To be honest it shouldn't matter too much Lined or unlined. Any sensible cook will always turn food items half way through to ensure food is cooked to perfection.

Half the reason for using an air fryer is so that the fat drains away. With a liner that won't happen, Another is that it creates a more even cook. The liners are really for liquids and cakes etc.

I use foil takeaway containers ! But 50 at a time sometimes I use them twice depending on what I've cooked.. works a treat...just put them in recycling bin after 😅

This was a journey, came to see if the liners were worth it, found out you can make toast in the air fryer and then found out toast in the air fryer looks extremely depressing

Must be the best ending to a video I've ever seen 😂 Top job Mike you are a legend! 👍

We called him out on the liners, then he called us out on the liners. Love it!

Been watching you for years and Im very happy you did this video. I have the exact same air fryer myself and use it fairly often. The silicone liner would be fine for non breaded meats like the chicken or a steak. I would never use a liner for things like fries, where you really need the air circulation. However, the one thing you also need to do is flip (or toss around in the case of fries) at least once during cooking. That is a big must when using a liner or not. Says that in the manual. :) One last thing, while I haven't used a liner at all myself, the silicone ones seem nice as they have little ridges to kinda help under air circulation. I would never use those awful paper ones again though. Watching you it looked like they just folded over and prevented a lot of the heat from hitting whatever it was you were cooking. I look forward to the next week on! :)

I feel the silicon liner would do a better job than the paper ones that were also used as the silicon one did actually have raised parts to help lift the food off the bottom which helped with air flow.

LOL after reading the endless comments on every video from the week-on and then seeing this pop up in my feed and Mike talking calmly with that grin on his face, this is hilarious.

"The comment section was right." We always are. We always are.

I just bought my first air fryer a week ago and can't see why one would bother buying silicone liners when the whole point of an air fryer is that it's already got teflon easy-clean drawers anyway?

Recently bought a Tefal duel drawer. Tried chips, one side with silicone liner and the other unlined, chalk and cheese. Lined side awful chips, none lined quite good. McCain oven chips next.

On the topic of liners. Here's my advice after using one of those airfryer contraptions for quite a few years. For sticky things, especially sugary things, like if you had added some flavour to that bland chicken breast by glooping on a nice BBQ glace. Absolutely, use those paper liners and save yourself the mess. Just make sure to turn things about twice as often as without. For really fatty things, like chicken wings or cheap sausages, those silicon liners to collect the drippings isn't a deadly sin. Again with the frequent shakey-shake of the basket to keep things moving. For anything with a breading, dry - like toast or reheating pizza, and spuds in any form. Oh dear gods No! No liners! Just NO put it away. Bad youtuber! Does that clear it up?

Good Lord, he does read his comments! 🤣

Yea was so glad to see this pop up, you are a star Mike. Looking forward to your next production☺☺☺

My cleanup is easy, with no liner. I let the drawer cool, while eating. Then add dish soap and water. Let it sit while I'm cleaning other things. Finally, I clean the air fryer and it's quick.

Could you do a third experiment with the paper liners...no particular reason just for science and general annoyance 🤣

Your ending with the washing is my feelings on the matter. xD Interesting to see a comparison though. Thanks for the video!

I bought and use the liners for making dishes like moussaka, lasgne, cottage/ Sheppard's pies and cakes, etc, items that will have a wet ingredient(s) in them. i haven't tried the itmes, you tried but the chicken breast looked more succulent in the lined side, hinting that the process/ effect might be less intense when using the liner. Probably easier to clean the liner than the draw, I think.

we can conclude that mike can't be arsed to wash stuff even if its better cooked

The video we've all been waiting for!

Gotta repeat this experiment on food that air fryers are good for: supermarket frozen fries and chicken wings!

I feel seeeen! I don't know who puts bread in the air fryer though 😁

Hey Mike! I have some ideas for future week onssssss: - Raw Till 4 (the crazy freelee diet - would love to see you debunk her horrible meal plan...) - Air fryer - ONLY doing viral tiktok recipes - Bible diet - Dominos Pizza - Deep-Fried Food

he really wants to believe the liners don't make a difference.

