"Celluloid in the Kitchen" or "Poof Goes the Knife"

Absintheur

Absintheur

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I decided to smoke a brisket today. Spent most of the morning and early afternoon smoking, adding wood, and just enjoying the smell. Well brisket was done, beautiful crust on the outside, red from the smoke a 1/2 inch in...simply mouthwatering. Well as i am going to be serving quite a few folks with this I decided to shred it...I love it that way on sandwiches with a nice spicy hot giardiniera.

I was using my favorite carving folk...the one with the faux stag made from celluloid. Well I didn't notice I had knocked it too close to the burner where the beans wear simmering. A huge FLASH and cloud of smoke...looked like a giant sparkler going off. My kitchen filled with smoke so fast and the fumes were so acrid the best I could do was to hit the sink with it and turn on the spray head. It didn't go out even with water pouring over it. I reach for the baking soda I keep in case a a frying pan flare up and the sputtered out. From start to finish this was less than 5 seconds.

First...I covered the brisket (a man has to have his priorities). My house was full of smoke, I grabbed a wet washcloth to breath through as I turned on exhaust fans and opened windows.

kitchena.jpg


45 minutes later most of the smoke is gone but the house smells like the 4th of July mixed with burning plastic. The brisket is fine and tastes great but this is all that is left of my carving fork...

kitchenb.jpg


Who says cooking is boring! :eek: :o :D
 
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Oh boy :s

Sorry to see the loss. I've had the same happen with old celluloid fountain pens before, they really light up quickly like that.
 
well it looks like Phillip Dobson will have an additional project to add to his work load as he makes my knife.one of my friends is a 3rd generation knife wholesaler, whom reblades & rehandles knives sent in from all over the u.s. he keeps pans of water next to his row of buffers in case a celluloid gets too hot, it looks like a sparkler on steroids when it fires up. smells like hell also. dennis
 
Man, that was an ugly exerience. Hopefully I don't have any celluoloid kitchen knives. I do have several traditional pocket knives with celluloid. Glad you got out lightly.

Ed
 
My wife cooks in the kitchen...that's why we have always had at least one fire extinguisher and a smoke detector in there.
 
Didn't need the smoke alarm, I had a pretty good idea the damn thing was on fire... :p , the baking soda was closer than the fire extinguisher but this thing burned itself out pretty quickly.

I really liked that carving set...feel like a fool for doing this.
 
Good job my son--the food was great, though really you do not have to put on a show like that just to fix us dinner.:rolleyes:

It is hard to believe one fairly small piece celluloid could burn like that and create that much smoke.

House smell OK when you got home??
 
Still smells like the British Army held rifle practice with .577/450 Martini-Henrys in here.
 
Unreal. Your pain our our gain, knowledge wise that is. I didn't know celluloid would go up like that. Darn shame about the carving set.
Good thing you saved the protein though.
 
Absintheur said:
Still smells like the British Army held rifle practice with .577/450 Martini-Henrys in here.
Click to expand...

You say that like its a bad thing...

Just seems un American to use anything in the kitchen that doesn't have real bone scales :D
Although I have to be honest, the wife has some kitchen knives that have plastic handles
 
That pink layer in smoked brisket plus the charred top and juicy center makes my mouth water.

Umm, what were we talkin' 'bout?
 
As long as your family, you, the house and the brisket are OK.:thumbup:
Geez, it figures that stuff would flash at a certain heat.
 
I've heard that you have to be very careful when working celluloid, too. I saw a thread on another forum where a guy caught some on fire while working it on a sander when making some scales for a knife.
 
I think it's safe to say that I'm staying away from celluloid materials now. :eek:
Never realized they would burn like that, I taught it would go like any other plastic.
 
It burns much faster than plastic, and I suspect much hotter. Here is a small strip of celluloid, notice how easy it lights and how fast it burns.

[youtube]hJjbC8REu2Q[/youtube]

mendezj said:
But, where is a pic of the brisket...?????
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Looked like this one from last year...

b4.jpg
 
Terrible!

Looks like a fleet of trucks warmed up in your kitchen:D

I've got a carbon carving knife with suspiciously similar faux stag scales:eek:Maybe I should test it somehow...

All's well that ends well, anyway now you can go for a rescaling job:thumbup:
 
I was going through the remains of the celluloid this morning...found this little ball of silver (about a 1/4 inch in diameter), obviously melted from the silver furniture on the knife...very hot fire...

kitchenc.jpg
 
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