Frying oil usually ends up with gross gunk floating around in it, making it a poor candidate for re-using, but it turns out that there is a simple way to filter all that crap out. All you need is gelatin.
J. Kenji Lopez-Alt of The Food Lab breaks down how and why this technique works in the link below, but I’m going to go ahead and share this game-changing method with you. First, let your oil cool, so as not to burn your precious self. Pour some water into a pot and sprinkle with gelatin. (You’ll need half a cup of water and a teaspoon of powdered gelatin for every litre of oil you plan on clarifying.) Let the gelatin bloom for a few minutes and then bring the water to a simmer, stirring until the gelatin dissolves. Add the dissolved gelatin to your dirty, filthy oil and stir, stir, stir. Cover it all up and place in the fridge overnight. The oil will float to the top, leaving behind all sorts of burnt bits and gunk in a neat gelatin disk. Pour it off, discard the disk of doom that remains, and use your clarified oil to fry up something tasty.
The Food Lab: A Mind-Blowing Technique for Cleaning Deep-Fry Oil Using Gelatin [Serious Eats]
Comments
One response to “Use Gelatin And Water To Clean Used Cooking Oil And Use It Again”
according to the comments on the link, this method might not be that great, as it only removed the particulate, something that using a filter might achieve with less hassle.
I personally use a filter bottle I bought in japan, specially for this purpose, it has a fine stainless steel mesh filter, as well as a disposable charcoal filter (overkill IMO, and difficult to source)
I usually re-use the bottle 4 times before chucking the oil away, as long as you don’t burn the oil, just filtering seems to do the trick.
PS: I keep the bottle in the freezer, for the oil not to go rancid, as I seldom deep fry anything.