[TheForge] oil temps

[peter fels & phoebe palmer]

A cooking article ( of all things) in the NT times was wallowing in oily 
opinions and had this bit of interesting info....
Inferring that when an oil begins to smoke, it has reached a designated 
temperature, depending on type.
These temps are within the tempering range.
A guy who worked custom auto springs said the old guys would harden, 
then reheat till the oil flashed, and repeat several times.

"

We were surprised at how thoroughly heat obliterated the flavors in 
cooking oil until they all tasted more or less the same. Even 
prize-winning, and costly, extra-virgin olive oils lost much of what 
makes them special, though they retain their apparently healthful 
pungency. To get food with the green and fruity flavor of good olive 
oil, it seems more economical and effective to fry with an inexpensive 
refined oil and drizzle on a little fresh olive oil after cooking.

Many oils have little or no flavor to begin with, as they’ve been 
refined to remove almost everything except the oil molecules. This is 
true of most oils extracted from seeds, including canola and soy. Fresh 
out of the bottle, the nine refined seed oils I tested were almost 
odorless. Some seed oils, including peanut and sesame, are also sold in 
unrefined or partly refined form. These are usually darker and can carry 
the flavor of their sources. They’re also more sensitive to heat than 
refined oils. They start breaking down, developing unpleasant flavors 
and giving off smoke at lower temperatures. Heated in a frying pan, the 
two unrefined seed oils I tested began to smoke between 375 and 390 
degrees, at the upper end of the frying range. The refined oils didn’t 
start smoking until 475 degrees or higher.

When heated to a moderate frying temperature of 350 degrees, only the 
unrefined sesame oil had a distinctive flavor. The other 10 seed oils 
tasted about the same, slightly nutty and, well, fried."

I use old deepfry oil as a quench oil, i keep it in a semi sealed 
container for a reason.
Let me assure you, that nobody, wants to taste test it after a couple of 
months.
After a year or so, it's safe to raise the lid when sensitive folks are 
around.