What are the normal fluctuations of oil temp for a 40 lb Imperial fryer. If I set the temp at 350 the oil heats to 375 and will come back on at 325 to 330. Is this a normal temp swing or bad thermostat?

Umm...NO! That is not normal. Discontinue use immediatley.

http://manuals.kdfsi.com/Imperial/fryer_diagrams.pdf

Sounds like you have installed the wrong thermostat, or it's a bad one... If you need further help, please call us at 888-542-5959. If you have the model/serial number, we can make sure you have the right thermostat and/or get you the right one... Thanks, Susan REO [email protected]

Are you talking about the actual burners? They make a L shaped brush that you can use to get around the burners themselves, and a quick tip is to clean the fryer warm.... Once you heat up a griddle or fryer, the cleaning gets substantially easier. They also make either liquid or dry powder cleaning additives, which also help with the cleaning... Once cleaned, make sure you rinse all the soap residue out of the frypot, as that will help to quickly break down your oil, once that new oil is heated up. Another tip is to ony turn the temperature up to 325, not 350, as that also helps to break down your oil. Keep in mind, no matter what yu do, your fryer will never look clean again.... Even the clean, used ones look alittle used after some use and never look shiny new again. If you need any of the cleaning solutions, I do sell them and would be happy to ship some to you... Our individual packets of liquid Mr. Muscle cleaning solutions run $1.95 each and for a 30-40 lb fryer, you need two per cleaning. The directions says to drain oil out and rinse to clean out loose soils, fill w/'water to oil fill line, and get water boiling. You add the Mr. Muscle while filling w/water.... Boil at about 225 temperature for 10-30 minutes. (225 degrees keeps it from boiling over). While it's boiling, gently use a fryer brush or scraper to remove baked on soils. You can also buy the powder version, which is $11.95 for a 9lb jug... Fryer brushes are $24.95 and can withstand alittle of the high heat.... I stock all of these items and can ship to you, if desired. Try this anyway, whereever you end up buying your products and this should work for you...This is how we clean the dirty deep fryers we get in and we've never had any trouble. Our phone number is 888-542-5959, and we are Restaurant Equipment Outlet, Cincinnati, Ohio. We sell new/used equipment, furniture, smallwares, just about anything you need for a food service business.
Thanks, Susan

make sure the door is tightley closed for the temp to go down if theres any greese what so ever heat is attracted to greese.

The thermostat is out of calibration and the hi-limit may be as well. I could give you instructions on calibrating the thermostat but the hi-limit is not adjustable at all. The hi-limit cuts off the burners and pilot in the event that the unit gets close to the flash point of the cooking oil. It should not cut out until 400-425 so either the fryer is occaisionally getting a lot hotter than you think or the hi-limit has gotten weak due to the erratic operation of the thermostat. I would recommend that you change both the thermostat and the hi-limit.

When the whole unit shuts down including the pilot light the thermocouple is not working properly. The thermocouple is what tells the gas safety valve that the pilot light is lighted. When the thermocouple fails and does not send the milli-volt (mv) signal to the gas safety valve due a failure the gas safety valve turns off the gas supply. (i.e total shut down)
If you have a handyman around you can have him disconnect the thermocouple from the gas valve control and clean the mating area in the gas valve and on the bitter end of the thermocouple. After cleaning then reconnect the thermocouple. This sometimes corrects the problem. FYI you can get a thermocouple at most any large appliance parts supply. (You will need to the know total length) It would be even better to have the old one in hand during the trip to the parts store.

Thanks for using FixYa,

Kelly

It probably is a problem with the thermostat. The reset button is probably a high limit. The high limit is a safety device to turn the fryer off if the oil gets too hot. Normally they will "trip" somewhere between 375 - 450 degrees F for commercial fryers. I would suggest placing a temperature probe in the oil and see what the oil temp is when it trips. If it trips at a temp below 375, it is a bad high limit. If the thermostat is set at 350 and the temp goes over 400 then the thermostat is bad.

Replace the high limit. The high limit will turn off all gas flow out of the gas valve.

I am sorry we are not allowed to send info through the mail
But as a rule of thumb
potatoes (any type 375%)
chicken and fish 325% to 350%
In most cases when deep frying...when it floats its done! should be a golden brown....fill oil to top of fill line
Good luck and Thank you for using FixYa.