Cook Time for Big Easy Turkey Fryer
There are a lot of cool things out there that make us wonder — do they really work? In our I Tried It series, we set out to use them in the real world and have determined that, in fact, they really do.
The Product on Trial
The Char-Broil Big Easy Oil-Less Turkey Fryer
The Tester
Brandon Carte, a fried-turkey fanatic who is too chicken to deep-fry a turkey at home
The Brief
The Char-Broil Big Easy is a much easier, healthier, and safer alternative to get that tasty fried turkey you crave
If you've ever tasted deep-fried turkey, you understand why it's worth risking your life to have.
The answer is simple: It's delicious! But deep-frying turkey is extremely dangerous. Over the past 20 years, turkey fryers caused 220 burn incidents and $9.7 million in property loss, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Turkey fryers can easily overheat, overflow, and go up in flames — especially if your bird hasn't completely thawed.
For those who don't want to deal with the hassle and risk of deep-frying a turkey in a large vat of oil, there's a much safer alternative that still cooks crispy and tasty turkey: It's called the Char-Broil Big Easy, and it makes frying a turkey a less nerve-racking and not as dangerous affair.
How It Works
Rather than relying on oil, the Big Easy uses infrared heat. You can think of it as an oversized outdoor air fryer. It took me about 20 minutes to assemble, but cooking with it was a breeze. Just place the bird (up to 16 pounds) within its cooking basket, lower it, and put on a lid. It's as simple as that!
The turkey fryer is powered by liquid propane and requires a 20-pound tank — just like the one you'd use for a gas grill. It offers 16,000 BTUs of cooking power, and Char-Broil says a general guideline for cook time is 10 minutes per pound of turkey. (Which wasn't the case during my tests, but more on that in a second!)
What It's Like to Cook With the "Big Easy"
While I don't think you can perfectly replicate the crispy skin and deep flavor that is associated with a deep-fried turkey, you can get pretty close with the Big Easy. I used one to "deep fry" a 14-pound turkey, and was blown away at how incredible it tasted — especially since I injected it with Cajun butter and did a spicy dry rub prior to cooking it.
It took me 3 hours to cook a 14-pound bird on a 50-degree Fahrenheit evening, which was still faster than it'd take me to bake one in an oven. Besides turkey, I cooked two full-sized chickens too, which were equally tasty. Those took just a little over 2 hours.
Although traditional oil fryers technically cook faster, you must also account for the time it takes to preheat the oil and then wait around for the oil to cool down afterward.
During my tests, the air fryer's internal temperature rose to 400 degrees Fahrenheit in about half an hour. It consistently maintained that temperature throughout the entire cooking process.
To make things easy on users, the fryer doesn't have any power settings: It's either on or off. Besides how easy the air fryer was to use, what I like most about it is how it saves precious oven space — which means even more room for all my favorite sides and desserts come Thanksgiving.
Why I'm #TeamAirFriedTurkey Now
As much as deep-fried turkey makes my mouth water, consider me an air-fried turkey convert. Hear me out.
Oil is a pain to deal with. You need at least 3 gallons to fry a good-sized bird. It's heavy, messy, and annoying to clean up when you're finished — especially on a full stomach.
Clean-up with the Big Easy was a cinch. All the drippings from the bird went down to an aluminum pan, which, if fresh, can easily be made into gravy. After my cook, I used a mesh grill brush to scrape the Char-Broil's interior. Its wire basket is dishwasher-safe, but I had no trouble washing it by hand in the sink.
Truly, the only difficulty I had was removing the bird from the wire cage: The wings and legs got stuck. I wish Char-Broil had a similar system as some deep fryer baskets do (which use a vertical skewer). But after a few shakes, I could dump the bird out and onto a cutting board.
I highly recommend investing in a meat thermometer like the MEATER or the ThermoPop instant-read thermometer. That way, you'll know when your protein is cooked to completion, and won't be caught off-guard when you cut into a semi-cooked turkey.
The Closing Argument
The Chair-Broil Big Easy air fryer very closely replicated the flavor and taste of deep-fried turkey, without all the extra calories of one. Deep-frying a turkey with oil is risky, time-consuming, and messy. The Big Easy perfectly cooked a crispy-skinned bird that was juicy and more flavorful than any oven-baked turkey I've ever eaten.
Lastly, it's worth a quick mention that Char-Broil sells a bunch of accessories like rib hooks, leg racks, and kabobs to make it a bit easier to cook different cuts of meats. If you don't have a garage, you should also consider purchasing one of Char-Broil's custom-fit covers to protect the appliance from the elements.
Shop the Char-Broil Big Easy
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Source: https://www.bestproducts.com/appliances/large-appliances/a38172060/char-broil-big-easy-turkey-air-fryer-review/
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