Is $30/gallon here in Colorado.

Can I fry a turkey in vegetable oil? Any tips on how it will cook different?

TIA

Smoke it. Definitely don't use vegetable oil though. Peanut oil has a higher smoke temperature

Wow. I just bought an infrared thinking I'd break even after two cooks in oil savings.

Damn, I bought 4.5 gallons at Sams for $50 and thought that was high. You'll be fine with vegetable oil. The biggest benefit to peanut is reusability, but Turkey oil is one and done regardless. I usually make a roux for gumbo with a few cups of leftover, but it's dead for frying..

infrared

spatchcock on smoker

I haven't fried a turkey in years due to the waste/mess/cost of peanut oil, and that was in "normal" times.

TX AG 88 said:

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infrared

spatchcock on smoker

I haven't fried a turkey in years due to the waste/mess/cost of peanut oil, and that was in "normal" times.

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Same here. Not worth the trouble unless you're doing multiple birds.

I hear ya. I've smoked my bird for the past decade. Love it. But wanting to mix it up a bit.

FIDO*98* said:

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Damn, I bought 4.5 gallons at Sams for $50 and thought that was high. You'll be fine with vegetable oil. The biggest benefit to peanut is reusability, but Turkey oil is one and done regardless. I usually make a roux for gumbo with a few cups of leftover, but it's dead for frying..

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#$@&! I learned something today. Now I have to forget something to make room in my elderly brain…….my disk is full.

+1 on the spatchcock. We just did 4 birds, spatch, whole smoked, oil fried, and oilless. The spatch was the best.

I linked the char broil big easy below, on sale at academy this week. Uses infrared heating. Not exactly like a fried turkey, but comes really damn close. Close enough that you won't care. Usually cook some chickens throughout the year in it as well.

https://www.academy.com/shop/pdp/char-broil%C2%AE-the-big-easy%E2%84%A2-oil-less-propane-turkey-fryer?sku=black

I've used Canola oil at 375 for years without a problem.

We reuse our peanut oil several times without issue.

If we use a normal pot, you probably only want to do 2 before pouring off to remove the gunk at the bottom.

If we use the Cajun fryer, you can get more out of it because all the solids drop below the fire tube and they aren't getting directly fired from the bottom.

We will probably fry 9 turkeys on Thursday in the Cajun fryer (2 at a time) if we did it in pots, we would probably have two or three pots going.

We normally fry turkeys for our thanksgiving tailgate if we have a game that week. These pictures are from 2015/2016. I can't remember the guys name (Tony something), but he was announcing and he was a former Dallas Cowboy. He made sure all pictures were shaking hands with his left hand to display his Super Bowl ring. He left with a leg/thigh and some breast meat to eat during the broadcast. Cool story bro…

FIDO*98* said:

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Damn, I bought 4.5 gallons at Sams for $50 and thought that was high. You'll be fine with vegetable oil. The biggest benefit to peanut is reusability, but Turkey oil is one and done regardless. I usually make a roux for gumbo with a few cups of leftover, but it's dead for frying..

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No, it isnt one and done for frying

Definitely not a one and done with the oil…I use the oil for the holiday season. Usually fry a turkey and a couple of chickens at Thanksgiving straining the oil back into the container then frying a turkey at Christmas…tossing it after that…keeping it below the smoke point temp and straining is the key to re-using it…

Use Canola. It'll be fine. You fry at 350 which is in its range.

BCStalk said:

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Smoke it. Definitely don't use vegetable oil though. Peanut oil has a higher smoke temperature

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Vegetable and canola both smoke at 400. No one should be frying a turkey at that temp. 350 is the temp and it'll drop dramatically once the turkey is dropped. It'll then take a bit to get back up to 350 after that.

Veggie and canola are fine.

Just for clarification, by one a done I meant that once you've fried a Turkey, it's pretty much all it's good for. Sure you can do multiple Turkeys and it's probably fine for wings. Anything breaded, battered, or starchy like potatoes will taste like Turkey if fried in Turkey oil. The thought of eating Turkey outside of Thanksgiving just didn't cross my mind hence the one and done comment

FIDO*98* said:

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Just for clarification, by one a done I meant that once you've fried a Turkey, it's pretty much all it's good for. Sure you can do multiple Turkeys and it's probably fine for wings. Anything breaded, battered, or starchy like potatoes will taste like Turkey if fried in Turkey oil. The thought of eating Turkey outside of Thanksgiving just didn't cross my mind hence the one and done comment

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Thanks for the tip about using it for a roux…hadn't thought of that before!

