KFC Equipment Catalogue, 1968

[ThePieMan]

This Flickr Archive is AWESOME! 

www.flickr.com/photos/craptoy/albums/72157664773065445

Browsing through it there are so many items of Equipment that we can look at in greater detail than before, along with descriptions. Examples: Speed Table, Multipot Filling and management, KFC Cooking Clock, the heat and hold Warming Cabinet, signage, lighting, and lots, lots more. 

This is an archive worth preserving, and perusing.

[cascader]

This answers a question I’ve had from time to time - How many BTU were the south bend gas burners?

Answer - 40,000 BTU

[cascader]

I found a quote that the early burners were 25000 BTU.

[jwoz]

I hadn't looked through this Flicker archive before. It's a goldmine.

Among other things, it shows an early "speed table" for the pressure pots and goes into detail with respect to how it works. We've discussed this in the past, but some of that discussion was conjecture. Here we have detaled pictures with actual written explanations.

In short, 12 pots were on the stovetop. When the cooking was done, the oil and the chicken were all dumped onto a wire rack. The hot oil ran down into a reservoir and was pumped back up to the pots, going through a rough filter along the way to remove cracklings. Each pot had a spigot above it that was used to refill it with oil. Thermometers were also attached to the oil arms such that they would go into the pot while it was heating and once 400F was reached (this temperature is mentioned specifically) they would be swung out of the way while the cooking commenced. The literature says that this system cut the total cycle time down significantly.

Another picture is a close up of the KFC clocks that were used specifically to time the chicken while it cooked. These clocks had offset hands that cooks used to time the batches of chicken. I own one of these clocks, and one question has been what was the "proper" amount of cooking time - i.e., what was the original amount of "offset" of the two hand - since these clocks are now very old and the offset hands may have shifted over the years. This picture clearly shows a 9 minute offset, meaning that the chicken would be cooked for 9 minutes. I am almost sure that this time was measured from when the pot was capped, such that if the cooks were browning the chicken for 2 minutes first with the lid off, for example, the total time cooking time from start to finish would be 11 minutes, with 9 of those minutes being "minutes while the top of the cooker is on."

[willy]

Good stuff. From what I've done recently, I would conclude that the length of the cook time (and the steam either escaped, or retained) determines the amount of seasoning to be used. If you start with a set pre-seasoning amount, then the timing process must be precise. All of this equipment screams process. Without the process, your seasoning amounts must be modified.

[cascader]

Yes. I’d go so far as to say if your chicken gets better when you bake it at low temps or air fry it (mine did), then you are using too little oil soluble spice, such as pepper.

[willy]

Yes. I will go through the known ingredients and separate the oil, water, and oil and water soluble elements. I did it once before, but never followed up completely.