Why Is My Air Fryer Smoking? (You can prevent it)

One second, you’re in the comfort of your own home, preparing something delicious in your air fryer. The next, you’re in a cloud of burnt grease, wondering what went wrong?

Is the air fryer supposed to do that? After witnessing both white, blue, and grey smoke coming out of my air fryer, I decided to contact the manufacturers to ask them what’s going on.

Why is there smoke coming out of my air frier?

Leftover grease residue from past uses can cause the air fryer to smoke. The leftover residue can overheat when cooked, releasing smoke from your air fryer. The same thing can happen if you’re cooking fatty foods, the grease from the food can burn and start smoking.

When cooking fatty foods, just add a tablespoon of water, this should prevent the fatty foods from smoking.

While this is the most common issue, it isn’t the only reason why an air fryer could be smoking. We’ll go through the possible problems and the solution to each one of them.

Why Is There Smoke Coming Out Of My Air Fryer?

Yes, we mentioned above that the reason why your air fryer is smoking could be because there’s leftover grease or because you’re cooking something with high fat-content. These two things can very well cause the air fryer to produce a substantial amount of smoke, but there are more things.

How can you tell which issue your air fryer is having? Let’s take a look at them.

Your Air Fryer May Be Smoking When You Are Cooking Fatty Foods

One of the most common reasons for white smoking coming out of an air fryer is fatty foods. Excessive amounts of grease will collect at the bottom of the air fryer, once the temperature rises, the grease may burn, releasing a white smoke.

If you decide to add oil to your food, keep in mind that different types of oils and fats have their own unique smoke points, the smoke point of an oil or fat indicates how high temperatures it can handle before it starts to smoke. That’s very useful to know when you’re cooking with an air fryer.

Also, specific food has it’s own smoke point too. Because the air fryer operates at temperatures as high as 400 degrees Fahrenheit, you need to use an oil with a higher smoke point than that. Otherwise, the oil will burn and cause your air fryer to smoke.

Therefore, I recommend that you opt for an oil with a smoke point closer to 450, just to be safe. Taking a quick look at a chart tells me that avocado oil, peanut oil, extra light olive oil, rice bran oil, and safflower oil are all safe to use in the air fryer.

Note: Make sure that you actually have Extra Light Olive Oil and not Virgin Olive Oil. The smoke point of virgin olive oil is below 400 while extra light olive oil is above 400.

While it is extremely unpleasant to have an apartment full of smoke, the smoke itself doesn’t ruin your air fryer. With that said, here’s how to prevent it from happening.

What To Do If Your Air Fryer Start Smoking When Cooking Fatty Foods

Turn off the air fryer
Remove the drawer from the air fryer and take the basket out of the drawer.
Now, using a paper towel, remove all the excess oil at the bottom of the drawer.
Place the basket in the drawer and put the drawer back in the air fryer
Proceed

Once you have removed the collected grease at the bottom of the air fryer, there shouldn’t be any smoke coming out of it.

Next Thing To Do If Your Air Fryer Starts Smoking When Cooking Fatty Foods

Remove the basket from the drawer and add a little water underneath the basket to keep the grease from getting too hot.

In the future, when you are cooking fatty foods in the air fryer, consider using parchment paper or some other kind of cover that makes clean-up easier. You can read about the benefits of using parchment paper in your air fryer here.

What To Do If Your Air Fryer Starts Smoking When You Aren’t Cooking Fatty Foods

If you’re cooking something lean, like chicken breasts or french fries without oil, there shouldn’t be enough grease to cause the air fryer to smoke. If it does, it is most likely because of leftover grease residue from previous uses.

To remove the leftover grease residue, remove the components from the air fryer and place them in a bath of water and soap. Using a soft sponge, scrub the components until they are clean, then rinse under water and wipe them off with a paper towel. Proceed to clean the inside of the air fryer.

First, sweep the inside with a paper towel. Continue to scrub the inside of the air fryer with a soft sponge dipped in the mixture of water and soap (Don’t soak the sponge, it should only be moist).

Finish it off by scrubbing the inside with a paper towel one last time. Your air fryer should now look like it came right out of the box.

If an air fryer isn’t cleaned properly once in a while, it will collect grease residue. There’s no doubt about it. The build-up of grease can also harm the non-stick coating on the basket, therefore, try to clean the air fryer as regularly as possible.

Smoke coming out of your air fryer may also be caused by the following:

You’re Not Using The Fat Reducer Accessory (If You Got One)

Philips air fryers have a fat reducer accessory which keeps the excess fat from forming white smoke. If you haven’t placed the fat reducer in the pan, start by doing that.

