Masterbuilt MB23010618 Fryer, XL Stainless Steel

It's Wednesday, November 22 in 2017 and tomorrow is THANKSGIVING whippeeeeee!!!! This fryer plugs up, fill with oil, dry off the bird, all ready to preheat and both lights come on. Yep. Powers up. And the green light that says "I've hit the set temperature go ahead and put the turkey in!" is on. But the oil, no heat. I got on line and looked around and this happens to some people. I suppose you get a billion of these and a few thousand are bound to be DOA. Well, mine is. I hit the reset. I even called Masterbuilt, the manuals number is an office. Not a call center. Have a blessed day, call again (can't leave a message.) So I feel like a Thanksgiving version of the Who's in Whoville who didn't get a cooked turkey and still sat around and sang happy Thanksgiving carols anyway. And Darlene down at Masterbuilt is frying hers in a Charm Glo. LOL Anyway. I figured I'd post this right now so Amazon doesn't think I used the unit one time with intent to return it. It will be evident the unit never even warmed up. What a disappointment.

Paid 87 on a lightning deal a week before thanksgiving!! Wife seen one in the local mart flyer for $99 so I checked Amazon for reviews and just happened to hit it in the lightning deal window and even though there was only a couple reviews at that time we purchased it. I'll have to say that the oil reservoir is quite cheaply enameled as a little was already chipped off and I found another ding in the outside from the slight jostling around in our giant single bowl kitchen sink (if you are still using the double bowl ones and have a dishwasher then ditch that junk and get a large single bowl, sooooo much more space for pots and pans). Practiced frying a turkey breast carcass (packaged to look just like a regular turkey, which we wanted a small one to try and only when I opened the bag up after defrosting and noticed legs and wings missing did we realize the mistake). Also did a full #14 turkey on our thanksgiving on monday (wife worked thanksgiving day) and I'll recommend using an injectable marinade because we didn't on the breasts and they were just okay, but I used an entire 17 oz bottle of the tony chachere butter marinade and that made the turkey much much better!!! We were at a friend's cabin and didn't have enough counter space so it was fried on the dining room table and because of that I had to use an extension cord, thankfully I had a 14/3 15' cord in the trunk of the car for the block heater plug that I ended up using, the cord got slightly warm to the touch but the oil heated up in around 50 minutes and the turkey was cooked at the 4min/pound mark. I wouldn't use any extension cord that's lighter than 14 guage (the lower the number the heavier duty the cord is) and longer than 15 feet for certain!! Also while frying there's quite a bit of steam coming off the turkey so ventilation is needed unless you want your house to smell of oil and fried turkey. And a little bit of oil splatter while lowering the turkey was experienced and once the basket was low enough I set the lid down and held the turkey up via having the handle leaned over and resting on the front edge of the reservoir for support. Cleanup involves letting the oil cool off quite a bit then draining via the spout back into the jugs from whence it came, pull the reservoir out of the unit once the oil gets low enough and then tip it up to drain the rest out of the spout. The oil that doesn't go out the spout is pretty dirty anyway so that gets wiped out with paper towels and thrown away. Wipe the rest of the hopper and fill with hot soapy water and rinse a few times and mine was ready to get put back in the box (we're military so we keep the original boxes quite often as it saves trying to stuff items in packing boxes every few years).

Great fryer with more uses than just your turkey. I've used this to make a 20lb turkey, (3) 8.5lb turkey breasts, about 24lbs of wings (about 3-4lbs at a time within an evening) and an getting ready to fry a large ham for Christmas. This thing is easy to use, easy to clean, safe, and way quicker when it comes to doing larger meals. The initial cost can be justified when it comes to these.

I was skeptical about an electric unit being able to keep the oil hot like my propane unit does, but the sheer terror I go through every time I cook, wondering if this is going to be the time this thing is going to blow up, made me have to try it. Long story short, turkey came out great, a 18# turkey in 65 minutes cooked to 167 degrees. Oil came back to 300ish, which isn't much different than the propane when your outside in 10 degrees. Oh, and that too... Now I can do this in the warmth of my garage, instead of freezing outside. They say it's safe for inside, which it probably actually is, but I didn't want the house to smell like a grill for a month. Hope this helps.

This works really well. There is no way you can ruin a turkey using this. It's easy to use and doesn't make any mess and the turkey tastes great. I use it outside or in the garage since because the venting system is pretty powerful and I don't want my house smelling like I'm frying turkey. I would highly recommend this.

I have been frying turkeys for 10 yrs now and I can tell ya it don't get easier than this... 30-40 minutes to bring oil to temp 4 minutes per pound for turkey. Bird cooks on its back, no need for a stand.

Only used it once but it worked great . A 15 lb turkey only took about 1 hour . I would discourage using inject-able seasoning because the water causes extreme splattering when the turkey is submersed in 375 degree oil . I'd suggest using a dry rub instead . Patting the turkey completely dry is extremely important . It also steams allot so you need a well ventilated place to use it . I did it on the washer in the washroom with a small fan on low blowing air over the top to help distribute the steam . Other than that is appears to be well made and allot of thought put into it . Definitely not sorry I bought it . Highly recommend .

Makes yummy fried poultry. Also, tried chicken wings and chicken. Great fryer! Love the way it disassembles so completely so you can really clean it after use. Only two downsides are that it's huge and you have to store it and it takes a while for the oil to cool but you'd get that with any fryer.