The Off Topic Topic

[Barrister]

Interesting. Tried running as Romney in 2012 - couldn't quite do it but closed the gap.

I wonder what running as Trump in 2016 but taking more traditional GOP viewpoints would be like.

Ran as a more moderate Trump in 2016, ran as Bush in 2000 trying to win the popular vote - both results almost identical to real life.

Bah.

I'll try Hillary and then I'm probably done with this.

[celedhring]

I managed to finish 3rd as Lincoln in 1860 

[Tonitrus]

I tried Dukakis with some Bill Clinton-style triangulation.  Got a tied electoral vote and the House installed me as President. 

[Valmy]

Stupid James K Polk is an unbeatable machine.

[DGuller]

I've started cooking a lot more recently, and I'm quickly coming to a realization that need to understand how oil smoking works.  I tried pan frying steak with avocado oil tonight.  Avocado oil is supposed to have a super high smoke point, and in fact it says 500F on the bottle, but in practice smoke seemed to come out of my pan once my IR thermometer read 400F.  I should've been well clear of the smoke point, so I don't get it. 

Can the oil appear to smoke before it reaches the smoke point, and is there nothing to worry about in that case?  Or should I not be trusting my IR thermometer, and if my eyes see event faint smoke coming out, that means it must be at the smoking point?  As it was, I chickened out and reduced the heat, because I don't want to be that guy whose cooking causes a fire department response.  That's been happening pretty regularly in my neighborhood once Covid happened.

[Josephus]

Still no news of dps.

There's lots of that in porn.

[Barrister]

I've started cooking a lot more recently, and I'm quickly coming to a realization that need to understand how oil smoking works.  I tried pan frying steak with avocado oil tonight.  Avocado oil is supposed to have a super high smoke point, and in fact it says 500F on the bottle, but in practice smoke seemed to come out of my pan once my IR thermometer read 400F.  I should've been well clear of the smoke point, so I don't get it. 

Can the oil appear to smoke before it reaches the smoke point, and is there nothing to worry about in that case?  Or should I not be trusting my IR thermometer, and if my eyes see event faint smoke coming out, that means it must be at the smoking point?  As it was, I chickened out and reduced the heat, because I don't want to be that guy whose cooking causes a fire department response.  That's been happening pretty regularly in my neighborhood once Covid happened.

So I've never played around with an IR thermometer, but I have this to suggest.

When you put just oil in a pan, it can definitely reach it's smoke point fairly quickly.  But once you put some meat in the pan it cools down the oil kind of like throwing an ice cube into warm water.  So it's okay to get the oil up to where it does start smoking, then put the meat in.  It will stop smoking right away unless you have it up to some crazy high heat (where it'll be smoking a lot).

[DGuller]

I've started cooking a lot more recently, and I'm quickly coming to a realization that need to understand how oil smoking works.  I tried pan frying steak with avocado oil tonight.  Avocado oil is supposed to have a super high smoke point, and in fact it says 500F on the bottle, but in practice smoke seemed to come out of my pan once my IR thermometer read 400F.  I should've been well clear of the smoke point, so I don't get it. 

Can the oil appear to smoke before it reaches the smoke point, and is there nothing to worry about in that case?  Or should I not be trusting my IR thermometer, and if my eyes see event faint smoke coming out, that means it must be at the smoking point?  As it was, I chickened out and reduced the heat, because I don't want to be that guy whose cooking causes a fire department response.  That's been happening pretty regularly in my neighborhood once Covid happened.

So I've never played around with an IR thermometer, but I have this to suggest.

When you put just oil in a pan, it can definitely reach it's smoke point fairly quickly.  But once you put some meat in the pan it cools down the oil kind of like throwing an ice cube into warm water.  So it's okay to get the oil up to where it does start smoking, then put the meat in.  It will stop smoking right away unless you have it up to some crazy high heat (where it'll be smoking a lot).

It was smoking most of the time even with the meat in.  It wasn't a plume of smoke, and it didn't smell like it was burning, but it did look like smoke.  It never did go above 400F, no matter where I pointed the thermometer.  Could the oil be much hotter below the surface?

[merithyn]

A Canadian making people happy, one raccoon at a time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ofp26_oc4CA

[Barrister]

A Canadian making people happy, one raccoon at a time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ofp26_oc4CA

I have a soft spot in my heart for raccoons, because my rec hockey team is called the Trash Pandas, and we have a big-ass raccoon as our logo.

But it seems unwise to me to encourage the to that extent...

[merithyn]

He's responded to a lot of people asking the same thing you are. He's been feeding the raccoons in his area in Nova Scotia for over two decades. There are no rabies in his area, so that's not a concern, and the raccoons stick around only until they're around two years old, then they wander off. You'll notice that he knows several of them by the names he's given them. Those are the ones that this is their second winter. Likely, they will not show up next year; at least in his experience. They are also still very skittish of humans, other than him. Even a car driving by will make them scatter ... unless he has hot dogs. Then they don't notice.

He's become fairly well known. He was interviewed on the radio today and will be speaking with a former Canadian curling Olympiad tomorrow.

[Syt]

Raz, why?

[celedhring]

Could the oil be much hotter below the surface?

That can indeed happen with certain oils (oils in general have poor thermal conductivity) but I have never used avocado oil. 400-500 seems a bit extreme of a diference though, since I presume we're talking a rather thin layer of oil (you weren't deep frying the steak, right?  )

[DGuller]

Could the oil be much hotter below the surface?

That can indeed happen with certain oils (oils in general have poor thermal conductivity) but I have never used avocado oil. 400-500 seems a bit extreme of a diference though, since I presume we're talking a rather thin layer of oil (you weren't deep frying the steak, right?  )

Yeah, very thin, just thin enough to barely coat the pan.  Is there anything inside the oil that can be evaporating and appear to be smoke but actually be vapor?

[garbon]

Could the oil be much hotter below the surface?

That can indeed happen with certain oils (oils in general have poor thermal conductivity) but I have never used avocado oil. 400-500 seems a bit extreme of a diference though, since I presume we're talking a rather thin layer of oil (you weren't deep frying the steak, right?  )

Yeah, very thin, just thin enough to barely coat the pan.  Is there anything inside the oil that can be evaporating and appear to be smoke but actually be vapor?

Did you look at this: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskCulinary/comments/awa4wt/avocado_oil_smoking/