I know the Anova cannot go above boiling, but can I submerge it in oil and use its thermometer to monitor the temp of oil in a pot while deep frying?
I sure as hell wouldn’t.
Not sure where you are located, but deep frying / candy thermometers can be had for as little as US$6-8 for an analog, $12-20 for a pocket digital, or $40 for a DOT from Thermoworks (which is an excellent thermometer BTW.)
I don’t know why you would do that. Buy an inexpensive thermometer and use it instead. You don’t want to get burned grease inside your circulator.
+1 for don’t do it. Get a thermometer.
Pretty sure you would void your warranty by doing so.
You just might melt that plastic end cap right off.
Deep frying is well out of the operating range of the PC - who’s to say what this would do to the heater, temperature gauge or other components.
As the temperatures are well above operating, it may not even give you what you want - just to act as a thermometer. It may just give you an error code.
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I wonder if there was a circulator for oil if it would shorten the cooking time like a convection oven does?
This is such an amazing idea. Have zero idea if it’s possible, but I would buy a precision deep fryer in a heart beat.
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In a long slow cook, at current PC temperatures, accurate temperature control aided by circulation makes sense. See confit recipes for cooking food with oil or grease (or syrup, according to Wikipedia Confit - Wikipedia) in the cooking bag, but remember these are still done at or under 200°F.
Deep frying takes place a lot hotter, with a much shorter cooking time. And french fries, for instance, can not be ‘held/kept warm’ in a fryer. Also putting food in the fryer temporarily lowers the temperature. In a long slow cook this is not very significant. At fryer temperatures it will be. Ziploc and current vacuum bags won’t work either.
The cooking vessel would have to be a metal pot, as current coolers don’t play well with 300°-400° oil. At these temperatures 1kw is unlikely to maintain cooking temp. Mineral fiber might work for insulation, but I don’t know how safe it is. And the idea of ‘circulating’ hot oil fast enough to ensure .1° resolution scares the hell out of me… Especially after the ‘bobbing for french fries’ incident. ;0
These points aside, I’m game.
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I doubt frying needs to be done at such an exact temperature. My thought would be moving the oil a bit would keep the temperature more stable and you would not get as big a drop when the food was put in.
usually with oil you overshoot the temperature as it drops substantially when you add your ingredients, and maintain around that temp. a precision cooker version would need to heat the oil back up to precise temp really quickly to be useful i suspect.
Or, you could just simply use a larger fryer with a greater volume of oil without increasing the portion size. /shrug