Instant Vortex Plus ClearCook Dual Air Fryer 2 x 4L (cooking appliance review)

The Instant Vortex Plus ClearCook Dual Air Fryer has two 2 x 4-litre air fryer baskets that can be controlled independently (or not), simultaneously allowing for two different cooking uses. It can even sync the finish times to help with meal preparation.

This versatile device can air fry, roast, bake, grill, reheat, and dehydrate ‘times two’. For example, you could cook a 1kg (approx.) mini roast on one side at 180° for an hour (I always use a meat thermometer to tell me when it is ready and rest the roast for 15-30 minutes after cooking). In the other basket, you can roast veggies 180° x 30 minutes (yes, it is that fast).

I like the dual air fryer basket concept for several reasons.

Dual 4-litre baskets offer amazing flexibility for smaller families, couples, or singles. However, you cannot combine the baskets for an 8-litre device. If you want that, look at Instant Vortex Plus Versazone XXL Air Fryer 8.5L, which can fit a medium chicken and still have room for roast vegetables.

• The solid non-stick baskets have an insert that converts from baking/roasting/grilling to air frying.
• Independent controls.
• You can use one or two.
• Dual cooking view windows and internal lighting
• Sync Cook – use the same program in both baskets.
• Sync Finish – finish cooking at the same time regardless of programs.
• User-selectable temperature from 82° (bake) to 205° (maximum).
• User-selectable time from 1 minute to 60 minutes.
• The dehydrate program has 35/54/79° and lasts from 1 to 72 hours.
• Any programs are adjusted automatically if you remove a basket to turn the food.
• Two smaller baskets are easier to clean than one big one. The Airfryer inserts are dishwasher safe.

Australian Review – Instant Vortex Plus ClearCook Dual Air Fryer (2 x 4L) 8L Model 140-3128-01-AU

Website	Instant Pot Product Page Manual
Price	RRP $429 but seen as low as $379 (as of 15 April 2024), so shop around
Warranty	12-months ACL Support page
Made in	China
Company	Instant Brands designs and distributes Instant, Corelle, Pyrex, CorningWare, Visions cookware, and Snapware food storage.
More	CyberShack food appliances news and reviews

We use Fail (below expectations), Pass (meets expectations) and Exceed (surpasses expectations or is the class leader) against many of the items below. We occasionally give a Pass(able) rating that is not as good as it should be and a Pass ‘+’ rating to show it is good but does not quite make it to Exceed. You can click on most images for an enlargement.

First Impression – we are going to need a bigger kitchen

The first thing my wife said was, “We have an Instant multicooker, air fryer, double grill, slow cooker, blender, electric frypan and more. Where are you going to put it?”

The Instant Vortex Plus ClearCook Dual Air Fryer is big: 40.3 cm wide x 38.4cm high x 31.7 deep x 10kg. So, for the moment, it sits on the bench (a good thing that we have a long island bench) until we figure out which piece of cooking tech gets moved out of the cupboard.

Next, it does not have an app that my wife has grown so used to for menu inspiration and setting cooking times. It does not need that like the Instant Pot Pro Plus 5.7L – cooking with Wi-Fi has. Why? Because the smarts are built into the machine.

The top panel has a display on both sides and touch buttons for Air-Frying, Roasting, Baking, Reheating, Grilling, and Dehydrating. Add touch controls for time, temperature, light/s, Sync Finish, Sync Cook and a rotary dial to adjust these, and that is it.

Because you are unlikely to read the manual, here are the preset temperatures, times, and variations.

	Default (Temperature/Minutes	Minimum/Maximum
Air Fry	196/15	82/205 and 1/60
Roast	205/18	82/205 and 1/60
Bake	172/20	82/205 and 1/60
Grill	205/6	205 and 1/30
Dehydrate	54/8 hours	35/79 and 1/72 hours
Reheat	138/10	49/182 and  1-60

Using the Air Fryer and inserts – Pass+

You only need to insert these for Air Fry. Air Frying has become a must-have in the kitchen. Frankly, the more you use this low/no oil cooking method, the more you enjoy quickly well-cooked food.

For example:

• Most vegetables are suitable (except high-water content veggies). Corn on the cob is superb.
• Most meats (except those for roast and grill) are suitable. Chicken breasts/thighs, Lamb chops/cutlets, meatballs, pork chops/cutlets, and sausages.
• Most fish fillets/steaks are suitable (except high-fat Salmon fillets)
• Almost any frozen convenience foods – chips, nuggets, pizza (slices), sausage rolls, pies, Dagwood dogs, waffles, fish fingers, etc.

Baking (not yet tested)

Baking is still the province of cakes, pastries, and some breads. Our only advice is to find a suitable insert (not CorningWare or Pyrex) that will fit inside the basket or line with baking paper.

We are looking forward to making Air Fryer Focaccia, Cinnamon Swirls, and Shakshuka,  

Grilling – Pass

Grilling is perfect for toasties, melts, chargrilled vegetables, steaks, and burgers. As you don’t use the air fryer inserts, the heat comes from the top elements and is not circulated around the food.

Dehydrate (not tested)

Almost any fruit (tomato is a fruit) can be dehydrated. This speeds up the process considerably, so use your recipes and reduce the time by 50%. You can always restart the process.

Reheating (not yet tested)

Ideally, reheated cooked food should reach 70-75° as you don’t want to restart the cooking process, or it may get tough. Reheat time is generally 10 minutes.

