Minideep fryers

depends on what you are cooking in them. (And the size question pales when compared to finding "the right" batter-oil-temp-technique.)

The Fry-babies are small, so it's tough to do enough chicken for a family, or more than a few doughnuts or a turkey, but they are pretty good for doing the christmas cookies and a serving or two of fries or onion rings. They are quick to heat and easy to handle, and are good onesy-twosy cookers.

Even though they have a small amount of oil, some have such a big heater in relation to the amount of oil they hold, that their oil temperature can catch up faster than the oil catches up in a big unit. IMHO oil temp vs size is a red herring anyway, because cooks add more food to the big ones, thus dropping the big one's temperature just as much, e.g., one pound dropped in one quart is the same as two pounds dropped in two quarts, etc., if you get the drift.

It was my experience that the "small ones" come in three basic sizes - the old fry-whatever size, the smaller fry baby, and the bigger fry daddy. I have had the old one for years and we got the slightly larger "fry daddy" as a second one for a couple of jobs that were taking too long with the old one. Turns out there really isn't that much difference for what we were cooking. However, for us, having two small ones ended up being a better move than getting one larger one, since we can run two units at once and keep the apple fritters from tasting like onion rings.

-----------

We have four "deepfryers", depending on what and how much is being cooked. I have a deep frying pan, an old "small"fryer, a fry daddy, and a turkey cooker. All but the big one are used under the vent-hood.

For doughnuts, and chicken and enough french fries for a family, I use my deep iron frying pan. It has a lot of surface area to hold a lot of thin flat foods. Downside is that you have to watch the temp and have a cover real close, since the oil mist over flame can flare up. I rarely use this one.

We will use the old small electric the most, for small batches, and add the fry daddy as a second cooker if the food load-vs-serving time warrants. Having two has worked well, since in practice deep fried things don't all get done at the same time anyway.

For heavy duty frying, I have a 70,000 BTU LP party-size "turkey cooker": turkey cooker-corn-boilerparty-pasta-maker-smoker-scout-outing-hot-water-heater-and-mitten-dryer-chee se-curds-and-fries-for-parties-maker-ore smelter, used outside. Apparently you can get attachments, like a walleye cooker that looks like a shallow wok, for frying and holding larger batches of fried food.

hope it helps....

Nicholson