# What would cause a bigger deep-fryer explosion-- frozen turkey or dry ice? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 10, 2015, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-cause-a-bigger-deep-fryer-explosion-frozen-turkey-or-dry-ice/719733 "2015-05-10T23:54:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2015, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-cause-a-bigger-deep-fryer-explosion-frozen-turkey-or-dry-ice/719733/21 "2015-05-11T16:49:03Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > As God as my witness I thought CO2 could fry! Oh the humanity! ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2015, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-cause-a-bigger-deep-fryer-explosion-frozen-turkey-or-dry-ice/719733/22 "2015-05-11T19:51:19Z")
The other thing that folks forget is simple displacement. Take their large pot. Fill it 80% with cold oil. Heat the oil to boiling. It expands a bit and now the pot is 90% full. But how are you going to reduce the amount of oil now? It’s too hot to ladle it out, and what other big pot do you have to put it in, and you don’t want to spill oil on your shiny new wooden deck. So you leave it. And prepare to add the turkey, not considering that it’ll displace a volume equal to about 50% of the oil. Which has to go somewhere. As you start to lower the turkey you get some spattering. Ounce for ounce it’s no worse than chix wings on a stove-top deep fryer. But there are more ounces and some bigger splatters hit you. Now you panic & drop the bird. Which falls into the pot, triggering a massive overflow, aided and abetted by a lot of ice-flashing-to-steam splattering. Which overflow spreads to the burner and the deck, igniting the whole mess with an impressive FWOOF! Which with any luck burns the house down. Such fun. Morons. ETA: Spell check, \*then \*post. Spell check, \*then \*post. Spell check, \*then \*post. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2015, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-cause-a-bigger-deep-fryer-explosion-frozen-turkey-or-dry-ice/719733/23 "2015-05-11T20:04:23Z")
> [@Ranger\_Jeff](#): > > Maybe for maximum bang for your buck, you could use frozen solid O2 or H2. Especially if you’re heating the oil over an open flame. I like the way you think. We need you over in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=756522). ---
**Author:** ![OldOlds](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a3d4f5/32.png) [@OldOlds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldOlds)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2015, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-cause-a-bigger-deep-fryer-explosion-frozen-turkey-or-dry-ice/719733/24 "2015-05-12T00:21:16Z")
> [@Jesta](#): > > whereas dry ice into oil: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJtHqrPttZo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJtHqrPttZo) I am both surprised and disappointed. Next, though, I would like to see a similarly sized solid block of ice. Then we compare ice cubes to small bits of dry ice. Is is a surface area issue? ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2015, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-cause-a-bigger-deep-fryer-explosion-frozen-turkey-or-dry-ice/719733/25 "2015-05-12T05:21:10Z")
> [@naita](#): > > Solid H2? Where are you doing this experiment? The core of Jupiter? Of course, that was just wild speculation on my part. It was a joke. If you went to the local industrial gas place and asked for some solid H2 they’d just laugh nervously and say something like “Sorry, we’re out of that now, but it’s on back order. If you’d like to leave us your name, address, and phone number we’ll let you know when we get some in.” And then some people will visit you who will ask you a LOT of questions. Oh, and that’s just a wild speculation on my part too. ---
**Author:** ![Your\_Great\_Darsh\_Face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ac8455/32.png) [@Your\_Great\_Darsh\_Face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Your_Great_Darsh_Face)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2015, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-cause-a-bigger-deep-fryer-explosion-frozen-turkey-or-dry-ice/719733/26 "2015-05-12T09:46:31Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > As God as my witness I thought CO2 could fry! But surely “turkey” would have fitted into this sentence perfectly well? 😃 ETA: I would so like to try this with the frozen CO[sub]2[/sub]. It would be sublime! ---
**Author:** ![Dorjan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dorjan/32/12440_2.png) [@Dorjan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dorjan)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2015, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-cause-a-bigger-deep-fryer-explosion-frozen-turkey-or-dry-ice/719733/27 "2015-05-12T14:55:42Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > The other thing that folks forget is simple displacement. Take their large pot. Fill it 80% with cold oil. Heat the oil to boiling. It expands a bit and now the pot is 90% full. But how are you going to reduce the amount of oil now? It’s too hot to ladle it out, and what other big pot do you have to put it in, and you don’t want to spill oil on your shiny new wooden deck. > > So you leave it. And prepare to add the turkey, not considering that it’ll displace a volume equal to about 50% of the oil. Which has to go somewhere. > > As you start to lower the turkey you get some spattering. Ounce for ounce it’s no worse than chix wings on a stove-top deep fryer. But there are more ounces and some bigger splatters hit you. Now you panic & drop the bird. Which falls into the pot, triggering a massive overflow, aided and abetted by a lot of ice-flashing-to-steam splattering. Which overflow spreads to the burner and the deck, igniting the whole mess with an impressive FWOOF! > > Which with any luck burns the house down. > > Such fun. Morons. > > ETA: Spell check, \*then \*post. Spell check, \*then \*post. Spell check, \*then \*post. Hot to cold oil isn’t going to go from 80% - 90% full from heat expansion. The increase in volume is pretty negligible. All the panic and burnination is due to idiots either forgetting about displacement altogether, or guestimating the amount of displacement instead of placing the turkey in the fry pot, filling it with enough water to cover, removing the turkey, and then marking the lower water level as a reference point for adding the oil, which is the proper method. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-cause-a-bigger-deep-fryer-explosion-frozen-turkey-or-dry-ice/719733.md?page=1)