Most kitchens change frying oil by eye, which means they change it too late or too early and cannot tell you which. Colour is not a measurement. Total Polar Compounds are, and they are the number an inspection asks for.
What it covers
- The limits, printed on the sheet. Fresh oil not more than 15% TPC. In use, up to 25% provided it also passes a visual and sensory check. Above 25% it must not be used for frying.
- A month of daily rows — date, fryer, oil type, reading, whether it was filtered or topped up, the action taken and who checked it.
- The sequence: filter, check, record, control, replace.
- A note on disposal. Oil past the limit leaves through an authorised used-cooking-oil collector, never down a drain and never to a resale buyer.
How to use it
Clip it to the fryer, not to a folder in the office. One reading a day at the same point in service, taken with a TPM meter rather than a guess, and the sheet answers the question before anyone has to argue about it.
There is no fixed number of frying cycles that makes oil unsafe. It depends on what you are frying, how hot, how often it is filtered and how much fresh oil is going in. That is exactly why it gets measured. Twenty-five per cent is the limit, not the target.