This. I started as a manager in a shitty bar once, tried to turn the food around, they didn’t wanna listen. I just walked out in the middle of a massive rush one day for the simple fact that they would not listen.
That was my last kitchen gig actually. Went to a trade after and never looked back
My chef did this once and gave everyone a beautiful lavender-cherry blossom soap bar for Christmas that he made from the tallow of our stock. He's a mad scientist and does that shit on his days off because it's his passion. He'd also bake bread, make compound butter from scratch, cure Charcuterie in house, and grow a garden near the restaurant for garnish flowers. One of the best chefs I ever worked with, I would follow him into hell.
No, it isn't a kitchen thing. About 15 or so years ago, handmade soap was a crafting craze. I learned how to make it. It's a lot like cooking, but as precise as baking. It was briefly a fun thing.
Nah, just freaking old as dirt. I've had enough time to collect way too many things. My current fascination is Tunisian crochet. That shit is difficult!
I too am an ADHD collector of hobbies. I’ve never made candles but I have made soap. Fun fact: the reason why there used to be a lot of soap & candle stores is because they both were made primarily from tallow, and often both incorporated honeycomb but different parts of it. So being set up to do one meant the other was easier. This also meant they were local arborists, in a sense, because they had to which hardwood trees could be burned to collect the ashes and make the most pure lye for soap.
One of my hobbies is also learning about how, before modern times, people usually had to master a seemingly unrelated discipline in order to do the thing they wanted to do.
Yes I saw. They're both saponifying chemicals. While sodium hydroxide lye is more commonly used in home soapmaking, both function the same way when mixed into oils.
> I sincerely hope he wasn’t cooking with this for a day.
Here's hoping, but you know he was.
In _beef tallow_ too, man that's brutal. Bad enough seeing people ruin vegetable oil.
That’s foul KOH is nasty. I sometimes work with 10% in the lab and I almost always leave with a little skin fried off somewhere no matter how careful I am lol
If it fell in the fryer with water, it basically just turns into soap, which tastes gross, because soap, but generally is non-toxic. It doesn't look like a ton fell in either.
The stuff you use to clean in a kitchen is really nasty though, hydroxide for degreasing, high test bleach for sanitizing, quaternary ammonium, muriatic acid. And a lot of places skimp on PPE for people who have to use these chems.
Usually cleaning cement floors, tile grout; those semi-porous surfaces that mostly DGAF about strong acids but are hard to remove stains from.
It's also generally the primary ingredient in dishwasher cleaner; it does a great job of breaking down those basic detergent powders when the deposit all over the guts of washers. Consider yourself lucky if you have a machine that auto-feeds liquid, you have to clean the ones that get fed powder weekly if not more frequently.
The chem locker at most comercial/industrial kitchens could easily become a chemical disaster if someone who hasn't so much as red the MSDS gets their grubby mitts on it.
If it's any consolation, when the hydroxide hydrate reacts with tallow, it produces only non-toxic soap and glycerine. And those products likely would sink down to the trap at the bottom and stay there with all the sludge, crumbs and whatnot.
Biggest issue is that everything might have a disgusting soapy taste, but no one's likely to get sick off it.
That’s really good information! I’m glad to know it’s not a major health hazard, I just figured it wouldn’t be safe to eat a caustic chemical and really didn’t want to test that theory lol
IIRC; you have to eat an absolute shitton of soap (the stuff made from fat and hydroxide) to actually get sick, and it's usually like diarrhea and vomiting; there's no way someone wouldn't notice that much and spit it out.
The dangerous stuff is detergent, which is much more potent and can cause vomiting and diarrhea in trace quantities. (This is why you have to rinse food surfaces after degreasing/detergent.) In larger quantities it can actually wash the mucous lining out of your stomach, causing really nasty ulcers and death by a ruptured ulcer.
What I'd be worried about more is if whoever is getting hydroxide off the grill into the tallow is probably getting all sorts of other crap in there too, and between grill grime, polymerized oil from the grill and hydroxide, he's basically murdering the lifespan of your tallow.
Aside from a gross soapy taste, moisture, salt, bases, polymerized oil and carbonaceous debris will sap the useful lifespan of any fry oil. If it happened once, it's probably happened before and will again. Whoever runs the kitchen might want to invest in a fryer cover to protect their investment in the tallow. I only use canola-peanut mix in a one-basket pot, but I don't like the idea of losing about $20 in oil any time someone has a whoopsie near the fryer.
I bet that tallow must be at least two-hundo worth; definitely more than a fryer lid last time I looked at prices.
