【eroticizing helplessness】

There are eroticizing helplessnessreally simple ways to clean your air fryer.

We broke it down in detail here. The upshot? Use soap and water on the basket and grate. Use a damp cloth to clean the heating element — if it needs cleaning and once it has cooled. You can wipe the exterior with disinfectant wipes or a cloth.

But if you want an easy deep clean — let's say your air fryer has acquired some caked-on, long term mess — then TikTok has a hack for that. User @maverickmcbee posted a TikTok where they heated up soapy water to deep clean their cooking basket.

---

You May Also Like

---

---

SEE ALSO: The best air fryers for making crispy food faster than the oven

The basic steps, as outlined by @maverickmcbee, were.

• Fill you air fryer with soapy water.

• Air fry at 370 degrees for 3 minutes.

• Dump out the water, rinse, and see a much cleaner air fryer.

Here's how it looked in the viral TikTok, which has amassed nearly 9 million views.

The three basic steps, in photos. Credit: screenshots : tiktok / @maverickmcbee

As I started my test of this hack, first I had to assess the cleanliness of my air fryer. The machine does get a lot of use, considering I do these AirFryDay tests at least once per week. But I find my air fryer — an Instant Pot brand Vortex — super easy to clean, considering the interior is just a nonstick drawer with a nonstick, removable grate.

Upon inspection, there was some caked-on grease stains on the underside of the grate and a couple marks here and there, likely from a shoddy hand-drying via your's truly. Here are a few close ups.

Mashable Trend Report Decode what’s viral, what’s next, and what it all means. Sign up for Mashable’s weekly Trend Report newsletter. By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Thanks for signing up!

To the left: The underside of the grate. Middle: a watermark on the drawer. Right: some grime on the topside of the grate. Credit: mashable

So I loaded up my air fryer with a ton of dish soap and some warm water, then agitated the water to get the suds going. It looked liked this.

Tons of soap. Credit: mashable Suds. Credit: mashable

From there, I carefully popped the water-filled drawer into the air fryer for 3 minutes at 370 degrees. Before I knew it, the odd cook was finished.

But when I removed the drawer, the hot water was mostly clear, which didn't give me much hope for the hack's efficacy. Here's what is looked like.

I had mostly clear water, definitely not brownish like the viral TikTok Credit: mashable

In the viral TikTok, the resulting water was brownish. So clearly I didn't take up as much grime as that.

Upon closer inspection, the water marks and light grime from the topside of the grate was removed, which was nice. The caked-on greasy stuff on the underside of the grate, however, mostly remained. A quick rinse didn't remove it, although I could scrape it off, meticulously, with a paper towel. But that would've been the case before the hack, I suspect.

Here are pictures of the grease that still remained and the mostly clean topside of the grate.

This looks mostly clean, right? Credit: mashable Unfortunately the grease remained. Credit: mashable

So does the hack work? Yes and no. Hot soap and water will do some cleaning. I think that much is clear and obvious. Is it radically better than just using a sponge and tap water? Or, better yet, using the dishwasher? No, not really. But it is very easy.

I just wouldn't expect it to magically remove tough grease that's really stuck. I will concede, however, that this trick might work better for different kinds of air fryers that don't look as easy to clean by hand. The nonstick on the Vortex makes it super easy to wipe down. I could see this hack proving useful for air fryers that use wire baskets or even the type in the viral TikTok, which seems to heave more places for food to stick.

So there you have it, air fry some water and you might just be rewarded with a cleaner machine.

• Deals
• Life
• Science
• Entertainment
• Social Good
• Digital Culture
• Tech
• Games

• 9 Tech Products That Were Too Early to Market
• 'Billie Eilish: The World's A Little Blurry' is a triumph of teen fame
• The heartwarming moment a family discovers their dog survived a deadly California wildfire
• Mr. Potato Head rebrand celebrates same
• Trump who? Tech giants join massive effort to uphold Paris Agreement
• 80kg python is family's pet, as toddler rides it like a horse
• Donald Trump didn't want to share a name with Donnie Jr. in case he was a 'loser'
• 15 best tweets of the week, including Sisyphus vibing, Beeple, and 'Wandavision'
• Best MacBook deal: Save $200 on 2024 M3 MacBook Air
• Does anyone actually like Clubhouse?

• Two in the Afternoon by Mieko Kawakami
• By Your Name by Madeleine Schwartz
• Cooking with Dorothy Sayers by Valerie Stivers
• Anthony Cody, Poetry by Anthony Cody
• Listen to Henri Cole Read Poems from the Paris Review Archive by Henri Cole
• Teonanácatl by Alejandro Zambra
• Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Nonfiction by Alexis Pauline Gumbs
• Wolf Moon by Nina MacLaughlin
• Tricks, Tension, Surface, Suspense by Andrew Norman Wilson
• Chetna Maroo Wins This Year’s Plimpton Prize by The Paris Review

• Elon Musk told Donald Trump what to do about the Paris Climate Agreement
• Chelsea Clinton again calls out Trump for an offensive joke (this one's about killing people)
• Mr. Potato Head rebrand celebrates same
• Google Photos will now recognize pictures of your pets
• Best iPad deal: Save $70 on 10th Gen Apple iPad
• Larry Flynt offers $10 million if you have information that'll impeach Trump
• Airbnb is opening its very own apartment building (that sounds a lot like a hotel)
• Trump says he met the President of the Virgin Islands ... which is him
• Wordle today: The answer and hints for January 28, 2025
• Child bride uses Facebook evidence to annul her illegal underage marriage

• The Best Sports Video Game of All Time
• TikTok removed hundreds of thousands of videos spreading misinformation about the election and COVID
• Immerse yourself in Perseverance's 360
• Makha Bucha Day had 200,000 Buddhists celebrating over Zoom: Photos
• GPU Availability and Pricing Update: April 2022
• Librarians recreate a classic Kardashian family photoshoot
• Woman tests limits of pet
• ‘Magic: The Gathering’ Time Spiral Remastered gives angels a new vintage look
• Best air purifier deal: Save $300 on the Dyson HEPA Big + Quiet air purifier
• Oppo has a rollable phone with true wireless charging