I’ve always wondered about that since I got my air fryer. Thanks for taking the time to do a video.😊

I smell a potentially new format: The Great British Fry Off. Put two things in the airfryer with only one compartment having a liner, and see what's the best. Do this a couple of times (or maybe an entire month) and see who the winner is. Make sure to do the cheese last because that's going to be a pain to clean off of the unlined one.

Inserting a meat thermometer into each chicken breast would have been even more scientific.

If it's an ocean liner, almost certainly. If you got one of them inside yer air fryer something's gone wrong.

I prefer the lined side. The toast is crunchy & soft. The chicken is much more moist lined. 😊

Also the whole idea of having an air fryer is you put a tablespoon of oil in the bottom so that the oil vapour rises up and lightly and healthily fries your food, something you also are not doing Mikey!..

It’s Fry Hard 2: Fry Harder! What a good sport; I love how you took all this in good humour and not in a condescending, snarky way.

What we have concluded from the experiment is that Mike isn't a scientist! 😂

It's your boy, TC - back once again to say Well done Mike, this is why we love you.

Hey Mike. I've been busy so I missed a lot of your videos but I'm glad you're looking well

Mike when you doing the next week on mate really enjoy them. 🤣😂

I find my £20 from Morrisons airfryer cooks better than my daughters dual basket £120+ airfryer, its also easier to remove food without any oil or fat that the dual basket. My understanding is the heat circulates down the side of the £20 & up through the base heating more evenly but still needs shaking every few minutes. The Dual Basket however doesn’t have a basket to remove food it just has what I’d call a trivet, this means the heat has to travel down through the food to cook evenly. Because they don’t have baskets tipping food out results in oils/fats coming out. Recently picked up a Tefal Actifry for £20 in a charity shop & I’m impressed with the results so far, it stirs the food so it cooks evenly without any interaction from me. Only had it a week so I will be trying various recipes in it. Think the dual basket airfryers I’ve seen are overpriced & underperforming 🤔

Great ending to the week on Airfrying food & thanks Mike 🤗

😂😂😂 brilliant ending

Use a liner, just turn the food halfway through.

Using a liner means it’s only the liner you have to clean. Without the liner you will have to clean both the removable tray and the drawer.

Mike J the science bae!

It was the first liners you used at the start of the week on were wrong. They were paper cake liners, no holes in them for the air to circulate. The silicone liner wasn’t so bad😅 Oh, and preheat your fryer!🤣

Omfg I am so happy you did this 😂

I was surprised to find out people where opening wholes in the aluminum foil or paper. Never done it and things come out just fine. Even if there was a difference it had to be huge for me to accept cleaning up the mess afterwards 😂

Please do a week on cooking meals from scratch using only airfare and microwave

Please do the week again. Same meals but without the liners.

Thank you for sharing, that was nice

Liners just need flipping. While with the default you can cheekily get away with not flipping. Granted the instructions say you should be flipping stuff regardless of what you use, just like a conventional oven. The only real liners that are an actual positive to me are the parchment paper ones. They actually save you the clean up after. And the flipping around is not some big task. And ultimately, everything works, it's an oven for christ's sake. Just cook and flip till it's done right 🤣

This is an imperfect test - there are silicone liners with holes so you get much better air circulation. Same with parchment liners - some have holes....

Doing a "Day 8" to take fan-feedback into account is brilliant. I would love it if u also read out and responded to critical comments, it'd be gold! cheers

HAHAHA Glad I waited for the final commentary- and you're spot on good sir

Catching up with your new videos after a bit of time away. Do you guys move house Mike or just have the kitchen re-done?

"I'm going to prove all the liners complainers are wrong" AIRFRYS BREAD

i use a bit of baking paper the whole airflow issue that people care about can be negated if you actually turn your food which you would do using any other cooking method!!

Have you ever done a video to check the internal drawer temperature for consistency, so if you set it at 200C it actually cooks at that temp and not drops to say 150C?

Ok I don’t want to see “Mike doesn’t read comments” anymore 😂😂

Using a liner is definitely easier for cleaning. Why not try using a raised rack inside the liher? That would give airflow all the way around the food. I use one in mine and it cooks so much better.

Is the grate supposed to go on top of the liner?

