Lakeman brought up a new type cooker ( to me ) on the frying oil thread. I know what he uses will solve some of my past mistakes. His post was:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I use all canola oil for all of my frying, and I do a lot of deep frying, fish, shrimp, chicken, sweet potatoes, irish potatoes, and carrots. I use my oil for a dozen or two fryings (not batches, but cooking sessions) before I pour it out, I strain the larger particals of breading out when needed, and I never burn my oil, but pour it out when it is wore out (Restaurants use their oil for many cookings before they discard it). Your oil burns if you get it two hot, and if you use a cooker over a fire, or an electric fryer with the element on the bottom (like a fry daddy) you are applying your heat directly to the bottom, and all of the meal,breadding etc that settles on the bottom will burn, and then lend a burnt taste to your oil, and then to your food (any time you see little puffs of blue smoke rising from bursting bubbles in your oil, you are burning it). Restaurants never burn their oil, so I use fryers that operate like restaurant equiptment, and never burn my oil. I have two deepcookers I use, for small cookings (for the wife and myself, and maybe two or three others) I use my smaller rectangular shaped DeLonghey cooker, which holds about two quarts, and for larger cookings, I have an electric turkey fryer which will hold a couple gallon. Both of these cookers have a removable heating element, that you lower into the oil, and it stays up off of the bottom so the heat is applied above the crumbs on the bottom, never burning them. Also the elements on both fryers are thermostatic controlled, and the highest you can heat your oil is 360 degrees which will not burn your oil.[/QUOTE

Lakeman is this the type cooker you use?
http://www.delonghi.com/Int/USA/prodotti.html