Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I am a classically-trained chef, and I found both the pros and cons of this unit impressive. Yes, you read that right. The pros are wonderful and the cons are mind-boggling, an impressive fail. Keep reading: First, the pros: 1. Unlike a lot of other fryers, this one actually maintains temperature and is accurate when compared to a candy thermometer; the issue that some fryers appear to have with the temperature probe being too close to the heating elements causing a 30°- 40° F. differential between the stated temperature and the actual temperature is not present in this fryer, and the oil doesn't have to be stirred to bring it up to temp. And even better, the 1800 Watt heating element maintains the temperature well; I saw only a very quick drop of 60° F. and then back to 375° F. within 54 seconds when I dropped in 2.5 pounds of wings that were at refrigerator temperature. 2. The controls are easy to use and the display easy to read. 3. Cleanup was a breeze. 4. Pouring the oil through a strainer was easy because the lip around the oil bucket keeps the oil from running down the side. The cons: 1. I have never seen a feature on any kitchen appliance that I despise more than the magnetic connection for the power cord. It takes so little to break the connection that a slight bump will dislodge it and the cord must by lying on the counter top or it will fall off under its own weight. To the designers: Kitchen appliances are tools, and in ANY tool, FORM MUST FOLLOW FUNCTION! Yes, the mag-connect is a cool feature, ON BLUETOOTH HEADSETS, not on a kitchen appliance, especially one containing hot grease and in a cooking area, where the end of the plug may fall into spilled liquid and cause someone to be electrocuted. This is what happens when the creative process is allowed to run amok without the filters of physics and reason. FIX IT. If this unit is UL-approved, someone at UL needs to lose their job; a grease burn sustained while trying to move a hot fryer because one was too stupid to unplug it first (the reason for the break-away cord) is far less likely than electrocution to kill someone. 2. There are a few sharp edges. They're not quite "raw" edges, but they have not been smoothed enough. I cut myself on the grease bucket during the first cleanup. Why such a nice unit was left in such unfinished condition is beyond me, as an additional ten seconds with a wire brush or 220 grit sanding mop would have easily fixed it. 3. The temperatures and cooking times in the recipe book and the default cooking times built in to the product are ridiculous. Wings at 355° for seven minutes? My first batch was under-cooked coming out of the refrigerator, so a second batch went in warmed to room temperature. Both batches produced chewy, under-cooked chicken and slimy skin. 375° for 9 minutes was better, but still not quite done enough, as only about half the wings had started to float at that point. So experiment and find out what works for you. To their credit, they did allow for the user to adjust time and temperature, quite easily I might add, from the defaults. To the Breville executives: tell your legal team to stay out of the recipe book. A grease burn at 355° is going to be just as painful as one at the correct temperature, and the longer foods cook in a deep fryer, the less they bubble, splash, and risk starting a fire, so lowering the temperatures and cooking time just makes your product look like an under-performer without protecting you from anything and confounds your customers. 4. The manual says not to use lard. This is utterly ridiculous. Cooking lard has a higher smoke point than most vegetable oils and is a heck of a lot healthier than polyunsaturated oils that break down into trans fats when heated. I've used lard in immersion fryers for 30+ years without incident. All that is required to do so is to make sure that the lard is in contact with the heating element, which is easily accomplished by storing your filtered lard in a metal or Pyrex container and preheating it just enough to soften it enough to pour (which is not even enough to make it turn clear). If you're putting new lard in the fryer (which usually comes in a plastic bucket that can only be safely heated by soaking in hot water, which is a pain in the neck), use a spatula to press the lard down around the heating element before turning it on. Lard cooks better and faster with less smell and without toxic trans fats forming while you cook. Big hint: stainless steel and Pyrex can be heated on the stove top, and plain glass and ceramic canisters can be heated in the microwave sufficiently without risk of breakage. Applying plastic film, wax paper, or parchment to the top to help keep air away from the surface of the filtered lard will extend its life considerably. Failure to filter through cloth, paper towels, or a coffee filter while still warm but not dangerously hot will reduce the smoke point and hasten the ruination of your lard, as proteins putrefy much faster than lard turns rancid. Bottom line: If you already know quite a bit about deep frying or have an excellent recipe book and have an electrical outlet close enough to your exhaust fan that you can let the 3-foot long cord lie on the counter top while it's in use, you'll be hard-pressed to find a better fryer, idiotic power cord design notwithstanding. UPDATE: Apparently the LCD was cracked during manufacturing or shipping; it was noticeable during cleanup after the first use but appeared at a glance to be a crack in the plastic display cover, not the LCD. After two uses, the LCD became nonfunctional. I called Breville and arranged for warranty exchange, and they sent the wrong one. I had opted for express exchange by securing shipment with a credit card, and calling them back to get the wrong one replaced required a second hold on my credit card. The smug attitude of both the people I talked to, as if I should just suck it up and being hassled with returning both a defective item and a wrong item was commonplace, and I should appreciate having someone waste my life like that, is both intolerable and inexcusable. Hence, I may well have purchased my last Breville product of any kind, because I have ZERO tolerance for that kind of attitude. Yes, I realize that people make mistakes, but that doesn't mean that I have to like having my time wasted dealing with someone else's mistakes, and there's something about having to give someone my credit card info to cover THEIR mistake, not once, but TWICE, that just burns me up.