Haier I-Master Multi Air Fryer Series 5 HAF5TWA3 001

Verdict

A well-priced air fryer with plenty of cooking modes, including air frying, grilling and slow cooking, the Haier I-Master Multi Air Fryer Series 5 HAF5TWA3 001 has a large capacity and lots of accessories. It generally cooks well and the window is useful to keep an eye on cooking. Controls aren’t as intuitive as on some rivals and there are some strange limitations, such as the inability to change temperature in the middle of a cook.

Introduction

Upping its range of small kitchen appliances, the Haier I-Master Multi Air Fryer Series 5 HAF5TWA3 001 is the company’s first air fryer.

A mix of the powerful and slightly frustrating to use, this large air fryer is powerful and well priced, but it could do with being slightly easier to use.

Design and features

• Lots of accessories
• 7-litre cooking capacity
• Useful viewing window

A single-drawer air fryer, the Haier I-Master Multi Air Fryer Series 5 is about as big as they come for single-drawer devices. Its 7-litre cooking capacity means that this model is ideal for larger families.

I like the window at the top, which lets me peer in to see how my food was cooking without having to remove the drawer. More air fryers could do with this feature.

Pull out the drawer, and there’s an inner basket, which is removed by pressing down the release switch. This makes the contents easier to shake, and ensures that any little bits of food or grease are left behind when serving up.

As well as the regular dish, there are three accessories in the box. The wire rack lets you cook on two levels or put food closer to the grill.

The baking tray can be used for anything where you want to keep fat in the dish, such as bacon or sausages.

And the deep dish is for food in sauce. All components are dishwasher safe.

Haier provides a basic instruction sheet in the box, which pictorially shows how to use the air fryer. It’s alright as a basic guide, but a more in-depth guide that shows better how to use the controls and accessories would have been handy. That said, the guide at the back gives cooking instructions for common foods which is useful.

Controls are probably the weakest part of this air fryer, starting with the on/off button. To turn the Haier I-Master Multi Air Fryer Series 5 on, I had to quickly tap the power button; press and hold, and it just ignores the input. That had me confused for a good while, working out how to turn the machine on.

Once on, the air fryer is controlled via the dial on top, which rotates and clicks. The first mode is the manual mode, which lets me select the temperature (40°C to a maximum of 200°C), and the cook time. After clicking the control dial to accept the cooking time, the air fryer starts immediately; I prefer a dedicated play/pause button, which gives a chance to correct any settings before starting to cook.

At any point in the cook, the dial can be clicked again to pause the air fryer, allowing the timer to be adjusted; the temperature can’t be adjusted mid-cook, which is disappointing, as rivals, such as Ninja’s models allow this. If you want to stop early, then there’s an ‘X’ button that will turn the air fryer off.

Mid-cook, the Haier I-Master Multi Air Fryer Series 5 will beep and let you know that it’s time to remove the drawer and give the contents a shake, which is helpful, as it’s easy to forget this vital step.

Outside of the manual mode, there are automatic modes, including air fry, grill, roast, bake, dry, reheat, defrost, yoghurt and slow cooking. These are pre-programmed with a set temperature and cooking time. Some modes also have a sub-choice where you pick the type of food you’re cooking by type. For example, with air fry and grill you can select between meat, poultry, fish, vegetables and cake, with each choice adjusting the temperature and time.

For most modes, the cooking time can be overridden, but only once cooking has started; I couldn’t find a way to adjust the temperature on the pre-set modes at all.

Some modes, such as slow cook, didn’t even let me adjust the cooking time: this mode was locked to 90 minutes at 90°C. Probably not time to throw away your old slow cooker just yet.

Overall, the Haier I-Master Multi Air Fryer Series 5 is quite limited in some cases and confusing to use in others. For the most part, I found it easier to put the Haier I-Master Multi Air Fryer Series 5 into manual mode and set the temperature and cooking time myself.

Performance

• Cooking good but a little uneven
• Versatile cooking modes

I started by cooking a batch of oven chips at 200°C for 18 minutes, reducing the suggested cooking time on the back of the packet. I was prompted to shake the chips part way through cooking.

Overall, the chips came out pretty well, although the heat was a little uneven and some chips were better done than others. For the most part, I found that the chips were crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside.

Moving to hash browns, I was limited to the air fryer’s maximum 200°C temperature. This allowed me to cook the hash browns evenly, but I didn’t find that they had quite the same crunch as when cooked faster at a much higher temperature, such as with Max Crisp mode on a Ninja air fryer.

I then grilled some sausages, using the grilling rack. These needed turning a couple of times to get the best results, but I found that the sausages were slightly better cooked to one end, than the other, even if they were still tasty.

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