If you happen to reside in an residence with a air flow system that’s as bizarre as mine, you’re no stranger to the blaring siren of your smoke alarm. I don’t learn about your house, however the smoke detector in my residence can detect the faintest whiff of char arising from a burger or steak that I’m making an attempt to sear at a excessive temperature; then, the alarm goes off and I’m compelled to start an elaborate dance of whisking the smoke away from the detector and out the window by wildly flapping a towel till the noise stops. As a result of this course of is so exhausting and had change into so routine, I used to be intrigued by the AirHood, a product that purports to behave as a small, transportable model of a spread hood. I used to be curious to see whether or not this compact machine may truly maintain my kitchen from changing into a cave of fumes and haze.
The AirHood appears like a futuristic desk fan (it’s accessible in 4 retro-inspired colours; I went with basic black), nevertheless it’s slightly bit extra sophisticated than that. If you’re able to cook dinner, you merely place the AirHood in your counter close to the burner that you just’ll be cooking on. If you flip it on, the machine begins to suck within the smoky surrounding air and filters it via a system of carbon and stainless-steel screens, which entice smells and smoke earlier than they’ll settle in your kitchen.
Earlier than discovering the AirHood, my analysis into exhaust options for residences that aren’t outfitted with an actual air flow hood over the range was very irritating. Many of us on-line provided the identical very apparent tip — merely open up a window and let the smoke out — however that isn’t an particularly useful choice in my residence’s shotgun-style structure. The air flow is bizarre, and the smoke simply hangs round within the kitchen.
After I first obtained the AirHood, I put it via its paces. My husband heated up our cast-iron griddle to make smashburgers, which, below regular circumstances, inevitably set off the smoke detector each single time. This time, although, the one factor I heard was the marginally loud whir of the AirHood’s fan as he smashed and flipped the patties for our burgers. I had comparable success searing a ribeye steak at ripping sizzling temperatures, and breathed a sigh of reduction when after burning a batch of sticky stir-fry sauce on the range, I spotted I may simply pull the AirHood out of the cupboard and flip the swap to save lots of my ears from one other spherical of the smoke alarm.
Along with smoke detector points, I’m additionally not a fan of how cooking meat or spicy meals on the range leads to the perfume of my dinner sticking round nicely into the subsequent morning.The AirHood does a fairly good job of decreasing these residual smells, although it doesn’t completely remove them. I’d say it’s not pretty much as good at eliminating smells as it’s at eliminating smoke, however in my case, any enchancment was a significant one.
I additionally recognize that the AirHood’s detachable elements — filter, display screen, and canopy — are all dishwasher-safe, so that you don’t have to fret about scrubbing all of the grease that may inevitably accumulate from sucking up all these burger fumes.
It’s attainable that the AirHood is finest for a fairly specialised viewers — individuals who reside in residences with crappy air flow and a penchant for creating smoke within the kitchen — however for individuals who want it, it’s an enormous enchancment over explaining to the fireplace division for the 54th time that there’s no emergency, you simply burned your salmon.
The AirHood is on the market for buy right here and at Amazon.