I want to know time difference to make the liner version march the non liner version

FYI, I love your channel, by the way, My air fryer beeps at the halfway point to tell me to turn my food, so I guess ill by the silicone liner

This format reminded me how much I miss infomercialism

You can always line the bottom of the draw with foil.

Thank you for this video

Just use the paper Liners instead then throw it away NO washing up 😂 Happy days 😊

"Hi Mike you have not told us yet how much it was to use your own air fryer vs your own oven at 0.21p vs 13.06p An oven costs 0.21p kWh to use on average vs 800W air fryer at costs 13.6p kWh to use Mike.

Ive been using linewrs for months Washing is simple and the taste is wonderful Put the Cheeken with the liner for an extra 2 mins and youll get the crispy outside

If you buy the liners most come with accessories like stainless steel racks etc, the air flows freely and the chicken is crispy. Enjoy your day 😊

Don’t think it’s about cooking but more about browning. Not really very good test examples as you wouldn’t normally brown a chicken breast without skin on. I think crispy bacon or chicken drumsticks with skin on would have been a better browning test. I don’t use a liner. It takes 2 mins to clean the rack.

Yes, yes they do.

I haven't watched the video yet, but I'm going to guess the answer may be undoubtedly YES!!!

The idea or purpose of using liners is to make cleanup easy. The tst example is usless because cleaning up after making tst is minimal even with no liner, therefore no need for a liner with tst.

Gotta flip that shit. Even with a basket full of chips or whatever, and no liner, ya still gotta flip it around to get it all evenly cooked either way. Also ain't no one gonna wash their unlined airfryer after every use, so it gets all disgusting, whereas they are far more likely to wash a liner without much fuss, and the air fryer stays nice and doesn't stink the place up. Oh, and there's disposable paper ones if one is so inclined. Maybe even just some emergency ones stored away. If those 2 draws, were 1 single draw... that would be SICK! Also it would keep the 2 handles to support the sheer weight, and make it feel more laboratory-like. WAIT! there's the "Ninja XXXL FlexDrawer Air Fryer With MegaZone" for not a whole lot more money... 10.4L with a removable divider. Now we're talkin'! Harder to shuffle the food around mid-cook though, via tossing the basket around like a chef with a wok... would have to get in there with tongs and try to not fuck the food up. But then also with so much space, it would be easier to effectively use tongs. Really makes ya think.

Could he pick a worse example than a piece of toast? At lease pick something that air fryers are used for.

Ahh he does read the comments 😂 and then takes the piss out of us! Love your version of toast though!

If you use a liner flip the food

It continues!

I always use a liner I don’t believe in making work for myself

Mike sounding like all the English teachers we avoided at comp. Check hard drives!

Yep another week on is definitely needed with a wide variety of food...and a grilled cheese sandwich without a liner

Wehehell, well, well.

Very rare when the comments get something right, haha. For the toast, anyway.

That toast is raw!!

Yes. Here for this.

the twisted bread looks as tho' it's the slice next to the crust - always a problem in an ordinary toaster as the side nearest to the crust is always dry!

I feel like breaded chicken would've been a better test, as it is really meant to replace a deep fryer. Also. Most people have a toaster in the kitchen, so why chug slices of bread in to it. Just a bit dumb to use it like that, really.

Not seasoning that chicken is a crime...

The use of a meat thermometer might be worth evaluating in your 'spot the difference' quest. I personally have found that a liner helps keep the basket cleaner and makes little difference to the cooking if the contents are shaken about at least every 5 cooking minutes.

Don’t watch much KZfaq stuff but just bought a ninja , this was fun to watch , light hearted 👍

I've give up with basket aur fryers as they are so messy and never clean up very well, air fryer ovens are so much better

Two drawers....cool!

How about a week on camping?

Please god , not a week on cups of tea in the air fryer next

Depends on the type of liner you're using. My liners have lots of holes in the same as my air fryer tray.

What difference does it make its preference and as long as its cooked and taste good then fairplay 😋👍

I mean a chicken breast is not the best test because you don't really want it to be crispy

What’s the purpose of the silicone if you still gotta clean it anyways. I’m going disposable route

I find I get better results of parchment paper lining..

if you use both draws at the same time you need a longer cook time, pretty sure it says that in the manual?

Yaaaaaaaaa glad ya heard the masses lol