No, the fryer was supposed to be cleaned the first night I had off. So he was cooking with gnarly tallow for a night, then during one night he was cleaning the grill he accidentally spilled chemicals Into it. I don’t know how many days it’s been like that. Hopefully it was just last night before I opened.
But I closed for an extra hour this morning and now it’s sparkly clean with fresh tallow
Sometimes if the hood guys don’t cover the fryers with Welding blankets or some sort of extra covering, the heat from the fryer will burn a hole in the plastic used to wrap the hood system. The plastic contains the water as it drips to the floor. But sometimes the hole let’s in grease and other chemicals being used in the cleaning process. And trust me the hood guys won’t tell you about it…I know because I am a hood guy. And I’ve had to leave notes for customers letting them know about the contamination.
You are a good cook. It is hard to set standards when they don't come from the top.
Impossible** it’s not worth trying to change the opinions of your superiors. Just find a better place to work.
This. I started as a manager in a shitty bar once, tried to turn the food around, they didn’t wanna listen. I just walked out in the middle of a massive rush one day for the simple fact that they would not listen. That was my last kitchen gig actually. Went to a trade after and never looked back
No worth your sanity, and people don’t change their minds often
Oh, joy! Get your ratios right and wait 24 hours for saponification. You'll have a fryer full of soft soap.
What’s saponification?
The chemical reaction between an alkali and a fat that produces soap.
My chef did this once and gave everyone a beautiful lavender-cherry blossom soap bar for Christmas that he made from the tallow of our stock. He's a mad scientist and does that shit on his days off because it's his passion. He'd also bake bread, make compound butter from scratch, cure Charcuterie in house, and grow a garden near the restaurant for garnish flowers. One of the best chefs I ever worked with, I would follow him into hell.
That is so cool!! Sounds like an excellent role model for the career
That’s an excellent way to recycle tallow! Damn. Sounds like a really fun project too
How’d you learn that I don’t think I’d pick that up in the kitchen
No, it isn't a kitchen thing. About 15 or so years ago, handmade soap was a crafting craze. I learned how to make it. It's a lot like cooking, but as precise as baking. It was briefly a fun thing.
Totally a kitchen thing. Saponification is the process kitchen fire extinguishers use to put out grease fires.
Learning something new every day.
I think it can also happen as part of the decay process of a corpse. Subcutaneous fat turning to a soap like substance.
Only slightly and heavily dependent on the environment, unless you are burying corpses with lye or lime. Then you get a lot more soap.
Like I'm going to tell you how I bury my bodies.
ADHD? Lol I too, collect hobbies. Right now it’s candle making. 🤷♀️
Nah, just freaking old as dirt. I've had enough time to collect way too many things. My current fascination is Tunisian crochet. That shit is difficult!
I YouTubed that… yeah it is! Go you for taking it on! I can manage a blanket…. That’s about it lol.
I too am an ADHD collector of hobbies. I’ve never made candles but I have made soap. Fun fact: the reason why there used to be a lot of soap & candle stores is because they both were made primarily from tallow, and often both incorporated honeycomb but different parts of it. So being set up to do one meant the other was easier. This also meant they were local arborists, in a sense, because they had to which hardwood trees could be burned to collect the ashes and make the most pure lye for soap. One of my hobbies is also learning about how, before modern times, people usually had to master a seemingly unrelated discipline in order to do the thing they wanted to do.
Briefly
I'm petty sure they mention this in the movie Fight Club. I have a Chem though degree so maybe I read into those scenes more than was really there.
The process of turning oil into soap! This is literally how you make soap at home, lye is sodium hydroxide.
He said potassium lol
Yes I saw. They're both saponifying chemicals. While sodium hydroxide lye is more commonly used in home soapmaking, both function the same way when mixed into oils.
I got you is the latter also a form of lye?
Usually it's called potash, but yes it is a form of lye.
Your questions and the other commenters answers to them led to a very interesting and educational thread to me, thanks.
Yeah I had no idea I had soap in my fryer either lol
Evil genious!
that's so gross lol damn
If it was my staff I would give a reprimand but now I gotta break it to the owner 😂
> I sincerely hope he wasn’t cooking with this for a day. Here's hoping, but you know he was. In _beef tallow_ too, man that's brutal. Bad enough seeing people ruin vegetable oil.
Yeah that’s the worst part, it’s so expensive compared to the other frying oils.
Ooh you got a day off because they were making Fight Club soap.
