Why Is It so Important to Keep Your Grill Clean?

You’d be hard-pressed to find a restaurant in which the grill isn’t constantly in use. From fast food chains to privately-owned fine dining establishments, grills are fixtures in virtually every restaurant kitchen. However, if you’re not keeping your grill immaculately clean, you’re liable to face a litany of undesirable consequences. Budding restaurateurs who are curious about why frequent grill cleaning is absolutely essential can learn a lot from the following tidbits. 

Efficiency

A dirty grill is an inefficient grill. The more food particles, gristle, and assorted filth are allowed to build up on your grill grates, the harder it will be to efficiently cook meat. As a result, many of the entrees prepared on dirty grills are unevenly cooked and, in some cases, unhygienic. Suffice it to say, if your restaurant develops a reputation for serving improperly grilled entrees, you can expect your online reviews to take a nosedive. If keeping your grill grates clean is becoming a more difficult task, it might be time to look into replacing them with brand-new grill grates.

Sanitation

Cooking meat on a dirty grill is incredibly unsanitary. Not only does this decrease the chances of the meat being cooked all the way through, it also increases the likelihood that it will be unevenly heated, with certain areas being very hot and others being very cold. Furthermore, it’s doubtful that any diner who’s served a steak, burger or chicken breast that’s awash in gristle will return to your establishment.  

Cost-Effectiveness

Regularly cleaning your grill can also save you a tremendous amount of money in the long run. In addition to reducing the need for replacement grates, it helps prevent grills from overheating, thereby decreasing the need for costly repairs.

As any experienced restaurateur can tell you, a consistently clean grill is an absolute necessity for any eatery. Failure to properly care for your grill is practically guaranteed to land you in hot water with health inspectors and result in disappointed diners. In the interest of efficiency, sanitation, and cost-effectiveness, clean your restaurant’s grills as often as needed.  

3 Tips for Maintaining an Impeccably Clean Restaurant Kitchen

Cleanliness is vitally important in restaurant kitchens. Failure to keep floors, counters, and assorted food prep tools nice and clean can lead to on-the-job accidents and create a variety of health hazards. Furthermore, a messy kitchen isn’t going to do your restaurant any favors with local health inspectors. Fortunately, keeping your kitchen impeccably clean doesn’t have to be an uphill battle. With the help of the following pointers, you and your staff can uphold cleanliness in the kitchen without inhibiting your ability to efficiently serve customers and fill orders. 

1. Divvy up Cleaning Tasks

Going into something with a plan is always preferable to flying blind — and this is particularly true when it comes to kitchen cleaning. At the beginning of each workday, create a list that divvies up the various kitchen cleaning tasks between your staff members. To ensure that people don’t constantly get stuck with jobs they don’t enjoy, make a point of assigning people tasks that make use of their strengths. For example, if a certain employee displays an affinity for cleaning grill grates; consider making this his or her regular cleaning task. Replacing grill grates every so often is also a smart move.

2. Clean at Various Points throughout the Workday

As anyone who’s worked in food service can confirm, most kitchen cleaning tasks need to be performed multiple times each day. In addition to table busing and dishwashing, your staff should also be scrubbing the floors and cleaning the grills as needed. Staying on top of these chores helps avert health hazards and ultimately saves everyone more work down the line.  

3. End Each Workday with a Clean Kitchen

Before your staff heads home for the night, confirm that the kitchen is spotless. This will ensure that you’re able to start afresh with a clean slate and hit the ground running when it comes time to open back up. 

No one is well-served by a messy restaurant kitchen — not restaurant owners, not kitchen staff, and certainly not diners. Although keeping an immaculately clean kitchen may seem like a herculean undertaking, this is actually far from the case. Hard work and consistency go a long way in promoting clean restaurant. 

Kitchen Safety: Basic Tips For Using Fryers

Keep your back of house employees protected and prevent kitchen fires by following these basic safety tips for using fryers.

·         Start by setting up the area where the fryer is kept. Mats must be placed by the fryer. These should be slip and grease resistant to prevent falling or moving machinery. Employees must wear proper shoes that cover feet and are slip resistant.

·         Identify where the fire extinguisher is and ensure that it is marked as Class K. A grease fire is different than other fires, meaning it can’t be put out with the same methods. Keep a lid or cover for the fryer close by in case it catches fire. Make sure employees are aware than water should never be used to put out grease fryers.

·         Provide workers with hand protection for lifting fryer baskets. This can be in the form of oven mitts, pot holders and steam resistant gloves. Train employees on fryer safety and use. Having a first-aid trained staff member on duty also can help prevent accidents from turning into disasters.

·         Use the right kind of oil and make sure it is heated to the proper temperature.  Do not turn the fryer on until after oil has been added.

·         Do no leave food in the fryer unattended or for too long. Overcooked food can burn and become a fire hazard.

·         When cooking, do not overfill the fryer basket. Making sure the basket is never more than two thirds full is a good baseline. Purchase larger baskets if you need to serve larger quantities of food.

Kitchen Maintenance: Cleaning Your Holman Toaster

Whether you have a daily supply of bagels or toast running through it, a Holman toaster is sure to get extensive use in your kitchen. Make sure you commercial conveyor toaster stays shining and functional by following these basic steps for cleaning.