FIDO*98* said:

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Damn, I bought 4.5 gallons at Sams for $50 and thought that was high. You'll be fine with vegetable oil. The biggest benefit to peanut is reusability, but Turkey oil is one and done regardless. I usually make a roux for gumbo with a few cups of leftover, but it's dead for frying..

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You can also use that roux for your turkey gravy....

FIDO*98* said:

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Just for clarification, by one a done I meant that once you've fried a Turkey, it's pretty much all it's good for. Sure you can do multiple Turkeys and it's probably fine for wings. Anything breaded, battered, or starchy like potatoes will taste like Turkey if fried in Turkey oil. The thought of eating Turkey outside of Thanksgiving just didn't cross my mind hence the one and done comment

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i've filtered it and reused it in fish fry and the fish didn't taste like turkey

RCR06 said:

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I linked the char broil big easy below, on sale at academy this week. Uses infrared heating. Not exactly like a fried turkey, but comes really damn close. Close enough that you won't care. Usually cook some chickens throughout the year in it as well.

https://www.academy.com/shop/pdp/char-broil%C2%AE-the-big-easy%E2%84%A2-oil-less-propane-turkey-fryer?sku=black

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This.

About 4-5 years ago I went to buy the Peanut Oil and a new pot to do our T-Day Turkey. Then I saw this Char-Broil Big easy cooker for $79 back then. Called the wife, asked about brining and had a brief discussion about that and bought the Big Easy. Never looked back after that first cook. Our family and extended family that was in town loved it. Raved about it, and it is now the cooking method for not just the Thanksgiving Turkey, but also for a rib-eye roast for Christmas every year.

Huge advantage also in not having to deal with the oil. We leave the cooker running during the turkey rest to crust up the splatters on the removeable inner wall, and by the end of dinner it is cool and takes all of 15 minutes to clean up including the drip tray (which we line with our Weber gas grill foil pans). The whole thing can be covered and put back in storage in just a few minutes after dinner is done.

As far as brining, it takes about as long to prep that as the injection for frying. Just have to keep in in the brine (can get bags for just this) on ice for approx 24 hours. If you don't have leaks in the brine bag, you can use the ice for the beer for the cook of the turkey. Takes about 10-12 minutes per pound in Texas weather.

I've got the Big Easy Smoker Roaster. It's worth the extra $ for the additional versatility IMO. It's what I'm using to cook my bird on Thursday

RCR06 said:

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I linked the char broil big easy below, on sale at academy this week. Uses infrared heating. Not exactly like a fried turkey, but comes really damn close. Close enough that you won't care. Usually cook some chickens throughout the year in it as well.

https://www.academy.com/shop/pdp/char-broil%C2%AE-the-big-easy%E2%84%A2-oil-less-propane-turkey-fryer?sku=black

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Second the above. If an oil fried turkey is a 10, then a big easy turkey is an 8 or 9.

Put the peanut oil back in the container and put in in the deep freezer. We probably use the same oil for 3 or 4 years in a row.

FIDO*98* said:

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Just for clarification, by one a done I meant that once you've fried a Turkey, it's pretty much all it's good for. Sure you can do multiple Turkeys and it's probably fine for wings. Anything breaded, battered, or starchy like potatoes will taste like Turkey if fried in Turkey oil. The thought of eating Turkey outside of Thanksgiving just didn't cross my mind hence the one and done comment

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Yeah...no

Fortunately, I'm just taking a side dish, not the main course.

I'm taking beans: https://texags.com/forums/34/topics/1394477

Big Easy for the last 6 years. Beats frying by a long shot.

Deep Frying times for Turkey's are 3 1/2 minutes per lb at 350 degrees, not 8-9 min per lb.....just want to make sure nobody is eating a burnt bird tomorrow!

Yeah we used a big easy for a friendsgiving on Sunday.
Cons: It was close to 10min a pound.The cook was somewhat uneven we were at 165 in the breast but then in the deeper leg areas especially around the junctional areas, it was still like 140. So I let it cook until those areas got to atleast 155.
Pros: Even with the extra cooking time it didn't dry the breast out, so that's good. Wife liked it more than deep fried and there's very little cleanup, disposal, mess, waste.

Will be using again tomorrow and into the future and the frying setup is going to be a dedicated crawfish boiler now.

Almost 100% smoke now because of this.