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I am heating up peanut oil in a cheap aluminum pot from Walmart. Every minute or so, there is a faint popping noise coming from the pot.

I think this is due to uneven heating, so I am trying to heat the oil as slowly as possible. It is currently around 110 degrees celsius.

My questions are:

  1. Will the pot break? (I know you cannot answer with certainty, but I would appreciate an experienced person's response)
  2. Does heating more slowly actually reduce the risk (if any) of breaking the pot?
  3. The recipe says to go all the way to 175 celsius. Does that seem foolish or risky for a novice deep-frier to attempt?
Deepfriar
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    Hello, and welcome to Stack Exchange. My guess is this is two separate pieces in contact, and expanding at different rates (e.g. the pot and its handle, or the pot and the stove). – Daniel Griscom Aug 08 '16 at 20:20
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    If an aluminum pot is going to break when heating nothing more than oil, it's defective. As Daniel says, it's probably two pieces in close contact with each other expanding at different rates. – pojo-guy Aug 08 '16 at 20:48
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    When you say "cheap aluminum," do you mean an actual solid aluminum pot? Or a stainless pot with an aluminum disk base or something? "Cheap" aluminum pots can be fine, as long as they are built from a thick, heavy gauge of metal. Anyhow, it's impossible for us to know whether what you're doing is "safe" or will lead to a pot "breaking" without further details. But if the noises get louder and/or noticeable warping of the pan starts to occur, I'd definitely stop heating until you know what's causing the noise. – Athanasius Aug 08 '16 at 22:49

2 Answers2

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For me, the popping is most often from water. It could be in your oil, under the pan, between the pan and a handle, etc. In some pans there could even be more than one layer to the pan and moisture could have gotten between the layers. In this case, I would tend to replace the pan. Thin pans, especially those of aluminum, present another source though, they warp while heating. For things like boiling, this is not a big deal, but such a pan I would not use for heating oil. If a pan warps with hot oil there is a real potential for splashing or splattering which could result in burn or a fire. Oil applications such as deep frying I stick to heavy pans only

dlb
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When water boils in oil it will pop. Why water boiling in oil sounds different than just water boiling I don't know.

Thermal stress in metal will also pop.

At 100 C the water should start boiling off.

If you get to like 120 C and you are still getting popping you might want to shut this down. It would be really rare to fracture a pot but why warp it. A buddy of mine has some warped aluminum pots he has been cooking with for years.

paparazzo
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