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This Is What Happens When You Deep Fry a Frozen Turkey
Too late for many east-coast Americans, but perhaps in time to stop a blaze or two in California, an anonymous reader writes with this video of "a controlled demonstration of why it is a bad idea to fry a frozen turkey." My brother this morning assembled (despite poor directions and questionable parts fit) a deep fryer for a Thanksgiving turkey; we're optimistic, and the turkey seems to be fully thawed at least.
Every video of the turkey being put in results in an overflow of displaced oil which catches fire.
The water will 'boil' due the very high oil temp.. but most of these videos seem to fail at 'use the proper amount of oil'.
Now how do i sneak this on a plane?
Stuffing a non-frozen turkey in a frier that fast will lead to bad things, remember dip it in slowly so any excess water in the turkey boils off without turning the entire thing in to a conflagration.
Oh yea, never fry in your garage, on a wooden porch, or close to anything that will catch on fire.
On that note, I have two turkeys on my counter ready to be injected with butter and a nice rub put on them before I fry them. Fully defrosted, no need for a hospital visit.
This one by State Farm is better... and it shows the ice in the oil trick!
From what I've seen over the years ... such demonstrations don't serve to dissuade Slashdotters from doing something. It's more of a starting point for something to try at home. :-P
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I think the last part of the video which explains the science behind this and compares turkey-and-oil-induced BLEVE to similar incidents involving exploding gas tanks and storage facilities.
Even a dramatic reading by William Shatner would have been more interesting.
When I was 12 years old I coined "Rob's first law", which states:
People are generally stupid.
I have seen no evidence to the contrary in the past over 30 years.
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
Deep frying a whole turkey makes it come out extremely juicy -- it doesn't have that "fried" flavor or taste. Cooking in the oven gets you a bit dryer turkey. What happens is the hot oil sears the skin, trapping the juices inside. Usually you inject them with a butter based solution, seasoned with various spices, and that gets embedded into the turkey meat. Oh, and when you inject the bird, first figure out which way you are going to position it in the pot, and make sure the injection holes are at the top (try to reuse the same injection site, and with different angles / depths), so that the juice doesn't run out into the oil when cooking.
And yes, the first time I had seen this done was in Arkansas. But like I said above, it doesn't come out greasy or anything like that.
1. You're missing out.
2. You don't have deep fryers in jolly ol'?
3. Deep frying is basic cookery.
4. The turkey comes out juicy and not dried out.
5. It akes 30-45 minutes.
6. Crispy turkey skin.
7. It's safe if you read the instructions and warnings and *pay them heed.*
You can take your American bashing and shove it.
--
BMO
Have you tried brining it?
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
My very first job, I worked at an A&W, and they put me to work at the deep fryer. The procedure there (OSHA would not approve) was to take a big bag of fries out of the freezer, cook some of them, put the fries back in the freezer, and repeat for a few iterations. They freeze-thaw cycles would cause the fries to get covered with ice crystals.
One particularly frantic dinner rush, I was scrambling to get fries out, and I jammed a whole bunch of ice-covered fries in the deep fryer. Of course, the crystals flashed to steam, and splashed my arm with napalm-hot frying oil. I still have the scars.
Meldroc, Waster of Electrons
In all seriousness, you can spot a shift in a country's cuisine through history when they begin trading with Scotland. Tempura? Pakora? They happened because some trader said "right, let me show you a thing, first you make some batter from flour and water, okay now dip in in and fry it - yeah, good, isn't it?"
I'm female, and I learned no cooking in school. My husband is a little older, and he did learn a bit of cooking. But it was mostly done away with by the time I entered highschool. I don't know if it was because it is sexist or because it means people won't be buying from McDonalds and such. Where will all the future McDonalds workers the schools are churning out go if people aren't buying their food from McDonalds?
They know they're doing it wrong, that's the point of the video!
Many people think that you can use deep frying as a short cut if you forgot to thaw your turkey.
People are stupid, news at 11!
The guys who came up with the idea to fry a whole turkey were rednecks. And every good redneck story begins when someone says "Here, hold my beer while I..."
ice = more water stuck together
FYI, ice is less dense than water. That's why it floats.
That's not the point he was making, what he is actually talking about is surface area vs volume. A block of ice does not disperse when it hits the oil, it sinks toward the bottom as a block, liquid water disperses quickly and may not get a chance to sink as deep as ice. GP speculates this may result in larger bubbles with ice.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.