VORTX AIR FRYING TECHNOLOGY Exclusive to Tower Air Fryers, Vortx technology rapidly circulates hot air around food, cooking up to 30% faster than a conventional oven. Vortx also cooks food with a delicious crispy texture and because little or no oil is required, it’s much healthier too! Lose the fat not the flavour with Vortx Air Frying Technology
DUO BASKET TECHNOLOGY: Two cooking baskets are better than one! Complete with two large 5.2L baskets, providing ultimate air frying versatility. Use one basket for smaller portion cooking or both baskets at the same time to cook full crispy and healthy meals for families up to 6 people
SYNC FUNCTION: When cooking different foods with different cooking times in each basket, the Sync function will do the thinking for you. At the touch of a button, Sync will control cook times so that both baskets finish cooking at the same time
DUAL COOK FUNCTION: The Dual Cook key will expertly match cooking settings so that you can cook twice as much food in one go, perfect for larger portions or full family meals
3 YEAR GUARANTEE: Trusted Tower quality with a standard 1 year guarantee and optional 2 year extension, subject to product registration online
7 reviews for Tower T17138 Vortx Elite 10.4L Dual Basket Air Fryer with Sync Finish, 1700W, Graphite with Chrome Accents
Rated 5 out of 5
Jennie Ambury –
This thing is huge much bigger than I was expecting, the capacity in each draw is amazing and works great
Rated 5 out of 5
michelle holtom –
This is for the 1350W 3.2 litre version. I was sceptical about this fryer but I wanted to dump my conventional deep fat fryer and its smelly and expensive and unhealthy oil demands whilst still cooking great tasting fresh chips, etc. This one came up in an Amazon deal so I jumped on it, prepared to return it if it didn’t live up to the claims.
It does perfect chips every time with nothing more than a light spray of oil and 10-12 minutes on the timer, without bothering to pre-heat in any way. Food actually tastes better than when cooked in the old deep fat way. Some of the frozen stuff like oven chips and onion rings already have an oil coating but you can do fresh versions just as easily. Put the prepared food in a bowl with maybe half a teaspoon of oil (or a couple of sprays from a pump bottle). Season, paprika is good, and shake/stir to thoroughly coat the food. Stick them into the air fryer and away you go. But here’s the difference. You do need to check and shake thoroughly every 4 or 5 minutes throughout cooking or it will brown on one side only. If you forget you can end up with a half overcooked / half undercooked unappetising result that will get binned. But you only make that mistake once.
I would also say the 3.2 litre basket looks a bit small but in practice it seems to cook reasonable portions. I haven’t tried to load it up like the photos to feed 5, but I can see that it would take quite a bit more mid-cook shaking up to make sure it all cooks evenly. Maybe look at the 8 litre version if you have a big family.
I was worried it would take longer than deep fat frying, and the cooking time itself is longer. However, it takes time for the oil to come to temperature before you start cooking and the air fryer needs no preheating (whatever the instructions say) so when you factor that it I reckon the food actually comes out quicker overall. I’m a convert. The old fryer has been taken away by the bin men. I paid £39 in the Amazon deal. For me that was the price tipping point. I know this one and others can reach £60 and sometimes over £100. I’m not sure I love this way of cooking enough to pay that kind of money. So my rating is based on the value based on the deal price not the full price. I’ve seen a Netta one with 4.8/5 on the reviews, same wattage, on Amazon that seems good value but is slightly smaller capacity, 2.5 litres – probably OK for one or two people though.
If you search air fryers you get a lot of halogen ovens turn up. I have been using halogen ovens for over a decade, am on my third or fourth, wouldn’t be without one. However, they are not air fryers. They are great for a lot of things you would normally cook in an oven but useless for a fried chip. The air fryer fried food tastes like it has been fried not roasted or baked.
Added Oct ’19… Two years on and the air fryer has proved its worth over the longer term. I cook jacket potatoes in the microwave then chuck them into the air fryer for 10 minutes to crisp the skins. I’ve put bread rolls into the fryer for about 4 minutes and they come out warm like they were just baked. Onion bhajis and samosas also cook well in the fryer.
Rated 5 out of 5
Pamsy –
Bought this airfryer as it would not take up much space on the work top. Easy to follow instructions for the touch screen settings. First couple of times I used it though I put the food in the basket that I was not cooking with😊. Soon got used to it and I am using it most meal times instead of using my built in oven. Can easily cook a roast dinner for my husband and me including the yorkshire puddings. Just bought some non stick individual pudding tins. I think air fryers also cook cheese filled chilli poppers and onion rings better then a conventional oven as cheese does not tend to spill out whilst cooking and onion rings are crispier.
Rated 5 out of 5
Fitness Guru –
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 delivery
6 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’ FUNCTION
The ‘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/GUARANTEE
I 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 ACCESSORIES
When 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 for 1-2 people.
