My best deep fried turkey hacks all in one video. What not to do when deep frying a turkey, OK?
Deep Fried Turkey Hacks, My List
Practice to make sure you know what you are doing. Plan on buying turkeys 2 weeks ahead, defrost them in the fridge for 3-4 days, then do a practice run at making the best turkey you’ve ever tasted.
Test your deep fryer gear ahead of time, make sure it fires up. If something is broken you don’t want to be dealing with that on Thanksgiving Day, the hardware store will be closed. AND have a back up tank of propane. I can never tell exactly how much propane I have left, so I have two tanks.
Wash out the cooker every time. New deep fryer pots may have a coating on them, and pots that have been stored may have something else on them, you never know.
Calibrate the thermometer. Boil a small pot of water, then place the tip of the thermometer in boiling water. It should read about 212F at sea level, at 1,500′ where I am, it will read 210F.
Measure how much oil your fry pot needs to cover the turkey. I put the turkey in the clean pot, pour in enough oil so just the ends of the legs are sticking above the oil. I then remove the turkey and let it drain on a tray, and fire up the oil to heat it to 350F. Coating the bird with oil will not ruin it prior to cooking, OK?
Wear oven mitts and long sleeve shirt. We’ve talked about this one before, but its the easiest safety measure you can take.
Clean out burner with compressor or canned air. The propane burner can get debris stuck in it, and it wont burn nearly as well. As you can see in the video, cleaning the burner made a huge difference.
When learning how to deep fry turkey, there’s a lot of info left out, here’s GardenFork video with 10 tips on deep frying.
My 10 Tips On How To Deep Fry Turkey:
Read fryer directions: This is one of those times where I advocate reading the directions that come with a rig.
Do a trail run: Make sure your propane tank is full, and the burner works correctly. If you deep fry turkey the weekend before, you can have it all for yourself. The oil you used can be used again, see below.
Cheap vegetable oil works: Mike Wells at Popular Science is on the same wavelength as I am on this. I don’t think you need expensive peanut oil.
Start with 3 gallons: I have found a 30 quart deep fryer usually takes about 3 1/2 gallons to deep fry a 14 pound turkey . You can test this by putting the bird in the empty fryer, adding water to cover, and measuring the water as you pour it in. Be sure to dry the turkey after doing this, water and hot oil can cause boil overs.
Smaller turkeys are better: An 18 pound turkey is a big deal to deep fry. It can be hard to hold up and get into the pot, and it is more likely to boil over. I deep fried a 12 pound bird for these videos and there was plenty of turkey.
Calibrate your thermometer: Thermometers can be off by quite a bit. Boil some water and see what your temp reads. Water boils at 212F at sea level. As you elevation rises, the water boiling temp will drop. we are at 1500′ and the temp is 210F.
More Deep Fried Turkey Videos:
Wear old clothes: You will get oil on your clothes and shoes, so don’t wear nice clothes. Dress like me, at least for a few hours.
Fresh is better than frozen: I have messed up defrosting turkeys several times. It is much less stressful to just buy a fresh turkey. Plus, unless the turkey is completely thawed, any ice or water in the turkey can cause the oil to boil over the pot. A very bad thing.
ABC fire extinguisher: Have one nearby, OK? It has to say for A B & C type fires on the label.
Turn off burner: When lowering or raising the turkey into the pot, turn off the burner. This way any oil spills down the pot, it wont be ignited by the burner.
I Love These Gloves:
Wear oven gloves: I really like these silicone oven gloves a GardenFork viewer sent me.
Dry rub is ok: If you are a fan of dry rubs or dry brining, you can do that, just use more of it, as some the dry rub or salt will get washed into the oil.
Let rest on metal baking tray: After the turkey is cooked, let is rest on a metal baking sheet for 2o minutes. Keep away from your kids and pets, its still real hot.
Cook on grass: When you deep fry turkey, oil can spill. If you place the burner on the grass, the oil is absorbed by the soil. If you deep fry on your driveway, you have oil on your concrete and its slippery, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Reuse oil: You can re-use the vegetable oil 3-4 times, but between frying, keep the oil cool in the basement or fridge. Be sure you strain the oil to remove the turkey bits from the oil after each use. You could also give the oil to someone who uses it to power their car or truck.
Use long lighter: This is one of the easiest when I wanted to write about how to deep fry turkey. When you have a big pot on the burner and you need to relight it, a long lighter is key.
Learn how to deep fry turkey in this GardenFork.TV cooking video. We received a bunch of requests to make a video about how to make deep fried turkey, so just in time for Thanksgiving, here is the our simple method for deep frying turkey. We bought our Turkey Deep Fryer Kit on Amazon here
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There are a bunch of precautions when using a deep fryer, remember, the oil is real HOT and can burn you.
Wear long sleeves and heavy gloves
Turn off the burner when lowering or raising the turkey
Defrost the turkey fully
Keep a fire extinguisher nearby
Slowly lower the turkey into the hot oil, takes 1-2 minutes to fully immerse the turkey
Make sure the oil temperature thermometer is not accidentally stuck in the turkey itself. You want to use the large round dial thermometer that comes with your deep fryer kit to measure the oil temperature.
Do not let the oil go above 350F, bad things can happen, like spontaneous combustion, not a good thing.
The secret to great deep fried turkey is temperature, you want cook the breast to 145F, then turn off the burner, lift out the turkey, drain and let it rest for 20 minutes. It will continue to cook a bit. I’ve found that if you cook the turkey past the 145F mark, it tastes dry and crumbly.
[box bg=”#FFCC33″ color=”#000000″]Be extremely careful when using a deep fryer! Hot oil will burn your skin. Follow all directions and precautions that come with you deep fryer.[/box]
We could go into the science of protein strands tightening up when they are heated too much, but we’ll leave that to America’s Test Kitchen. Just remember to check the temperature after about 25 minutes in the thick part of the breast.
Here is where we bought out deep fried turkey kit:
