How safe is my turkey fryer?

Hi all,

When I first bought my turkey fryer in 2006, it behaved strangely. No matter how the regulator was set and how open the propane tank valve was, the flame was always very weak. After "fiddling" with the thing (basically turning the regulator up and down a lot), I got it to come up to full strength, which sounds to me not unlike a quiet jet engine.

Anyway, it worked fine for quite a few brews. I still had the occasional issue with the weak flame, but some fiddling always solved it eventually.

I then went on a one-year brewing hiatus, and then again for the better part of a year. In short, my turkey fryer has been used once in roughly 24 months, and I'm wondering if the disuse and cold storage temperatures could have damaged it. I don't want to hook it up and blow my head off.

TIA.

Are you sure you have a high-pressure regulator? Turkey fryers often come standard with a low-pressure regulator. I know my first one did and I couldn't figure out what was going on. The guys at Ace knew exactly what the problem was. As soon as I switched the regulator, the "jet" really took off. (I'm using the small banjo burner)

My regulator has started acting up a bit recently, but a bit of fiddling makes it work fine. It should sound kind of like a jet engine or kerosene heater. As for as storage, there should be nothing wrong with it. It is an incredibly simple design that doesn't really have a point where something failing would be catastrophic.

The danger in turkey fryer's people usually talk about it when frying turkey's in oil. Dumb****s put frozen turkeys into 350F oil and flash boil all the ice creating a lot of steam and a lot of boil over causing the oil to come in contact with the open flame and start on fire.

Yeah, a standard small propane tank is inherently pretty darn safe if you don't intentionally defeat all the safety features.

Poor combustion could lead to carbon monoxide and other nasties AFAIK, I hope your outside....

shek said:

Poor combustion could lead to carbon monoxide and other nasties AFAIK, I hope your outside....

Click to expand...

Nah, I do it in an air-tight room in my basement.

Thanks for the responses, all.