Chip pan

This article is about the cooking pan. For machine shop chip pans, see Chip pan (machine shop).

A cast iron chip pan with an aluminum basket being used to fry French fries.

A chip pan is a deep-sided cooking pan used for deep-frying. Chip pans are named for their traditional use in frying chips (French fries).

Today, they are made from either aluminum or stainless steel, although in the past were commonly made from cast iron. A basket is placed inside the pan, to lower the chips into the hot cooking oil, and to raise them once cooked.

Chip pans are commonly used in the United Kingdom, although are slowly being outmoded by deep fryers.^[1]

Manufacture

Chip pans are commonly manufactured through a spinning process, as the metal used is malleable. The lid is typically stamped out by a die in a heavy press. ^[2]

Health issues

Repeated heating of oil is believed to greatly increase the free radicals in the oil, leading to a higher risk of heart disease.^[3]

Oil burns

Injuries, particularly to children, caused by the hot oil from a chip pan falling on them are a common cause of hospital admission in the UK.^[4][5]

Fire risk

A demonstration of a chip pan fire by the North Yorkshire fire service

Chip pans are well known for being a fire hazard. In the UK, chip pan fires are the largest cause of fire-related injuries in the home,^[6] such that several local fire brigades have offered a "chip pan amnesty", trading old chip pans for a deep fryer.^[7]

The two main causes for chip pan fires are:

• The oil or fat is overheated and catches fire.
• The oil or fat spills onto the cooker, either because the pan has been filled too high; or because wet chips are put in the hot oil, causing it to bubble up and overflow.

By comparison, electric deep fryers feature circuitry and design features (such as thermostat-controlled internal heating elements) that prevent the oil from being heated to the point of ignition. Boil-overs and splattering can still occur for the usual reasons, but the fire danger is largely eliminated.

Chip pans are the most common cause of house fires in the United Kingdom, with around 12,000 chip pan fires every year, with 1,100 chip fires being considered serious. These fires result in over 4,600 injuries, and 50 deaths per year. British Fire Brigades frequently issue warnings and advice, urging households to switch to a safer means of cooking chips, and advising that unless the fire is easily contained to leave the fire to the emergency services.^[8]

Cooking oil fires (US class K, Europe class F) burn hotter than other typical combustible liquids, rendering the standard class B extinguisher ineffective. Class F fire extinguishers use saponification to put out chip pan fires by spraying an alkaline solution which reacts with the fat to make a non-flammable soap. However, these extinguishers are generally only available in industrial and commercial kitchens.

Effect of water

Adding water to burning oil from a chip pan can greatly exacerbate a fire. The following sequence of events results in an "explosion" (deflagration, not detonation):

Oil gets so hot that it catches fire all by itself	Water is poured into the burning chip pan	Water is denser than oil, so it sinks to the bottom of the chip pan (shown in red). As the water touches the bottom, it is heated above its boiling point and instantly vaporizes.	The water vapour expands rapidly, ejecting a fireball of burning oil out of the chip pan and into the air where its surface area increases greatly and combustion proceeds much faster
Oil is heated strongly	After some time, it gets hot enough to catch fire	Pouring a very small amount of water into the fire ejects a plume of fire	Fire plume
With all the oil burned, there is no more fuel to supply the fire

References

External links

• London Fire Brigade advice on chip pans
• Online copy of an Oxfordshire council safety flyer (PDF document)
• Photo story of a chip pan fire
• BBC News - A woman pulled from a chip pan fire thanks her rescuers
• North Yorkshire Fire Service - demonstration of a chip pan fire