Why you shouldn’t cook your turkey this way. Watch what happens to the holiday bird
For years, South Florida fire departments have been warning that deep-frying your Thanksgiving turkey can be risky. Crews have even produced video showing what can happen when frying goes wrong.
Of course, a burning bird in a forgotten oven isn’t great either. But frying comes with hazards. Like melting your skin and burning down your home.
Yes, turkeys can explode.
That’s why the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has warned us on the dangers of deep-frying turkeys for Thanksgiving. Why? A bird plopped into a cauldron of hot oil can burst into flames and spread through a property.
“Only fry a turkey outside and away from your home.,” the agency advises, “and never use turkey fryers in the garage or on the porch.”
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The CPSC says that since 2000, the agency knows of 217 fire or burn incidents involving turkey fryers, injuring 83 people and destroying $9.5 million in property.
And there are other risks to frying a bird indoors.
In 2017, seven people were sickened inside a West Kendall apartment with carbon monoxide poisoning.
So why do people deep-fry turkeys? Well, who doesn’t like moist meat and succulent skin?
But ... There is also good reason turkeys explode inside the deep-fryer.
We’ll leave it to science to explain:
“When you submerge a turkey into the oil, the ice inside the turkey absorbs the heat and melts, forming liquid water,” writes Kristine Nolin, an associate professor of chemistry at the University of Richmond.
She continues: “This water is denser than the oil, so it falls the bottom of the pot. The water molecules continue to absorb heat and energy and eventually they change phases and become steam. The water molecules then rapidly spread far apart from one another, and the volume expands by 1,700 times. This expansion causes the density of the water to drop to a fraction of a percent of the density of the oil, so the gas wants to quickly rise to the surface.
“Combine the fast change in density with the expansion of volume, and you get an explosion.”
This story was originally published November 21, 2022 at 7:24 AM.
