In Japan, there’s been a lot of talk about a new deep fryer developed by Noritz called AQTAS. Traditionally deep frying involved using oil and oil only. Adding water to the equation would often lead to destruction to property and/or serious bodily harm.

Then there’s AQTAS which somehow not only is able to take in water and ice without an explosion but all of the oil in the fryer is actually swirling directly atop a layer of water. We’re not really sure exactly why it works, but it does and there are a bunch of other benefits to it as well.

■ The water cleans the oil

Looking at it from the side we can see a thick layer of heated oil on top of an even thicker layer of water. Although this would normally seem like a diagram for an IED, the two layers just sit there, peacefully swirling in opposite directions.

According to Noritz the water helps to prevent degradation of the oil and keeps it useful longer. Not only that, the water below receives sediment from food and filters it out making this a constantly self-cleaning fryer. In the demonstration video they dump an entire bowl of bread crumbs into an AQTAS. Ten minutes later over 90% of the crumbs were gone.

■ It’s weird

The oddest thing about AQTAS is that it seems to not react at all to the addition of water. In the demonstration video some brave soul with a bare arm dumps an entire glass of water into the oil. However, aside from the ripples caused by pouring, there isn’t so much as a bubble caused by it. They then toss an ice cube into it, but the frozen lump simply sinks and gently melts away without any popping or bursting at all.

An unnamed source who’s well acquainted with fried foods told us, “Because the heat source is in the center of the oil, the part that touches the water is cooler. Because of that it doesn’t cause an explosion. That’s just what I think, though I don’t really know.”

That seems to explain how the bottom layer of water works, but what about the ice cube and glass of water? They put those things right up by the heat source and it barely bubbled. My only guess is that the swirling creates a kind of suction that draws down the water rather than having it blow upwards.

Anyway, it’s weird, but cool and could save food businesses a lot of money in oil purchases and disposal. The whole thing looks too bulky to ever be used in a home though. This means that for the rest of us amateur fryers, water is still the enemy.

Source: YouTube – NORITSUjapan
Video: YouTube – veggiepowered

▼ Here’s an extreme case of what usually happens when water and heated oil come together.

▼ And here’s how it goes with AQTAS

http://youtu.be/L9ARRroKpo0?t=3m1s
[ Read in Japanese ]