Keep Your Cool by Protecting Your Cooking Oil
Proper maintenance of your cooking oil shouldn’t be taken for granted. Knowing these six enemies of oil and how to minimize their impact could help to improve food quality and oil life. Caring for your oil will extend its life, which ultimately will reduce operating costs.
Oxygen
Exposure to air will increase oil oxidization process negatively impacting flavour.
Prevention:
- Cover Vats when not in use (Overnight)
- While filtering, limit oil recirculation to five minutes.
Salt
Salt directly contributes to reducing oil life.
Prevention:
- Avoid salting food prior to frying
- Avoid seasoning food over open fryers
Soap
Creates an alkaline flavour, causes oil to darken and contributes to odour, foaming and smoking.
Prevention:
- Avoid using soap to clean inside fryers
- Use only hot water to clear inside and filter box.
Heat
High temperatures will cause oil to oxidise faster.
Prevention:
- Turn off unused fryers.
- Set fryers at recommended food temperatures.
Carbon Build-up
Contributes to masking food’s flavours and aromas. Causes oil to darken, makes it difficult to filter and alters natural food colour
Prevention:
- Skim Vats frequently to remove remnant food particles.
- Clean or filter carbon build up and crumbs from fryers daily.
Water
Water Weakens flavour and causes oil to darken and smoke.
Prevention:
- Always try to maintain proper thaw times for frozen items
- Shake off excess water oil ice before dropping frozen food into fryer
- Avoid filling baskets directly over open fryers.
Source: RTI ebook: Safer, Smarter Kitchens (https://www.rti-inc.com/knowledge/oil-management-101)