Recipes – Pass+

There are 198 Air Fryer recipes that should get your culinary juices running. Remember, the overall aim of Air Frying is to get most of the crisp without the oil. Sure, it won’t be deep-fried crisp, but it is satisfyingly crunchy.

Tests

Like all cooking reviews, we will add our culinary adventures over time.

Our first Air Fry effort (highly successful) included:

• Hand-made/cut chips (par-cooked in boiling water for three minutes to reduce starch)
• Chicken Nuggets (thawed)
• Hong Kong Pork Dim Sum (thawed)
• Crumbed Mozzarella sticks (thawed)
• Woolworths Chicken Breast panko crumbed Schnitzel 150g each (thawed)

We could have used frozen products, but that takes longer.

There is an excellent Air Fry temperature/time cheat sheet (that we did not know about until after our test), so we used the default 196° and set the fresh (not frozen) chips to 20 minutes (that is what it takes in another air fryer). In the other basket, we again used the default temperature and set the time for 10 minutes (as per the box recipes).

Continued

We selected Sync Finish. At this point, we had a small conundrum. We had already loaded the baskets, yet we saw an ‘Add Food’ prompt after the preheating phase and before the ‘cook’ phase. Like most lazy experimenters, we put the baskets in and pressed Sync Finish and Start.

The preheat phase takes about 5-8 minutes. It then says to ‘Add food’, counts down to halftime, and displays/beeps ‘turn food’.

In our experience, the chips need more frequent turning, and we did this every five minutes. Removing a basket suspends the timer/program so the baskets stay in sync.

We decided to cook the chips for an extra five minutes. Later we found that the cheat sheet recommends fresh chips at 200° for18-20 minutes. The munchies in basket two were perfect, crisp and well-coloured, but the crumbed schnitzels needed a few more minutes.

We tried sausages, and they required 4 x quarter turnings to get an even cook. Air-Fry Temperature/time 196/10.

Summary Air Frying: If you use the default 196° temperature, foods may take a few minutes longer to crisp. It is all a matter of experimentation.

A lamb mini roast – Pass+

The recipe says a basket (no air fry insert) holds up to a 1.5 kg boneless mini roast. It takes 195° for 15 minutes (no need to worry about pre-heat time) and then roast at 150° for 35-45 minutes. Use a meat thermometer, remove at 65° for medium, and rest for 15-30 minutes. We usually roast jacket potatoes in the same basket. In the other basket, place pumpkin, carrot and other roastable vegetables for about 30 minutes (while the meat is resting).

We have roasted lamb many times before in multi-cookers, and we usually do it at 190° for about 60 minutes (or until the thermometer says 65°).

Noise – Pass

About 63dB – slightly above single-unit air fryers.

Power use – Pass+

The Instant Vortex Plus ClearCook Dual Air Fryer is rated as 240V/50Hz and from 450-1700W.

Interestingly, we expected it to peak and plateau. Yet for approximately one hour of use (pre-heat, cooking), it peaked at 1293.4W using a very low 126Wh.

Similarly, one basket peaked at 800W and then dropped using a very low 19.9Wh over 15 minutes.

Maintenance – Pass+

The Air Fryer inserts are smaller than a full basket and easy to clean and dry. The baskets need hand cleaning, but as they are smaller than one large basket, they fit most sinks and dish racks.

The outside is wipe-clean, but the flat plastic control panel is a fingerprint magnet and needs grease-cutting dish detergent.

Inside are two 120 x 80mm heating elements and fans, compared to around 200mm and a large fan for many Air-Fryers. There is no fat splatter guard, so you must regularly clean the elements and surrounds.

Observations

While our adventures have been limited, we like the Instant Vortex Plus ClearCook Dual Air Fryer (2 x 4L) 8L:

• Overcomes the problem of having two different food types to air fry, roast, etc. simultaneously.
• Sync Finish is excellent.
• Logical controls are easy to use.
• You can mix and match programs at the same time.
• Slight heat unevenness towards the front of the basket (but you need to turn halfway anyway).
• Use silicon tip tongs, etc., to preserve the basket finish.
• Clear cook windows and lights are great.
• It is very handy for singles and couples, as you can use one or both baskets. We recommend the Vortex Plus Versazone XXL 8.5L for larger families and roasts.
• Well-made from a company that provides great user support.
• Lots of Instant recipes online.
• Slower (about 20% more than other Air Fryers we have tested).

CyberShack’s view: The Instant Vortex Plus ClearCook Dual Air Fryer (2 x 4L) 8L is an Air Fryer with many benefits.

If all you ever need is a single-draw air fryer, Instant has these for under $200 for a 5.7-litre. The Vortex range with the smarts starts at under $300.

This is for you if you appreciate what two smaller baskets can do.

While you may think of it primarily as an Air Fryer, it has proven itself in other functions and could feasibly replace a couple of your single-purpose devices. However, we recommend looking at the Instant Pot Pro Crisp + Air Fryer 8L for $399, which combines Instant Pot cooking with an Air Fryer.

Instant Vortex Plus ClearCook Dual Air Fryer Rating

We will rate it as an Air Fryer with benefits.

• Features: 95 – dual baskets and controls, six cooking modes, Clear Cook window, energy efficient.
• Value: 90 – Excellent value, but shop around for a bargain
• Performance: 90 – It is slightly slower than others we have tested, but dual basket convenience makes up for that.
• Ease of Use: 85 – Very intuitive controls. It is larger than many kitchen appliances, which may cause issues where space is tight.
• Design: 90 – Well-made, good with a good design.