Question About Turkey Fryer

[angelsmom10]

We have thought about a turkey fryer, but we'd really only use it at Thanksgiving... my only concern is the fact of cooking outside in cold temps.. how hard is it to maintain the frying temp of the oil?

DH & I were having a huge discussion on this last night, I'm just afraid that if the temps are low, the oil won't stay at a high enough temp.

What has your experience been?

[PopupSgt]

We have thought about a turkey fryer, but we'd really only use it at Thanksgiving... my only concern is the fact of cooking outside in cold temps.. how hard is it to maintain the frying temp of the oil?

DH & I were having a huge discussion on this last night, I'm just afraid that if the temps are low, the oil won't stay at a high enough temp.

What has your experience been?

Nancy,
We use a turkey fryer for every Thanksgiving and outings, I have not had an issue with maintaining the temperature too badly.  I get more of a problem with the wind blowing and causing an erratic burner flame than the temperature of the oil.
No matter what, it takes quite a while to heat the oil to the required temperature.  I cooked a turkey at a memorial day outing this year for many of this boards camper friends and they were pretty estatic of the taste and moist turkey meat.

[ForestCreature]

That was one tasty bird too!  Corey can deep fry a turkey for us anytime!
 
 
 
 
 

[campincrew]

Fried my first Turkey last year and it was great.  the only problem I had was the wind blowing the flame irratically.  I made a simple deflector with a couple of deck chairs and some cardboard.  My real joy is cooking old "tom" on the webber grill-now that's eatin'! :p

[6Quigs]

We bought a Turkey Fryer at Target for $30, and we love it.
Never had a problem heating up the oil, even when we camped in 30 degree weather. It just took a bit longer to heat the oil to frying temperature of 225 degrees, I think about 20 minutes.
The burner it came with is a 30,000 btu/hr burner, so it had no problem heating the oil.

Whatever you do, read the instructions, twice, just to make sure you are safe.

Biggest mistake people make is having too much oil in the fryer, and dropping the turkey in too quick, which causes the oil to boil over, onto the flame, which then starts a fire.
Make sure you have the correct ammount of oil in the pot, and when lowering the turkey into the pot, do it slowly, very slowly, preferbly with the turkey hung from from the middle of a 6 foot long pole, with two people holding the ends of the pole, as they lower the turkey, inch by inch into the boiling oil!
and keep the young kids away!

Otherwise, you get a great tasting turkey, and only taking three and a half minutes per pound, a 18 pound turkey took just over an hour to fry!!

[Tim5055]

If you get one, make sure your follow the directions - keep it well away from the house or pop up.

Every Thanksgiving many families (I heard it was about 5 a year) burn their houses down with their fryer.  Be safe!

[mowalker]

It can be done in the most coldest of temps.  Like what was said before watch your wind.  Do not over heat the oil either to compensate for cool weather.
 
One trick to measure your oil level is to put the turkey in the oil pan cover it with an inch of water, then mark the water line.  Remove the turkey and drain as well as pat dry leaving no water residue.  Be sure you remove the marking instrument, ie tape, marker or whatever before frying.
 
There are many recipes out there
 
Enjoy
 
Ray

[Calstate361]

I have fried a turkey for many years now, ever since they came out.   What gets me is I paid $80 for mine and now they are as low as the Target one for $30!.  On well.   It's great because you don't heat up the house and like 6Quigs said, it only takes about a hour (my book says 3 minutes per pound).  As for the oil, the best one to use is the peanut oil.  Target and Home Depot sell it around the Holidays only, but if you want it for other times, I have found it at Smart & Final(a restaurant supply store here in CA).  I have found through the years that is usually only takes about 3 gal. of oil.  I like getting one gal. containers instead of a 3 or 5 gal. container because you can put it back in the 1 gal. container and put it in the outside garage frig. to use again (you can use it about 3 times before you need to toss it).   I have also purchased (from Cabella's) a pump that filters out the grit when you are pumping it back into the containers after it's used.  Another thing we have done is put the turkey in a brine before frying it.   I posted the brine recipe last year.  6Quigs used it for one of our rallies and everyone enjoyed it.   You have to purcase a 5 gal. plactic bucket with a lid so you can mix the brine and soak the turkey in it for, at least, one day.  The only bad thing about brineing the turkey is that it turns the skin a much darker color (from the soy sauce) and you can't re-use the oil unless you are doing another brined turkey.  
 
Don't be afraid of it, it's great, just use caution and common sense.  You won't go back to the "old" way again.
 
Joan

[Surfcal]

Hello:

I have extensive experience with turkey fryers.  I can attest the results taste good and I have eaten deep fried turkey that 6Quigs and Ab Diver have made.  Here are some safety suggestions:
 
- don't eat too much and overstuff yourself
- chew the turkey and don't inhale it
- I've also learned to seperate the bones from the meat
 
Hope that helps.
 
Surfcal

[startx]

Angelsmom, once you have the turkey fryer, you will find you use it for more stuff than just frying turkey.  We use ours often, making all sorts of things like fried chicken, french fries to go with burgers in the summer, fish frys, and don't forget the ever important seasonal crawfish boil.  The burner also serves as a great resource if you do home canning, you can do the actual sealing process outside and eliminate the heat in the house.  We use a "dutch oven" (Lodge calls it a dutch oven, but it doesn't have the proper legs or lid rim for baking) to fry smaller quantities of stuff in, but you can fry smaller quantities in your turkey fryer pot, just use less oil, and be sure to put the turkey stand in to help retrieve what you are frying.  The pot works great without the inserts for a crawfish boil.

We use the water measurement system, and if we're frying more than one turkey we measure with the largest one and cook largest to smallest, as you loose a bit of oil with each fry of course.  We have used the fryer in a wide range of temps, and never had a problem maintaining the oil temp.  We have problems too with the wind blowing the flame but usually build strategic wind blocks to take care of that problem.  One word of caution, don't use it in an area that you don't want stained, like on your deck.  A certain amount of oil will pop out of the fryer onto the surrounding surfaces, and leave stains.