Not everyone gets up at the gap of first light to put their turkey in the oven onThanksgiving . All over the U.S. , and particularly in the South , around midday , the great unwashed put their Turkey in afryer . Not only is this a fast method acting , typically taking just an time of day to cook , but the bird also come out particularly moist and blue .
But there is a downside : explosion . Three times more cooking fire occur on Thanksgiving than on any other day of the year , harmonise to the National Fire Prevention Association . cook your turkey in a fryer means submerge it in 3 to 5 gallons ( 11 to 19 liters ) of hot oil , which can cause all form of accident and burns .
Here ’s why : cookery oils have specific temperatures called smoke points , at which the oil breaks down , bulge out to fume and turn airborne compounds . ( The temperatures vary by thekind of vegetable oil . Peanut fossil oil , for instance , has a smoke point of 450 F , or 232 snow , while canola ’s is 400 F , or 204 one C ) . These airborne compounds are passing flammable — if you see the oil you ’re using starting to emit black smoke , that ’s a sign it ’s getting near its smoke level and the temp needs to be take down .
2d , water and oil do n’t immix , which is why set up a frozen turkey into the fryer is passing unsafe . body of water atom are polar ( one side of the molecule is somewhat positivistic and the other is slightly negative ) while oil molecule are nonpolar . icy and nonionic molecule try their best to remain forth from each other .
So , when the ice from a icy turkey adjoin a vat of hot oil , it immediately changes to steam and elaborate to 1,700 times its original volume . This can cause the oil to bubble over and if an oil speck makes contact with a flame — gravy — you ’re in trouble .
To stay safe , do n’t overfill your fryer with oil and monitor your crude oil temperature while heating . Also , make indisputable to thaw your turkey completely and pat it dry before plunging it in .
For more information , check out the video above from the American Chemical Society .
