Hello Stewart,


Pressure Cooker:

I appreciate you concerns for safety regarding cooking the Veggie Oil within the Pressure Cooker, but I respectfully disagree with this viewpoint. In fact it is safer to cook the Veggie Oil in this manner as compared to cooking it in an open cook pot exposed to the atmospheric oxygen. Perhaps my description of the process left out details to allow for full understanding.

I would suggest for testing purposes that only 100 ml of oil be processed to find the correct ration of glycerin/water/detergent/oil. Then you can process larger amounts as required.

Mix the Glycerin/water/detergent into a discarded food tin (can) then add the oil and stir. Place this tin into the pressure cooker. Make sure you place the tin on a support stand to elevate the can off the bottom of the cooker bottom. Pour some water into the bottom of the pressure cook making sure you don’t spill additional water into your tin. Seal the cooker and process at full pressure for 20 minutes.

The reason I claim the added safety using the Pressure Cooker as apposed to the stove top is quite simple: The Pressure Cooker will vent the atmospheric gasses out the top during the preheating process, this will flush the system with steam. Steam makes a more inert atmosphere than dry air. The oil is now seal from exposure to the stovetop and any boiling over or spill of the mixture cannot occur.

Since the cooker is using water as it operational fluid; then the temperature within the cooker will not exceed 260 F. Which is extremely safe for any oil, especially considering the fact that when you fry using oil you must heat the oil in excess of 320 F and this is often on an stovetop using a gas flame.

In fact this is the same process used to make Kentucky Fried Chicken (see recipe below), but making KFC chicken is more dangerous than making Veggie Oil. If you read below you’ll see that the cooking oil is raised to 400 F, the chicken is added to the oil, with many possibilities of boiling over, next it is sealed and cook at pressure for 10 minutes.

Errata:

I believe that Andy incorrectly gave me credit for your work: I would like to correct his mistake. He gave me credit for the knowledge regarding Klotz possible use of heating castor oil to 300 F to help polymerize the oil to increase it solubility within Kerosene.


Thanks:

Also thanks for suggesting the use of Olive Oil for these test.

One last thing: perhaps you could ask you chemist friend about the suggestion to cook the oil in the pressure cooker, since I’m only guessing that this may work.

Kentucky Fried Chicken Recipes
1. In a small bowl combine the egg and milk.
2. In a separate bowl, combine the remaining four dry ingredients.
3. Dip each piece of chicken into the milk mixture until fully moistened. Roll the moistened chicken into the flour mixture until completely coated.
4. Pour the oil into the pressure cooker and heat over medium heat to about 400.
5. In groups of 4 or 5, drop the chicken pieces into the oil and lock the lid into place. When the steam begins shooting through the pressure release, set the timer for 10 minutes.
6. After 10 minutes, release the pressure according to manufacture’s instruct ions, and remove the chicken to paper towels or a metal rack to drain.
7. Repeat with remaining chicken.
End

Kelly