Beko ExpertFry Dual Zone Air Fryer FRL5388

Verdict

Not just a dual-drawer air fryer, the Beko ExpertFry Dual Zone Air Fryer FRL5388 is also a grill and comes with a wide range of accessories. It’s a touch overwhelming to use at first, but get used to the controls, and this model can deliver great results across the board. If you don’t need the highest temperatures and want quality results at a more wallet-friendly price, look no further.

Introduction

If you air fry a lot, then a dual-basket model can make life much easier, letting you double up the amount that you cook or for cooking different food simultaneously.

There’s been a spate of cheaper dual-drawer air fryers, with the Beko ExpertFry Dual Zone Air Fryer joining the fray.

Design and features

• Lots of space
• Good range of accessories
• Slightly confusing interface

Like all dual-drawer air fryers, the Beko ExpertFry Dual Zone Air Fryer is quite a beast that will dominate any counter that it’s put on, so you’ll need a fair amount of space to store it. Across its two drawers, it has a large 8.5-litre capacity, which puts it somewhere in size between the Ninja AF300UK (7.6 litres) and the AF400UK (9.5 litres).

With this capacity, there’s easily enough space to cook a dinner, consisting of two different ingredients for two to three; or double up for cooking one item, such as chips, for a larger number of people. While there are other lower-cost dual-basket air fryers, such as the Chefree AFW20, Beko distinguishes itself with extras.

Each drawer ships with a crisper plate for standard air frying, but there’s also a skewer holder for grilling, complete with five skewers.

Beko also provides a multi-tier rack, so you can place food on different levels for grilling or dehydrating.

Powering the Beko ExpertFry Dual Zone Air Fryer on for the first time, it was a touch confusing to use. Like so many air fryers, it falls into the trap of having a huge number of buttons across the top, rather than a simpler layout, as with Ninja’s air fryers.

There’s a manual mode for air frying, which is the most useful mode once you know what you’re doing. Then, there’s a icon shaped like a chicken, which is poultry and, confusingly, fish. There’s a vegetable option, which is for chips and for frying other food.

An oven mode is for cakes and bread, although the size of the drawers limits how much you can fit in; for most bakes, one of our best ovens will be more useful.

A reheating mode is useful for crisping up old food, such as pizza, although it’s nothing you can’t do manually. Defrosting uses warm air, although if you’ve got a microwave, that will be easier to use.

Then, there are three useful modes: grill, skewers (for the accessory) and a drying mode, which is for dehydrating food.

Once you’ve selected a mode, you can set the temperature and time that the air fryer should run for. This model has a fairly low maximum temperature of 200°C; more expensive models will go up to 240°C or higher.

As this is a dual-zone air fryer, you can choose to match the cooking mode to both zones, doubling up the total you cook, or there’s a Smart Finish mode. This latter option gets both zones to finish simultaneously, when using different settings.

Only the grill mode has a preheat option; if you want to preheat for air frying, just add a few minutes to the programme and drop the food after a couple of minutes.

I like the chunky handles on the drawers, which make it easy to pull food out part way through cooking to give it a shake, for even cooking.

At the end of a cooking session, the drawers and crisper plates can be washed with soapy water or put in the dishwasher.

Performance

• Even cooking
• Good grill results
• Not the crispest results

I put the Beko ExpertFry Dual Zone Air Fryer through a variety of cooking tests to see how well it does.

First, I started with a batch of chips cooked at 200°C. I found that they cooked very evenly, with a nice crispy exterior and soft inside. It’s hard to get better results than this.

At the same time, I used the grill to cook sausages, getting them to finish at the same time.

While the sausages benefitted from turning every few minutes, the end result was worth it. Grilling sausages, and other meats, helps get good results without a tough exterior.

I then cooked hash browns at the maximum temperature of 200°C. While the final results were good, the hash browns didn’t have the crunch that an air fryer with a higher temperature can give.

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