Every year someone’s fried turkey goes rogue. But why does it happen? In this Virtually Rick — we bring you the science of exploding Turkeys.
Here are 5 things to know:
- Stats show there are more than double the amount of home fires over Thanksgiving. But why? Could it be our pal the turkey getting revenge?
- As my local priest once said, if it feels wrong, it probably is — and jamming a frozen turkey into a vat of boiling oil — well, what could possibly go wrong with that? Only everything!
- Now, you’ve heard that oil and water don’t mix, right? Well, in dating terms, it’s more because they’re just not attracted to each other (their molecules anyway), so they stay apart.
- Ice is frozen water, and a frozen turkey is about 10% water, so what happens if we add a frozen turkey to oil that’s been heated to over 350 degrees. Boom! The ice in the turkey suddenly evaporates and turns to steam.
- This vapor expands around 1,700 times its original volume, which pushes the oil over the edge, spraying water and oil everywhere, including the flames of the fryer, and suddenly, kaboom! No eyebrows.
So hold on to your giblets, use less oil, don’t heat it too high, use a completely defrosted turkey (not a frozen one) and lower it in slowly with the burner off. Then, that way, you can guarantee that the only thing that’s brown and crispy is your turkey this Thanksgiving.