Don't Fry that Frozen Turkey until you read this!

Before we get to the serious business of the TMT, a thanksgiving warning from a physicist: defrost your turkey now! Also, do not attempt to deep fry a frozen turkey! It will literally burst into flames. Here’s why:

Deep frying relies on oil to transfer heat to the substance being cooked. Normally cooking oil is stable at cooking temperatures. It stays a liquid, and that liquid doesn’t combust. It just gets hot.

However, If you’ve ever pan seared anything, you may have seen and heard the oil aerosolize the moment the food hits the pan.

Oil aerosolizes when it comes into contact with water, which is definitely NOT stable at cooking temperatures. It boils at 212 F. By definition, boiling causes the water to rapidly expand. Being a polar molecule, it often pulls some of those oil molecules along with it.

Aside from leaving a thin film around the burner, the oil hangs in the air as if it were a vapor. In this, low density form, the oil is very susceptible to ignition. If you have a gas burning stove, you may have even experienced such a “flash in the pan”.

So yes, pat down that defrosted turkey before dropping it into hot oil. But what happens if its still frozen?

Ice is far less stable at cooking temperatures than water. The ice crystals trapped in the frozen turkey will expand well over a thousand times in hot oil. Given the size of the turkey and the oil used to fry it, you can certainly expect disaster.

New York Magazine has a fantastic explainer video on YouTube that goes into details - with some familiar epic example home videos.