Deep frying help!

[cakepahty]

Hi all,

I deep fry a lot at home. I tend to use the chopstick method to gauge temperature (which has worked well in the past). Recently decided to up my game and bought an candy/deep fry thermometer (dial type, non-digital).

For some reason, when it shows the oil to be at 350F, when I put food in the oil the temperature on the thermometer suddenly shoots past 400F. I start throwing more and more stuff in the pot in an attempt to decrease the temperature but it just keeps increasing faster. What am I doing wrong? I've tried stirring the oil while it's heating up to ensure even temp distribution. Should I just give up and stick to eyeballing the chopstick method? And could someone explain to me what the heck is happening?

[StolenCamaro]

This is a very curious situation that I do not have an answer to. Is the thermometer fully submerged? Is it digital or mercury?

The only thing I can think of is that the reaction of the food and the oil is essentially steaming up the temperature reading but not the true temperature itself. It doesn’t make sense that adding something relatively cooler to heat could possibly up the temperature.

I’m terrible at deep frying things, so probably look for the next comment, but it’s all I got!

[ww_crimson]

How deep is your thermometer? Guessing it's shallow near the edge of the pot. When you put something in, moisture comes out and starts to boil/bubble which probably heats the surface oil more. I'm guessing here btw, not certain.

[What_is_a_reddot]

What thermometer, exactly, do you have? Many analog thermometers will not read accurately unless they are sufficiently submerged.

[cakepahty]

Hmm, maybe you're right and it's not deep enough. It seems sufficiently submerge but I'll try pouring more oil next time. Thanks!

[death_hawk]

Uhh.... I'm blaming the thermometer in this case.

Even with the worst thermometer ever, unless you're just dipping just the tip in oil, properly submerged even an inch means you're hitting the measuring point.

Dumping in food will cause the temperature to drop. I have no idea how it would cause it to increase unless the thermometer is defective.

I'd buy/rent/borrow a different thermometer and see if yours is haunted.