When The Fire Is Too Hot

14 years ago

I had an interesting experience yesterday.

We had our first backyard dinner of the year. I built a pretty significant wood fire in the fire pit and made paella. In the past I've made smaller fires and it works perfectly, the fire is nice and hot when you're browning the meat, but has mellowed when it is rice time. This time I went a little overboard with the fire.

I placed the big paella pan on the logs and went inside to gather the bowls of meat, oil, salt, tongs, etc. When I returned a few minutes later, the pan looked definitely hot. Normally black and oily, it now looked dry, powdery, white-ish. I squirted olive oil on the pan. The oil immediately burst into a swirling fireball. Hmm. Try more oil. Bigger fireball.

Well, I'll try browning the chicken anyway. Jeez, it's too hot to get my tongs near the pan. Go fetch my oven mitts, which are welding gloves with silicone pads glued to the fingers and palms. More oil, another fireball, this is kind of fun! Brown, no, blacken the chicken in record time. Ditto the shrimp. More oily fireballs, cooking time measured in seconds.

The fire never mellowed. Two pounds of soffrito cooked up in a few minutes. Pour in two pounds of arborio rice, and before I can finish pouring, the first kernels are already burning. Pour in a quart of stock, it is boiling in less than two minutes. The stock continues boiling off so fast, I'm running out and have to switch to water. The silicone pads on my gloves smell burned. Sometimes I have to take off the gloves, they get too hot. I'm sweating and enveloped in smoke.

Enough with this. Reach into the flames - more melting silicone - and lift the pan off the fire. Let it cool so that I can carry it by the handles, and finish the paella on the grill.

I'm guilty of being a BTU bigot, always thinking that more heat is better. Apparently there is a limit to that.

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Comments (12)

Jasdip
14 years ago
Wow, John I'm picturing a You-Tube hit!
I think you are fortunate that something serious didn't happen to you.
triciae
14 years ago
John, IMO your next purchase should be a good fire extinguisher & a lesson how to use it properly!

Here's a very informative video from West Marine's website prepared by BoatUS. Your above description gave me shivers 'cause we had a boat fire at our marina just this week. Some idiot tossed his teak oil rag in a brown paper bag aft of the helm in full sun & went off to lunch. Spontaneous combustion. Thankfully, there were people at the marine even though it was mid-week. The boat was, of course, a total loss but we didn't lose an entire dock.

I'd recommend a marine extinguisher in your home & one near the fire pit/grilling area. They come with a neat little mounting bracket than household ones don't have.

I'm very glad you did not have a disaster.

/tricia (who has an automatic extinguisher in our engine room plus 2 B-1s (salon & cabin) PLUS 3 combo units in the house 'cause fire is NOT good)

Here is a link that might be useful: BoatUS Fire Safety Video
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dedtired
14 years ago
Years ago someone burned down an entire center city skyscraper here by leaving rags with linseed oil in a pile over a weekend. Sad, because some firefighters died.

Anyhoo, John, hope you learned your lesson, you little pyromaniac. BTW, how was the food?
John Liu
Original Author
14 years ago
No worries. I have a fire extinguisher, a garden hose, and several feet of rock and concrete surrounding the fire pit. We've had even bigger fires there. This was the first with an olive oil supplement, though. I've never had a pan that hot. I looked up the fire point of olive oil (about 700 F) and the pan must have been some ways above that, because putting chicken on the pan didn't cool it down below the fire point - I could nearly cover the pan with chicken strips and oil would still burst into flames as soon as it touched the pan.

The paella was passable. Nice touch of char on the meat, smoky flavor (guests asked me "ooo, how did you get that smoky taste?" Duh, smell my shirt.) Plenty of crisp toasted rice on the bottom. But the flavours weren't mingled or deep, because everything cooked too fast. Maybe a B-.
lindac
14 years ago
Somewhere about 15 years ago....on the beach in Nerja. The paella maker had a very very hot fire made from broken up pallets. As you can see, he protected the fronts of his legs with strips of old tire with some fabric padding between the tire and his skin.
That sink had no drain the water just ran down into the Mediterranean and the water ran constantly washing the shrimp and other shellfish.
Not sure which was better, the paella or the ambiance....which is a lot of what it's all about.
dcarch7 d c f l a s h 7 @ y a h o o . c o m
14 years ago
A remote-read IR thermometer from Harborfreight is $39.00

Reads from -4F to 900F from a distance.

dcarch
mikie_gw
14 years ago
I have a little RayTech 1:10 IR thermometer gun, about 1000F max (wish it was 1500f) ... looks like maybe about 1000 feet max too. Think it was under 50 usd at some online store.

Its been used lots for many many things, even in the kitchen !. Good tool to have around ... and you can drive cats and squirrels crazy with its laser dot.
Islay_Corbel
14 years ago
Do you still have eyebrows?
John Liu
Original Author
14 years ago
Plucking is such a bother.
jakkom
14 years ago
ROFL!!
dcarch7 d c f l a s h 7 @ y a h o o . c o m
14 years ago
ROFL, ROFL!

Good thing you are not a practitioner of nudism.

dcarch
John Liu
Original Author
14 years ago
Waxing is such a bother.

When The Fire Is Too Hot

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Jasdip

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