HYSapientia 22L Dual Zone Air Fryer Oven Review

Verdict

The HYSapientia 22L Dual Zone Air Fryer Oven is a solid air fryer with a large capacity and lots of versatility. It comes with a range of useful accessories and cooks reasonably consistently. Just watch out for its meagre build quality and higher price.

Introduction

The HYSapientia 22L Dual Zone Air Fryer Oven has the potential to be one of the most versatile air fryers I’ve tested.

It’s got a large 22 litre capacity which means it can work either as a big oven, similar to the Cosori 12L Air Fryer Oven, while can also work as a dual-zone option thanks to its included divider in a similar vein to the Ninja Foodi FlexDrawer Air Fryer 10.4L AF500UK.

With this versatility in mind, the £219/$229 price therefore doesn’t seem too unreasonable, although it means that this cooker has a lot to do to become one of the best air fryers we’ve tested.

Design and Features

• Large internal cavity
• Range of useful functions
• Slightly flimsier construction

The HYSapientia 22L Dual Zone Air Fryer Oven resembles a traditional oven more than a conventional air fryer, as it doesn’t actually have a removable basket. Instead, it operates in a more standard manner with trays that you slot into its large cavity for cooking in.

The 22-litre capacity makes this one of the biggest air fryers available by way of internal space, and it means you can cook everything from a rather large chicken or pizza, or using its included divider, cook on up to six different levels with its smaller trays that come included. If you’re all about cooking by volume, there aren’t many air fryers that can beat this one.

In spite of the higher price, this air fryer doesn’t feel as robust in terms of its construction as similarly priced competitors from Ninja and Cosori. In particular, the double doors on the front aren’t too secure, and they feel quite thin. There are windows on them, though, which is handy for keeping an eye on your food. The inside is all stainless steel, so is easy to clean, and there are large lights inside to illuminate the inside.

All the controls can be found neatly above the doors on a front-facing control panel which features a large digital display for temperature and time control. The time doesn’t display in full minutes and seconds, which is a bit of a shame. Nonetheless, there are some handy functions here, such as Air Fry, Bake and Toast, as well as more unique ones such as a Pizza setting and a Rotisserie. You can also choose which zones you wish to control, as well as to turn the internal lights on while food is cooking.

My only gripe in use is that if you cook across two zones, it requires multiple presses of the Start/Stop button for confirmation. which grows quite tiresome.

HYSapienta bundles in a large number of accessories here, too, including a large bake tray and air fry basket, as well as a rotisserie fork and smaller sets of racks and trays for using this as a dual-zone air fryer. With these, you can also cook on up to six different levels if you want to cook a lot of food across the two zones, with three trays in each.

This air fryer also isn’t hampered with long waiting times for pre-heating, as it simply works straight away, while the 230°C top temperature means you can get especially crispy results against other air fryers with a 200°C restriction on them.

Performance

• Reasonably consistent cooking
• Can be quite favourable for items on top
• Rotisserie allows for even cooking

Over my few weeks with the HYSapientia 22L Dual Zone Air Fryer Oven, I cooked everything from a rack of lamb to breaded chicken, and even brussel sprouts to best gauge how it cooks. In short, it’s a reasonably brisk and solid option that cooks reasonably evenly, and is wonderfully versatile. However, it does have a couple of shortcomings.

For my first test, I cooked some breaded chicken and salt and pepper oven chips at 190°C for 20 minutes on the basic Air Fry mode. The chicken was well-browned with the chips reasonably crispy. I also used the Broil (or Grill) setting to melt some cheese and cook some bacon atop the chicken, which was well melted at 200°C after a minute and a half.

To test the volume cooking ability of this air fryer, I cooked an assortment of Christmas party food, such as fish and chip sliders, steak sandwiches, halloumi fries and mini Cornish pasties, which were all cooked in 22 minutes at 190°C on Air Fry, with crispy and piping hot results.

For my next test, I put the divider in place to try to see how well this air fryer handles a typical dual zone workload. With this, I cooked a rack of lamb on one side using the Steak preset at 180°C for 35 minutes, with it coming out on the medium side, as required. While this cooked, I also cooked some parboiled carrots and hasselback potatoes on Air Fry at 180°C for 30 minutes, with the potatoes fluffy in the middle and solid on the outside. The carrots also cooked well, especially thanks to being boiled beforehand.

Adding in some sausages while the lamb cooked underneath didn’t fare so well, however, as it seems like this air fryer offers heavily top-down cooking. This means that items placed underneath can be neglected in terms of their overall doneness against what’s on top. They cooked in closer to 25 minutes, which is quite slow.

I also used this air fryer’s Unfreeze, or Defrost, function, which proved especially powerful for defrosting two larger chicken breasts in just 20 minutes.

The Air Fry setting also did some homemade chips well on Air Fry at 200°C for 20 minutes, while the Pizza mode was especially brisk in doing a smaller pepperoni pizza in just 5 minutes at 200°C

In testing the rotisserie, I tried a silverside of beef at 210°C for the first 10 minutes to sear the meat, and then at 175°C for 35 minutes, which resulted in meat with an internal temperature of 63°C. That meant it was more towards being medium-well, although pinker in the middle. It tasted excellent. A tray full of carrots, broccolini and brussels sprouts were well-roasted on Air Fry at 190°C for 15 minutes, too, to go with the meat.

For a final test, I used the Pizza setting to cook some garlic knots made with pizza dough, which cooked at 190°C for 10 minutes, with solid results.

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