Alton Brown Shows How to Build a ‘Fry Derrick’ Rig for Safer Outdoor Frying of Food

Food expert Alton Brown demonstrates how to build a device he calls a “fry derrick,” which lets a cook lower food down into a vat of hot oil from a relatively safe distance.

Everyone knows that outdoor frying can be extremely dangerous — large amounts of high temperature oil, open flames propane tanks, gas lines, moist food. It’s a combination that has long kept firemen, EMTs and long distance dispatchers, until this device came to me in a dream.

Brown has more precise instructions (Ugly Dolls optional) on his website, though he notes several times that, while the derrick is safer than other methods, a lot can still go wrong.

image via Alton Brown