer cook time, and less of a "frying" effect. The Ninja or typical oven layout is is more versatile and a little larger, but if you want air frying ability, go with a bucket air fryer. The buckets gets hotter, faster, and you get a better result.

Overall the Ninja isn't any better than a typical range oven with a convection mode. I'd rather fire up the ninja than the large range oven, it's just more accesible and quick, but both of them don't match the bucket air fryer.