Since I always seem to under- or overpack things like oil, I was wondering if there's a general rule of thumb to follow for how much oil will be needed per meal of fish? Cooking for one person, since that would obviously make a difference.

pi*r*r*h*freq where r is the radius of your cooking pan, h is the depth of the cooking oil and freq is the number of fish fries you will have. Convert the result in cubic inches to ounces, add some for popcorn and bring a 12 ounce bottle, more or less, for the trip.

Figured another way yields about the same result. My planning notes say:
Cooking oil - two 48 oz bottles for a group of eight
- 1 - 48 oz bottle and 1 - 32 oz bottle for a group of six
48*2/8 = 12 ounces per person
(48+32)/6 = 13 ounces per person

I take 1 Crisco stick per week solo. I eat fish every dinner.

bobbernumber3: "pi*r*r*h*freq where r is the radius of your cooking pan, h is the depth of the cooking oil and freq is the number of fish fries you will have. Convert the result in cubic inches to ounces, add some for popcorn and bring a 12 ounce bottle, more or less, for the trip.


Figured another way yields about the same result. My planning notes say:
Cooking oil - two 48 oz bottles for a group of eight
- 1 - 48 oz bottle and 1 - 32 oz bottle for a group of six
48*2/8 = 12 ounces per person
(48+32)/6 = 13 ounces per person"

That should help a lot, thanks!

AmarilloJim: "I take 1 Crisco stick per week solo. I eat fish every dinner."

I'm interested in knowing more about Crisco sticks... how you use them, why you like them, etc. Planning a September solo and this might be better than liquid cooking oil.

My math is 1.5 ounces of oil per person per fish meal. That won't necessarily deep-six the whole fillet in the oil, have to flip the fillet 1/2 way through cooking. No real waste though, just a little bit. Most of my trips are for between 2-4 people.

Probably worth testing ahead of time cooking some non-bwca fish at home using your same gear. Avoid surprises.

There is also a balance between pan size and oil needed. Smaller pan, less oil, but more "rounds" of cooking. Big pan, fewer rounds of cooking needed but potentially more waste oil. I don't like to go over 3-4 rounds of frying fish in the BWCA if I can help it before it is time to eat them.

I should also mention, if you go lean on packing oil for the first time, don't forget to pack oil for your other things that aren't fish that might need oil.

This spring's trip we ate fried fish at least 1x per day over 9 days. First 2 days it was 3 guys, then we grew to 5 for the remainder of the trip.

Giant 16" carbon steel pan - we are just putting a thin layer on the bottom, not deep frying...used 24oz of our Avocado oil, less than half of what we brought. We also had pancakes a couple mornings, again using the oil...

Would not change a thing.

bobbernumber3: "

AmarilloJim: "I take 1 Crisco stick per week solo. I eat fish every dinner."

I'm interested in knowing more about Crisco sticks... how you use them, why you like them, etc. Planning a September solo and this might be better than liquid cooking oil."

I use an 8" GSI Pinnacle skillet for soloing. I will either blacken or deep fry and use the Crisco "butter flavor" for both. It's a solid at room temp so you don't have to worry about leakage. I just started reusing the excess to reduce waste and it worked well. If I don't fry fish I will use it in foil to prevent burning and sticking.