Hamilton Beach 35035 Professional-Style Deep Fryer 12-Cup Capacity, Silver

Make sure you have enough food, of any kind, to throw in the fryer! It’s so much fun and so quick. It’s definitely worth it. The only thing I’ve had a problem with is being able to see the min and max oil line inside the tank. But that’s really not a big deal. I love it.

I'm Dutch and in our family Fridays are Frie-days. Home made fries, cut from scratch and twice baked. You can't beat those. This gem has an awesome capacity. I used to need to fry 3 portions separately for my family, with sometimes spillover oil when the fries were left too wet. Now I only need to split it in 2 portions, and haven't had any spillover in all the months I have used it. One small minor drawback is that the timer is connected to the power. I use the timer to time the frying period. And I don't want it to turn off but reheat after each portion. So instead I keep it on, don't use the timer but use my phone timer instead. Otherwise it's the best fryer I have owned.

I want to rate this more like a 3.5 instead of a 4 or just a 3. It heats up very efficiently and quickly and we have enjoyed a variety of foods from this deep fryer. It's a great size as well, 2 batches of fries easily feeds 6 people (as a side dish, of course). The biggest problem is that the cord is ridiculously short. Our kitchen is set up with a flat top induction "stove" and downward vent, with no outlet. It is absolutely necessary to vent while cooking, as deep frying produces a LOT of steam. In order to set this up where we can actually vent, I have to use an extension cord (which is against the labelled safety warnings, I am absolutely aware, just because I do this I am not telling others to do so). I don't know what sort of layout they designed such a short cord to serve. The other thing is that it is awkward to clean. Trying to ensure you are washing and rinsing the heating coil ONLY and not getting the main electronic part soaked is a challenge, outside of hoping you aren't dripping oil all over your kitchen. Since the oil basin is large, it is tricky to wash well even in our large kitchen sink. Otherwise we have been very happy and have used it far more often than we expected when we first purchased.

Opened this up to have my hands covered in a sticky mess. Definitely looks like someone used this and returned it and partially wiped it down. Unimpressed for the price.

I was excited to get this product because it's an x-large size fryer. It definitely has its PROs and CONs. PROS: X-large basket to fry more food at once. It sure made cooking the food a lot shorter than when I use my other Hamilton Beach 12 cups, 1500 Watt fryer (large). It's 21 cups, 1800 Watt. It cooked my food quickly and evenly. Basket Hanger is great to sit the basket out of the oil to drain. CONS: The housing of the fryer is very flimsy. Because the basket hanger sits in the oil while cooking, when you pull it out and set it on the edge of the fryer oil drips down the front of the housing. Lots of wiping as I went along. There's no spout with oil filter to drain oil back into its original container. It's a 2 person job to put the oil back into the oil jug. One person to hold a funnel and small colander so food pieces don't get into oil; and second person to lift the big frying bin to pour the oil. Can be done by yourself, but will cause a mess to clean up.