The fat reduction accessory is very effective but one still has to take precautions in order to prevent it entirely. What I’m saying is, you should clean your air fryer regularly even if it came with the fat reducer accessory.

The Air Fryer Is Malfunctioning

If there’s blue smoke coming out of your air fryer you should unplug the device straight away. Blue smoke may be an indicator that your air fryer has faced some electrical issues and malfunctioned.

Therefore, to ensure the safety of yourself and others, I recommend unplugging the device straight away.

Secondarily, I suggest you get in contact with the manufacturers to redeem some sort of compensation.

Ingredients Aren’t Weighed Down And Are Therefore Sucked Into The Heating Coil

The air fryer cooks food by circulating hot air using the convection mechanism. The air circulates with enough force to move small bits or thin slices of food.

When food starts circulating the air fryer, there’s a slight risk that it might end up in the heating coil of the air fryer, which is extremely hot.

When the ingredients come in contact with the heating coil, they are burned. This produces the smoke coming out of your air fryer, unlike the white smoke coming from the leftover grease, this smoke smells a lot.

When removing pieces of food from the heating element, wait for the air fryer to cool down entirely. Even if the air fryer is cool, the heating element inside the air fryer might still be warm, therefore, give it time.

Once the air fryer and the heating element has cooled down, try to remove the stuck piece of food from the heating element.

To prevent this from happening, make sure that everything is weighed down or secured when cooking, at least the very small or thin pieces of food as they may be light enough for the air fryer to throw around.

Some air fryers have accessories that prevent this from happening, called splatter lids and snack covers.

Noteworthy: If you’re using parchment paper, aluminum foil or other covers, make sure they are weighed down by the food so they don’t end up in the heating coil as that may pose a potential risk.

Herbs Or Breading Hasn’t Stuck Properly To The Food

A pinch of oregano or breadcrumbs will end up in the heating coil easily if it hasn’t stuck to the food properly prior to cooking.

Even though a single piece of oregano doesn’t produce much smoke, it will produce smoke once it comes in contact with the heating coil.

Now imagine if you had an entire pinch of oregano or breadcrumbs come in contact with the heating coil, there would be quite a lot of smoke.

The solution is to make sure that everything has stuck to the food properly, this can be done easily by making sure that the surface of the food is moist when applying your breading or herbs. Moisturize the surface by applying a little sauce, marinade, water, eggs or whatever it may be.

Is It Normal For an Air Fryer To Smoke?

That depends entirely on your definition of “smoke”. If we compare the amount of smoke coming out of the air fryer with the amount that an oven produces when cooking, then it’s completely normal.

But if we’re talking about larger amounts of smoke being produced by the air fryer, and perhaps thicker smoke, then something is wrong.

An air fryer should not produce smoke if it’s used properly, cleaned and maintained accordingly. If there’s thick smoke coming from the air fryer it’s indicating that something’s wrong. The user should then start by disconnecting the air fryer from the wall socket and then start troubleshooting it.

It’s also a good idea to open up windows to ventilate the room. If the air fryer is overheating, the smoke could be produced by melting plastic, which usually contains some nasty compounds that are considered harmful to humans if inhaled.

So, no your air fryer is not supposed to smoke more than an oven does. If it does, then there’s something out of the ordinary going on and I would recommend that you get in contact with customer service.

Can Air Fryers Catch on Fire?

The general answer to this question is yes, there’s a risk of your air fryer catching on fire but it’s very small. I would like to say no, you shouldn’t have to worry about your air fryer catching on fire because of how low the risks are.

However, it’s impossible to give that kind of answer because there’s just so much that could go wrong. The fire doesn’t even have to start in the air fryer, it could be something in the surrounding environment.

If your air fryer is faulty and experiences an electrical malfunction, there could be a fire. If your air fryer is overheating, then that could be a potential fire hazard, but an air fryer that’s used properly should absolutely not catch on fire.

It’s good to remember that we’re combining electronics and high heat in the same unit here. That’s more than enough reason to be cautious at all times. Safety first, delicious food second.

Should You Clean an Air Fryer After Every Use?

You should absolutely clean the air fryer’s removable components, such as the basket, where the food is placed, every single time the air fryer has been used.

Failing to clean the components will damage the non-stick surface, cause a build-up of grease residue, and potentially bacteria. Cleaning the components will make your air fryer basket last for a much longer time.

It doesn’t take more than 2 minutes to prepare a bath with warm water and soap for the components to soak in. Once they’ve been in there for a while, simply scrub them using a soft sponge until they’re clean. Let the components dry before placing them in the air fryer again.