turkey fryer

[PurpleChicken]

I've had two, one from Home Depot and another from I don't remember. What matters the most to me was the pot. My old one opens more up top which makes it run over a lot less when used as a fryer or scalder. I'll see if I can find a pic.

 

[NevadaRon]

I'm not sure. All he said was the quality was no comparison. And another coworker already had the Cabelas and had used it many times. He loves it!

 

[LivinNewDreamInND]

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Now you've gotten me thinking I need a turkey fryer!

 

[Schultz]

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I had to come up with a different pot for the 9 huge turkeys (BBB) that we just slaughtered a little while back. I ended up buying a 55 gallon oil drum. I cleaned it out well with degreaser and water, then Dawn dish detergent and water. I set it on cinder blocks and put the turkey fryer burner in the middle. I filled it about 1/3 with water and this turned out to work VERY well! That would allow you to do more than one chicken at a time for sure and with minimal water loss. After we were done I cleaned out the drum again with soap and coated the inside with vegetable oil and covered the top with plastic and duct tape and put it in my dry basement. I just wanted to prevent rust from forming so that I will be able to use it again.
ETA: I just used the aluminum pot that came with the fryer for the 29 chickens we just did. I wished I had used the 55 gallon drum instead because of water loss and temperature fluctuation I experienced with the small aluminum pot. And BTW, my fryer is one of the cheapies from Walmart. (it was given to me, I wont shop there! LOL!)

 

[Brunty_Farms]

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my first batch we used our turkey fryer, but it was just large enough to do 1 at a time which ment i had to wait another min or so before a second one was done to put 2 in my tub plucker at once which is what works best.

I also noted i had to add water about every 4th chicken or so, which ment my water temp fluctuated more than i wanted resulting in non-even scalds which showed in the plucking stage.

so a few questions

do you still do one at a time (or is yours big enough to do 2 at a time)

how do you deal with frequent water loss and therefore makeup water and temp regulation.

I do about 200 at a time when I do it and I would say I refill the water about 8 times (about every 24 chickens).... I can do 2 chickens at time in mine. I scald two at time... three times then throw all 6 of them in the plucker and as those are spinning, I scald 4 more, turn the plucker off, scald two more, then repeat the process. When I fill the water it gives me time to cut feet, necks, ect...

It's the weak link in the whole set up but it's worked, however I'm going to have to get a scalder soon because I'm not going through what I went through last year with turkeys... Ironically a turkey fryer just didn't cut it when scalding turkeys!

 

[schmism]

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This past batch of heavy roos we did yesterday i stepped up to a metal garage can. (a new ish one i usually keep bagged dog food in and such to keep mice out of it) I had issues with getting my fryer burner up to speed (i think the regulator is clogged) which resulted in warming time takeing FOREVER for the like 20 gal of water that was in it. but once it got to temp it was much better, i could do 4 at a time if i needed, and water loss wasnt an issue. the only trouble was getting it up to temp (but thats a burner issue)

my system is currently based on 2's i have 4 cones.

-set A of bled birds goes from the cones to the scalder. (leaving 2 open cones) set B is still bleeding.
-I dunk, swish dunk, test feather, 15-20 sec scald.
-into the plucker. 20 sec later i pull those 2 out drop on the processing table. If the table is backed up (which it usually is) ill cut feet and heads.
-Then its off to the pen to snatch 2 more birds.
-those come back and go in the 2 empty cones, make my 2 cuts. This new set becomes set B. grab the old set that has been bleeding (now set A) and repeat above.

If i hoof it, its about a 2-3 min cycle time which works well for bleed time. but in general my processing table is much much slower so im often not in a rush to run the above steps.