Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is my first fryer, and I am really glad I chose this one. I've used others at my family's house, and the main issues are, of course, how many times can you re-use the same oil in the fryer, and when you have to dump it out and clean the cumbersome oily thing. This leads to not really using the thing... With this fryer, those issues are a thing of the past! The oil filtration system seems to work very well. I've only had this a short while and only cooked a couple batches in it so far, but I'll share my experiences. First thing you do when you get it out of the box is disassemble the parts (oil-saving box with lid, main oil bowl, basket, and lid) and put them in the dishwasher. You just can't wash the control unit (part with the dial and the heating rods) in the dishwasher, but that is a small part really and easy to sponge off. I can get everything into the dishwasher except for the main housing - which is safe to put in the washer, but just won't fit vertically in my machine, so I sponge that too which isn't a problem since it's the outer-most part of the machine and doesn't come into contact with the oil. I realized right away that this was going to be a whole lot easier than my family's old machine. The manual recommends vegetable oil - I went with peanut oil. After frying some hot dogs (you gotta try it - roll in a hot pan after frying to dry/blister them) and some breaded cheese-stuffed jalapenos as a test run, I turned the heat off and switched it to oil filtration mode. The machine knows the oil's temperature, and will automatically begin filtering into the oil box on the bottom once the oil is at a safe temp (took ~2 hours for it to start - manual says ~3 hours.) When it was done, I pulled the oil box out to look at it and was amazed (the box holds the oil pretty well... there is a plug on the back end that you can unplug to pour the oil out, but the front hole the machine filters the oil down into stays open, so it will spill just a little if you shake it around too much - I lost a couple drops, no real problem, just a note. If you leave it in the machine and keep it upright, you will have no leaks/problems.) - the oil looked as good as new! But that was an easy test for it... My next run (re-using the filtered oil) was double-dredged (flour/egg/panko) oysters. They were awesome in a po'boy, by the way! After filtering the oil this time, it is clean in the box, but very slightly darker and does of course now have that seafood smell. I would use it again, for more seafood, but would want to change to fresh oil if I went back to chicken or something else. They recommend changing your oil after around 8-12 uses, so I don't want to throw this oil out yet. It is pretty easy to poor the filtered oil into some other container marked "seafood", but it would be nice if I could find a spare oil box of the same type so that I could have one for seafood, and one for other foods, and just re-use the appropriate oil box. I looked at T-Fal's site, but can't find an exact match - they do have spare boxes for a different model though (unsure if it would fit this model) so I am holding out hope. I'll ask them and see what I can find... It would just add another layer of ease to the process. In summary, this fryer takes most of the hard parts of frying and throws them out with the wash. It is easy to use, and makes it a pleasure instead of a nightmare to fry quick side dishes with a meal, for example. I am very happy with this purchase.