TOWER BASKETS ARE NOT DISHWASHER FRIENDLY
These Tower baskets must NOT be put in a dishwasher. Handwashing is easy-peazy anyway, and definitely not a deal breaker.
SMELL
The 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 MANUAL Programming 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.
Rated 5 out of 5
PR –
As described good
Rated 5 out of 5
Chris Steward –
Great space saver if you have a smaller kitchen which i do. Can easily cook a full Sunday roast in this and so easy to use.
Rated 4 out of 5
Fitness Guru –
Perfect air fryer, functionality of the two trays is great (lots of space) & very simple to use. Just a shame Amazon dropped/damaged it so the plastic casing is a little ‘bruised’.
Jennie Ambury –
This thing is huge much bigger than I was expecting, the capacity in each draw is amazing and works great
michelle holtom –
This is for the 1350W 3.2 litre version. I was sceptical about this fryer but I wanted to dump my conventional deep fat fryer and its smelly and expensive and unhealthy oil demands whilst still cooking great tasting fresh chips, etc. This one came up in an Amazon deal so I jumped on it, prepared to return it if it didn’t live up to the claims.
It does perfect chips every time with nothing more than a light spray of oil and 10-12 minutes on the timer, without bothering to pre-heat in any way. Food actually tastes better than when cooked in the old deep fat way. Some of the frozen stuff like oven chips and onion rings already have an oil coating but you can do fresh versions just as easily. Put the prepared food in a bowl with maybe half a teaspoon of oil (or a couple of sprays from a pump bottle). Season, paprika is good, and shake/stir to thoroughly coat the food. Stick them into the air fryer and away you go. But here’s the difference. You do need to check and shake thoroughly every 4 or 5 minutes throughout cooking or it will brown on one side only. If you forget you can end up with a half overcooked / half undercooked unappetising result that will get binned. But you only make that mistake once.
I would also say the 3.2 litre basket looks a bit small but in practice it seems to cook reasonable portions. I haven’t tried to load it up like the photos to feed 5, but I can see that it would take quite a bit more mid-cook shaking up to make sure it all cooks evenly. Maybe look at the 8 litre version if you have a big family.
I was worried it would take longer than deep fat frying, and the cooking time itself is longer. However, it takes time for the oil to come to temperature before you start cooking and the air fryer needs no preheating (whatever the instructions say) so when you factor that it I reckon the food actually comes out quicker overall. I’m a convert. The old fryer has been taken away by the bin men. I paid £39 in the Amazon deal. For me that was the price tipping point. I know this one and others can reach £60 and sometimes over £100. I’m not sure I love this way of cooking enough to pay that kind of money. So my rating is based on the value based on the deal price not the full price. I’ve seen a Netta one with 4.8/5 on the reviews, same wattage, on Amazon that seems good value but is slightly smaller capacity, 2.5 litres – probably OK for one or two people though.
If you search air fryers you get a lot of halogen ovens turn up. I have been using halogen ovens for over a decade, am on my third or fourth, wouldn’t be without one. However, they are not air fryers. They are great for a lot of things you would normally cook in an oven but useless for a fried chip. The air fryer fried food tastes like it has been fried not roasted or baked.
Added Oct ’19… Two years on and the air fryer has proved its worth over the longer term. I cook jacket potatoes in the microwave then chuck them into the air fryer for 10 minutes to crisp the skins. I’ve put bread rolls into the fryer for about 4 minutes and they come out warm like they were just baked. Onion bhajis and samosas also cook well in the fryer.
Pamsy –
Bought this airfryer as it would not take up much space on the work top. Easy to follow instructions for the touch screen settings. First couple of times I used it though I put the food in the basket that I was not cooking with😊. Soon got used to it and I am using it most meal times instead of using my built in oven. Can easily cook a roast dinner for my husband and me including the yorkshire puddings. Just bought some non stick individual pudding tins. I think air fryers also cook cheese filled chilli poppers and onion rings better then a conventional oven as cheese does not tend to spill out whilst cooking and onion rings are crispier.
Fitness Guru –
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 delivery
6 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’ FUNCTION
The ‘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/GUARANTEE
I 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 ACCESSORIES
When 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 for
1-2 people.
TOWER BASKETS ARE NOT DISHWASHER FRIENDLY
These Tower baskets must NOT be put in a dishwasher. Handwashing is easy-peazy anyway, and definitely not a deal breaker.
SMELL
The 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 MANUAL
Programming 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.
PR –
As described good
Chris Steward –
Great space saver if you have a smaller kitchen which i do.
Can easily cook a full Sunday roast in this and so easy to use.
Fitness Guru –
Perfect air fryer, functionality of the two trays is great (lots of space) & very simple to use. Just a shame Amazon dropped/damaged it so the plastic casing is a little ‘bruised’.