turkey fryer

motley que said:

Ok so I found a new one on Craigslist for $15 so i made the splurge. Ok so here ae a few questions.

is peanut oil a must, or is regular oil ok?

what do you do with the left over oil, can it be used a few times?

any other advice?

thx

Click to expand...

peanut oil....takes more heat to make it smoke, regular oil, you will probably have a fire. you can use it a few times....in the same day.

Get thoroughly educated! You can burn down your house, burn/kill yourself and ruin God-knows what.

Little things like stability of the rig (will it tip?), a wet or partially frozen bird = napalm, oil volume and displacement (to prevent overflow), fire extinguishers, etc.

Alton Brown did an excellent show about them.

Remember, oil is flamable. You spill oil onto your burner, you are talking about a gasoline-like reaction.

Peanut oil is preferred for flavor.

Mine scares the hell out of me since I saw all the things that can go wrong....I use it now for a charcoal starter.

like the other have said be damn carefully on thing you can do is put water in the pot then put the turkey in the pot to see how much you will need. mark the outside of the pot then drain the water dry the pot then add your oil just below the mark heat the oil to 350 then add the DRY bird SLOWLY remember you can always add oil.

I use the 3 min per # rule also when you are ready to take the bird out TURN the FARKIN gas off :!:
hope this helps

I saw one the other day at Sam's club that I've been trying to convince the wife to let me buy. She can't get over being totally against the idea of taking a Turkey( healthy food) and frying it(unhealthy).

I think I found the angle. Convince her it's for seafood boils. It even showed it on the box. The only other problem is her food allergies. I wouldn't be able to use the peanut oil either.

I have a good article on frying oils.... if I can just figure out how to attach it :-0

View attachment fog-deepfry.pdf

You need an oil with a high flash point that won't burn. Peanut is great, but I typically use creamy shortning. It is designed for commercial frying - works great for turkeys. Look for back episodes - Alton, Emeril, and other have had great shows on Frying.
I'l also look for some good article links to post. the one above is a good one!

I have a turkey fryer that I have used for years. What I have used is the frying shorting you buy at Sam's club or Costco which is right by the peanut oil. I have never had a problem but you also have to babysit a fryer just like you would your smoker, checking the temp and to maintain a safe heat. It can be just as addicting. Make sure before you pour your oil into the fryer to do a dry run, put your turkey in the fryer and put water in it to see how much oil you need AFTER you remove the turkey to see the level of water it took to cover the turkey. Make a mark with something and then put the oil in, warm up and then put the turkey in. This is probably the safest way of doing it.

I've used peanut oil, creamy shortening for frying and canola oil. I prefer canola oil and I strain it through a fine paint strainer and cheesecloth after I do a couple turkeys and put in the freezer when done. Frying isn't something you can set and forget, you have to keep an eye on it the whole time. I get the oil to temp and shut off the burner and lower the bird in the pot so theres no chance of flare up, then relight. Don't do it on a wood deck and if you do it on asphalt put some pavers under the burner. For easy cleaup of the inevetable oil spill lay down some Dri-Sorb or unscented Kitty litter. Make sure you get as much water off the bird as possible. Be safe and have fun!

Fryers are fun. Here's an article from my site about tips you WON'T find in the manual...

Know how much oil you’ll need to fry safely. - You need to know how much oil to have hot and ready in the pot before you dunk the turkey. How much will cover your bird? The instruction book will tell you to put the turkey into the dry pot and fill with water until it covers the bird. Remove the bird and the remaining water is the amount of oil you’ll need to start. What the instructions don’t tell you is that cool water and hot oil have different volumes. Cold oil will cover your bird. Hot oil will expand and could flow over your pot when you drop the bird in. I learned this the hard way on my very first fried turkey. I used the right amount of oil based on the instructions in the book, but had a huge mess when I put a large bird into the pot with the hot, expanded oil. When you use the water trick, don’t completely cover the bird. Bring the water level to a couple inches or more from the top of the bird.

Oil will go everywhere - Tired of the oil stains in the driveway? We now start our turkey frys with a bag of kitty litter. The whole bag of kitty litter is dumped on the driveway in a circle to about a 3 foot diameter. The fryer goes in the center. Oil that splatters goes on the kitty litter and is absorbed. When it is time to clean up, simply sweep up the kitty litter into the trash. Turkey Frying is an outdoor sport - Every year some idiot decides to fry his turkey in his basement or in the garage. He usually is looking for a new place to live the next day… if he lives through the fire.

Give the pot a wash - You didn’t hear this from me, but a car wash is a great way to get your pot clean again. Watch for splatter with the high pressure sprayer. Finish the job in the kitchen sink for the final wash and rinse. These are my turkey frying tips that aren’t in the instruction book.

A word of caution - There is a fine line between an undercooked bird and an over cooked bird. Watch your oil temperature and cooking times, using the instruction book as a guide, and you’ll do fine. Keep a meat thermometer on hand to check the meat temperature in the thigh and breast when you think it is ready. And finally, don’t keep a probe in the meat while in the fryer: bad, bad idea.

I like to use canola and add flavor. I will put herbs and spices in right after the oil goes in as its heating. The skin get a nce flavor element.