PSA: Good Eats Fried Turkey Episode

There is nothing in my opinion so overrated as a fried turkey. Turkey is good and cheap until you spend $80 on oil to "fry" it in.
 
so how does everyone handle dropping the turkey in. alton built a "turkey derrick" from a ladder/pulley/etc.

seems like a major pain in the ***. do y'all just use some hook and a welder's glove or what. the practice turkey will be on sat./sun.
 
I usually agree with Nick, but I think a fried turkey done right is worthy of all the hype and not expensive at all. I fried 3 12lb'ers Sat morning and with the cost of the birds (67 cents per lb), peanut oil, brine, seasonings & ice it was under $60 and I have about 1 1/2 gallons of oil left over. I fed 20 people with 2 birds and froze the 3rd to take down to the ranch later where it will probably make 2 meals for 7 people. I made a stock out of the carcasses of the 2 birds and there was enough meat scraps to make a nice soup with the addition of some baby reds, carrots, celery, onion & zucchini and we got 11 servings out of that. Thats about 45 main course servings for well less than $1.50 each.

I lower my birds using a welding glove and a hanger tool that my turkey pot came with. I make sure they are dry after taking it out of brine and before seasoning them. I have marked my oil line on the pot by displacing the bird in water so I have enough but not too much oil. I lower them gradually and slowly and always have a spotter (usually my son) to wipe up any oil that might slosh over the edge of the pot. The turkey cavity makes a hot oil cannon and it curves to one direction where the tip of the breasts end. I call this the business end of the turkey cannon and I always make sure that it is pointed away from my spotter and myself. Any moisture or, god forbid, ice crystals will cause the cannon to fire. It takes a couple of minutes before the bird is safely and fully immersed in the oil. I fry at 350 for about 3.5 minutes per lb. and pull them when they read 165 in the center of the breast.

I'm surprised that Alton Brown did a fried turkey because in one of his books that I have read he basically states that it is just too dangerous to fry a turkey. I missed it but will they usually have plenty of show repeats. Thanks for the heads-up.
 
Alton at his best in that episode. Entertaining from start to finish.

He did point out that his peanut oil is reusable (filtered through cheesecloth) and recyclable.

I've never had deep fried turkey, but his looked amazing.
 
I'll side with those calling fried turkey overrated. Not that I don't like it. I do, but I've never had one that was better than a smoked or roasted properly brined turkey. Smoked is definitely the best in my book.

But the lower cooking time of a fried turkey can be an advantage.
 
I've only done it once for kicks. The way I lowered it was a 2 man job. I had my dad on one end of a dowel and myself on the other. Lifted and lowered by placing the hook in the middle. I didn't want my legs and feet anywhere near the pot.
 
I should add that I have no problem with eating it, I just have an opinion that it is overrated. When you add in the danger and the high cost of oil, it just doesn't work for me. If you do it right, the oil won't affect anything other than the skin and there just isn't enough skin or effect on that small amount of skin for me to ever do it again.
 
It should be noted that just as all roasted and smoked turkeys are not equal in taste, neither are fried turkeys. Many of the commercial sources of fried turkeys do not brine or inject marinade in the birds, they just shake seasonings and fry. Home cooks, as with all dishes, are all over the map in terms of end product.

For my crowd: Smoked Turkey>Fried Turkey>Roasted Turkey
 
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