DIYEFI.org Forum

Well, this evening has been somewhat delayed by events in the kitchen.

We were going to have burgers and Kumara Chips for dinner. Yum, NZ sweet potatoes, deep fried, nothing better.

hmmmmm

Not so fast. My dedication to coding and this project meant that the oil ended up just a wee bit too hot. Apparently my physics isn't the best, as although I know very well never to put out oil fires with water (well, at least, not to try) it seemed to me that I may be able to cool the oil down with the slightly damp cold raw chips. So in they went. and gradually up came the level of foaming oil, and over the side and onto the element it went and up the wall and into the extractor went the 3+ foot flames. Yay.

If there is ONE thing I'm good at it's recovering from a potentially unrecoverable situation. You know the type, you lose the rear of the car on some ice, and you go into the bank right? I never seem to go into the bank (metaphor), I always seem to find a way to sort it out.

So off went the element, on went the lid, off the element onto the floor went the pot, and upside down onto the remaining flames went the nearby frying pan. Good work! hmmm why did the extractor stop??

A picture is a thousand words right :

Partly cleaned stove and walls :









Hose to the outside all melted too :



Aluminium mesh vapourised :



Plastic fan housing totally destroyed (my wallet hurts already) :





I should add that those chips went into that pot raw, cool and uncooked. Usually they take around 15mins cooking to get to a light shade of brown. Without help of an element they were well cooked inside one minute, i.e. those char grilled black sticks got that way from the heat in the oil alone. Impressive. I wonder what temperature it was at? I only have a couple of small burns and my eyes and lungs have stopped hurting :-)

On with the soldering, hopefully I have better luck with that than cooking dinner!

Fred.

sorry to hear,

my younger brother had figured out the way to set the deepfryer on fire. The sight of the instant flames was quite scary, but thankfully he was brave/stupid enough to jump in towards the flames and open the water tap (thankfully the oil spilled inside the sink), which got rid of the flames instantly (so water does help with oil fires).

that experience had taught me to always keep a good fire extinguisher by the kitchen

Thanks for your concern.

A fire extinguisher is an excellent idea, however my fire extinguisher is 11376 miles from here :-)

About that oil/water...

The only reason that it could possibly have helped is if the oil had been barely evaporating fast enough to burn. i.e. the heat energy in the oil was very low. On the other hand, if it's plenty hot enough, pouring water in will simply cause the oil to foam up increasing its surface area by many times and therefore its rate of evaporation too and fueling the flames instantly to new impressive heights. So, 9/10 it will finish you off, not help :-)

Effectively water is what caused my issues, the small amount on the chips forced it up and over the side of the pot and onto the element whilst at the same time generating massive amounts of vapour to burn.

Fred.

Baking soda also stops chemical fires. Glad to hear you're alright Fred!!

Thanks :-)

I've had worse happen numerous times, but just how quickly it did the damage it did I thought was quite impressive. I sure hope the extractor doesn't cost too much... or that FPGA board might take even longer to get :-(

Fred.

before wrote:thats intense! glad to hear ur ok, and u said u threw in chips? where they soaked in water lol

That's intense! Glad to hear you're ok. You said you threw in chips? Were they soaked in water? lol

EDIT : Admin : Fixed an appalling effort!

Yes, they were wet.

I edited your post because you did such a bad job of typing it in! :-p

Fred.

Closeups of why you should not use plastic in something that lives above a very hot thing (For anyone that cares/can be bothered looking/wants some mild amusement) :





Might have to bite the bullet on Monday and see how much the replacement bits will cost me...

Fred.

As we can see plastic + flame = FAIL ....

Hope you get replacements made of steel!

Most importantly everyone is ok!

Fri Mar 07, 2008 4:14 pm ;-)

Cost me a few quid and an afternoon fitting it. No big deal.

I never panic! :-)