Best oil for frying fish n shrimp?

Peanut is king of the hill when it comes to deep frying.

Canola and vegetable oil will work just fine for seafood, but you'll have to watch them closer than you would peanut and they'll break down faster than peanut, meaning you probably can't get that many reuses out of the same batch of oil. Incidentally, that's why peanut is the go-to for turkeys. The long cook time means that the other oils like canola or regular vegetable will degrade more than peanut will in the middle of the cook and risk ruining the meal. With quick cooking seafood and clean fresh oil, though, you can use canola and plain vegetable oil just fine as long as you don't let that temperature get too high or use the oil past the point where it needs to be changed/tossed out.

I’m frying quite a bit of trout & shrimp. 8 people or so

So no go on soybean? The reason I asked about it is because it was only $16 for a 5 gallon jug at Costco.

Oh, no, soybean is just fine for frying seafood as well. I missed that part because reading comprehension is apparently out the window today. I was thinking of the oils people usually have in their pantry.

Refined soybean oil's got a really high smoke point and a neutral flavor. It should be fine for your needs. Really, canola, vegetable, peanut, corn, soybean, etc. would do. As long as it's got a smoke point significantly above the 375F you're going to use your thermometer to hold (right?), and it has a neutral flavor, it's fine for deep frying seafood as long as you keep an eye on it and toss it/replace it when its time comes.

Incidentally, these oils good for deep frying all tend to require some pretty heavy mechanical/chemical production processes to make. If it's a refined oil, it's almost a shoo-in to be a good match to deep fat frying because the production process cleans it up and strips it of whatever character the plant it came from had (i.e.: corn oil doesn't taste like corn) when it removes the impurities in the oil and just gets down to the oil itself.

You'll want to stay away from the less processed oils. These would be things that are just mechanically separated or pressed with little to no chemical processing. They will tend to have a more varied composition from brand to brand and can have a flavor profile that will vary from brand to brand and batch to batch. The things in the oil that cause the variations and the bigger flavors are things that will also tend to burn and smoke, which is why these oils tend to have much lower smoke points than the more refined oils. These oils would be things like olive oil or sesame seed oil that might be great for sauteing and adding flavor to a dish, but are terrible at deep fat frying.

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but all they had at Costco was soybean

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You looking in the right spot?


And beef tallow, to answer your question

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Beef Tallow

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Where do you get enough to fill a pot deep enough to fry?

I'm curious. I've never used it simply because it's not something I see often.

EDIT: The day McDonald's caved and quit frying their fries in beef tallow was a sad day.

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You can buy it jarred.

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What section do you find it in? I can't recall ever seeing it, but I can't recall looking, either.

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Can't beat peanut for frying anything.

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Except you can..

Depends on how long you let it sit. Try to use it within a couple of weeks.