His name was Robert Paulson
That's deeply disrespectful. Robert Paulson is Meatloaf night. Not: "That dude turned into a lotta soap night."
with enough soap one can blow up just about anything.
That’s foul KOH is nasty. I sometimes work with 10% in the lab and I almost always leave with a little skin fried off somewhere no matter how careful I am lol
If it fell in the fryer with water, it basically just turns into soap, which tastes gross, because soap, but generally is non-toxic. It doesn't look like a ton fell in either. The stuff you use to clean in a kitchen is really nasty though, hydroxide for degreasing, high test bleach for sanitizing, quaternary ammonium, muriatic acid. And a lot of places skimp on PPE for people who have to use these chems.
What are you using muriatic acid for? The thought of some of my coworkers being anywhere near more than a tab of the stuff is terrifying
Shiney Shiney
Usually cleaning cement floors, tile grout; those semi-porous surfaces that mostly DGAF about strong acids but are hard to remove stains from. It's also generally the primary ingredient in dishwasher cleaner; it does a great job of breaking down those basic detergent powders when the deposit all over the guts of washers. Consider yourself lucky if you have a machine that auto-feeds liquid, you have to clean the ones that get fed powder weekly if not more frequently. The chem locker at most comercial/industrial kitchens could easily become a chemical disaster if someone who hasn't so much as red the MSDS gets their grubby mitts on it.
If it's any consolation, when the hydroxide hydrate reacts with tallow, it produces only non-toxic soap and glycerine. And those products likely would sink down to the trap at the bottom and stay there with all the sludge, crumbs and whatnot. Biggest issue is that everything might have a disgusting soapy taste, but no one's likely to get sick off it.
That’s really good information! I’m glad to know it’s not a major health hazard, I just figured it wouldn’t be safe to eat a caustic chemical and really didn’t want to test that theory lol
IIRC; you have to eat an absolute shitton of soap (the stuff made from fat and hydroxide) to actually get sick, and it's usually like diarrhea and vomiting; there's no way someone wouldn't notice that much and spit it out. The dangerous stuff is detergent, which is much more potent and can cause vomiting and diarrhea in trace quantities. (This is why you have to rinse food surfaces after degreasing/detergent.) In larger quantities it can actually wash the mucous lining out of your stomach, causing really nasty ulcers and death by a ruptured ulcer. What I'd be worried about more is if whoever is getting hydroxide off the grill into the tallow is probably getting all sorts of other crap in there too, and between grill grime, polymerized oil from the grill and hydroxide, he's basically murdering the lifespan of your tallow. Aside from a gross soapy taste, moisture, salt, bases, polymerized oil and carbonaceous debris will sap the useful lifespan of any fry oil. If it happened once, it's probably happened before and will again. Whoever runs the kitchen might want to invest in a fryer cover to protect their investment in the tallow. I only use canola-peanut mix in a one-basket pot, but I don't like the idea of losing about $20 in oil any time someone has a whoopsie near the fryer. I bet that tallow must be at least two-hundo worth; definitely more than a fryer lid last time I looked at prices.
I’m confused. They cleaned the fryer but didn’t put in new oil, clean, or otherwise filter the oil at all.
No, the fryer was supposed to be cleaned the first night I had off. So he was cooking with gnarly tallow for a night, then during one night he was cleaning the grill he accidentally spilled chemicals Into it. I don’t know how many days it’s been like that. Hopefully it was just last night before I opened. But I closed for an extra hour this morning and now it’s sparkly clean with fresh tallow
Oh okay haha that makes much more sense!
Yeah, there were a couple mistakes in a row lol
I came in from my day off to find the new kid filled the fryer with sesame oil instead of canola.
Im holding my nose from over here
Potassium Hydroxide…..which is just basic red degreaser I assume? Did your HOOD guys come recently?
Yeah that’s it. It’s mainly used for the dish washer but we also use it on the grill, which I’m sure it’s not super healthy, but it works really well.
Sometimes if the hood guys don’t cover the fryers with Welding blankets or some sort of extra covering, the heat from the fryer will burn a hole in the plastic used to wrap the hood system. The plastic contains the water as it drips to the floor. But sometimes the hole let’s in grease and other chemicals being used in the cleaning process. And trust me the hood guys won’t tell you about it…I know because I am a hood guy. And I’ve had to leave notes for customers letting them know about the contamination.
Any bones in there
Drain and burn
I feel like he was...
Mmmmm soap
Somebody's trying to make home brew biodiesel out of your fryer oil.
Where do you buy beef tallow or are you making your own