Last night I pulled out the new deep fryer to make a batch of french fries and took the opportunity to do a few more tests. The fries were made using the standard double fry method. First, the potatoes were cut in to ~3/8" sticks, rinsed several times in cold water and then allowed to sit in acidulated water (lemon juice) for 24 hours. Before frying the fries were rinsed a few more times, drained and dried off with paper towels.
The first step is to blanch the fries at a low temperature to get the interior cooked. I added 4 quarts of oil to the fryer and set the temperature to 300 degrees. It took the oil 11 minutes to heat from room temp (70 degrees) to the time my probe thermometer read 300 degrees. The fryers ready light didn't turn green until the probe was reading 307 degrees but I did notice that the heating element had started cycling at around 298 degrees. The fries were dropped in and cooked for 5 minutes. After about 1 minutes the oil temperature had dropped to a minimum of 273 degrees and then started inching up. One interesting thing at this point was that the fryer's green ready light lit up when the probe was reading only 280 degrees. This makes me wonder just how big the spread is on the fryer's thermostat.
Once the fries were blanched they were drained and laid out on paper towels to cool. Meanwhile I tested the other temperature presets to see where they actually landed. It took 4 minutes for the oil to increase to 325 degrees with the ready light coming on at 327 degrees. From 325 to 350 only took about 2 minutes, but that was probably due to the heating element already being on when the set point was changed. Actual temperature when the ready light turned on was 355 degrees. The final trip to 375 degrees took 3 minutes with a final temperature of 386 degrees when the ready light finally turned on.
The final fry at 375 degrees takes only two or three minutes, less when the fries are still hot from the blanching and more if you are cooking fries that were blanched and frozen. These had been refrigerated while I was playing with the temperature settings. Dropping the potatoes in the hot oil caused the temperature to drop down to around 357 degrees in a minute before it started to rebound. By the time the fries were done the temperature had gone up to around 365 degrees.
I shook the basket to try and get off as much oil as possible, then moved the fries to a stainless steel bowl for seasoning. A few grinds of sea salt, some truffle oil and some Mrs. Dash and the fries were tossed in the bowl to distribute the seasoning. Nice, crisp exterior with a fluffy interior. No ketchup needed!
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