Australians don't celebrate Thanksgiving, so I forgot I had this classic in the queue, until now.
It's still good.
You can even get high-res version of the first part.
In fact, I'd say this is the exploding whale...
...of home fire-hazard videos. An American classic, up there with slimy Texan ice machines and that one town that's been on fire since 1962.
I mean, if someone else wants to make a video about turkey fryer safety, then even if it contains glorious apocalyptic garage-oil-fire porn...
...it'd better have Bill Murray or William Shatner or someone in it in order to top-
Oh.
I'll allow it, then.
2 December 2012 at 9:50 pm
Deep frying a whole turkey! I thought we were bad for fried goods in Scotland.
Looks good though, where can I get one...
3 December 2012 at 12:32 am
I'm always amazed that some people try to put out oil fires with water. You'd think they've seen what happens when you drop some water in a frying pan, but nooo...
9 December 2012 at 11:14 am
Yes
9 December 2012 at 11:15 am
Yes, indeed, water won't work. The proper thing to use, to put out an oil fire, is powdered magnesium. HTH.HAND.
3 December 2012 at 12:39 am
I kind of wonder who thought it would be a good idea to fill a completely uninsulated container with several litres of oil and then stick it over a rickety gas burner with an open flame.
Mostly so I can find them, then slap them.
3 December 2012 at 5:20 am
I've deep fried turkeys before and anyone with enough common sense to operate any device with an open flame can do it. The problem is that is becoming a rare thing. It is not difficult and is not any more dangerous than thermite or sparkler bombs if handled properly (and they will have to pry those fun things from my cold dead hands). IMHO those that burn their house down doing it should not be allowed anything sharper than a butter knife and most likely don't have the mental capacity required to operate an automobile.
3 December 2012 at 1:09 pm
Yeah, I'm not quite sure those people are so deserving of condemnation.
(For reference, I've fried several turkeys, and done sparkler bombs and thermite withOUT doing anything worse than overcooking said turkeys).
The ways to go wrong with a sparkler bomb are immediate and obvious, and even if you don't know how fast they'll burn, if you've done 1 (without seeing Dan's videos), you'll show proper respect the next time.
The ways to go wrong with a turkey are not so obvious (little pockets of ice, or just a pool of broth injected under the skin by Butterball), and having done 1, are still not so obvious. For instance, I think it's pretty obvious that overfilling the container with oil is a bad idea, but I can easily see someone measuring it all out, and not taking into account how much higher the level will be when there's a boiling froth at the top.
I personally didn't realize how easy these were to tip over until I saw the UL video. In retrospect, it's fairly obvious, and I definitely went way out of my way to avoid coming near the units while they were cooking, but I'd probably set up a fence if I was going to do it again.
Anyway, just saying that warning average people not to fry turkeys is something I can get onboard with, especially after watching these videos.
--Me
4 December 2012 at 6:38 am
Yeah, thermite can overcook a turkey alright. :-)
9 December 2012 at 4:50 pm
Plus, it leaves an . . . unusual . . . aftertaste.
--Me