Ahh, the sights, sounds, and smells of Thanksgiving are in the air.
For most of us, that involves music playing, football on TV, the clanking of kitchen utensils as families prep the food, with fresh aromas of sweet potatoes, pies, stuffing, turkey, and a slew of other dishes wafting around the house.
But for others, the sights, sounds, and smells of Thanksgiving will inevitably be a mountain of flames, screams from burned skin, fire engine sirens, and the lingering scent of a grease fire. Every year, people who are completely unprepared, and even sometimes long time vets, find themselves in a bad situation when deep frying a turkey goes awry.
If a frozen turkey is dropped into a vat of piping hot oil, the frozen water immediately turns to gas and expands rapidly, pushing vapor outward which causes the turkey to explode and start billowing scalding hot steam. Even if a turkey is completely thawed before entering the oil, if it was filled too high and the heat source under the vat was left on, the oil can pour over the sides into the exposed flames and cause another explosion.
In a worst case scenario, both of these things can happen…
While those who have done this for years claim it’s completely safe when you take proper precautions, I think I’ll stick with the oven method, because I’ve see just way too many deep fried turkeys gone wrong. Here’s an example of someone putting a frozen turkey into the deep fryer. As you can imagine, he was met with a billowing cloud of steam directly to his face and arms, which gave him some burns that are going to require medical attention.
You can hear his wife say before the video shuts off
“We got to take him to the ‘mergency room”
Let’s all be thankful that it hasn’t been us in one of these videos yet, and let’s also do what we can to avoid creating one of them this year..,