Be aware that cleaning this toaster does NOT involve letting the machine soak. Do NOT immerse the toaster or leave it sitting in water. Do NOT use a hose to rinse it.

Here is a step-by-step breakdown for cleaning your Holman toaster.

1. Turn off the heat controls.
2. At the end of the day, clean conveyor belt with a damp cloth on the fastest setting. At the end of the week, use an abrasive pad to clean.
3. For deep cleaning, make sure the toaster is off. Unplug power cords from the wall. Allow time for it to cool from use. While the side panels remain cool while in use, you may feel some heat coming from the inside of the toaster. Wait until this heat subsides.
4. Remove crumb tray and clean this outside of the toaster. Make sure to return before using again.
5. Wipe down the outside surface of the toaster.
6. Every week, after unplugging the unit, clean the air intake with a vacuum or damp cloth

 If debris accumulates by the vents, the unit may experience technical problems. Perform basic cleaning procedures on a daily basis and deep cleans each week, depending on use. Make sure you commercial conveyor toaster stays shining and functional by following these basic steps for cleaning.

3 Reasons an Infrared Grill Is a Smart Investment for Your Restaurant

Most career restaurateurs agree that infrared grills represent the way of the future. In addition to being easier to maintain than traditional grills, infrared models are very easy to use and highly cost-effective. Although a high-end infrared grill may leave you with a mild case of sticker shock, it won’t be long before your investment pays off. Restaurant owners who are debating whether or not to add an infrared grill to their kitchen are urged to consider the following perks. 

1. Hassle-Free Maintenance

No restaurant worker relishes having to clean grills. It’s irksome, it’s time-consuming and it has to be done multiple times throughout the workday. Furthermore, scrubbing and brushing grills that accumulate substantial amounts of food particles and caked-on gristle can prove physically strenuous. Conversely, cleaning an infrared grill couldn’t be easier. Since most infrared models are self-cleaning, workers can use this time to focus on more pressing matters, thus increasing productivity in the kitchen.  

2. Reduced Preparation Times

Since infrared grills are able to cook meat much faster than their grate-based counterparts, your kitchen staff will be able to get orders out more quickly. Even low-end infrared burners are capable of reaching temperatures in excess of 1,000 degrees in under a minute’s time. As an added bonus, most of these grills can be preheated in less than three minutes, much to the delight of perpetually busy food preppers. 

3. Better Tasting Entrees

Meat that’s cooked on infrared grills tends to be more flavorful than meat prepared on traditional grills. This is largely due to the fact that infrared burners provide even distribution of heat, whereas older grills have an unfortunate tendency to overcook certain areas and undercook others.  

There are many good reasons for restaurateurs to put their money behind infrared grills. If you find hassle-free maintenance, short prep times, and evenly-cooked meat appealing, a dependable infrared grill is a worthwhile investment.   

Tips for Getting Your Grill Grates Sparkly Clean

The grates are the dirtiest components of most grills. Since they attract more than their fair share of gristle and food particles, grill grates need to be cleaned on a fairly consistent basis. However, getting your grates to sparkle like new can prove rather tricky, particularly if your grill receives a fair amount of use. Restaurateurs and backyard grill masters in search of effective grate cleaning tips can benefit from the following pointers.

Heat Is Your Friend

When setting out to clean your grill grates, heat can be your best friend. If you’re overwhelmed by the amount of caked-on filth your grates have accumulated, place them in a self-cleaning oven and subject them to the cleaning process. Doing this on a regular basis has been known to lead to discoloration, but if you don’t care what color your grates are, you have absolutely nothing to lose. 

Baking Soda Is Very Handy

Baking soda is an immensely popular cleaning tool whose effectiveness extends to dirty grill grates. Before attempting to utilize this tip, confirm that your grates haven’t been used for at least one hour. Next, fill a bucket with hot water; add a quarter-cup of dish soap, then pour in a quarter-cup of baking soda. After stirring this mixture until it forms a lather allow your grates to soak in the bucket for an hour. This should make short work of any food particles and gristle that are clinging to the grates. 

Regularly Brush Your Grates

One of the most effective ways to prevent excessive gristle buildup is to brush your grates on a regular basis. At-home grill masters are urged to brush their grates after every barbecue, while restaurateurs whose grills are constantly in use will need to brush their grates several times a day. 

Purging grill grates of filth is no small undertaking. In light of their propensity for attracting and retaining food particles, most grates are essentially dirt magnets. However, while it can certainly be tricky, effective grate cleaning is far from impossible. 

The Benefits of Investing in an Infrared Grill

No matter what type of food your restaurant specializes in, you stand to benefit from investing in an infrared grill. In addition to being highly cost-effective, these increasingly commonplace grills have a number of advantages over their more traditional counterparts. Restaurateurs who are entertaining the idea of adding an infrared grill to their kitchen should consider the following benefits. 

Lightning-Fast Heating Times

Infrared burners are capable of much faster heating times than traditional grills. Most infrared grills can reach temperatures exceeding 1,000 degrees in under a minute. What’s more, these grills can be sufficiently preheated in around three minutes. This can prove tremendously convenient for restaurants that are always busy.

Even Distribution of Heat

Meat cooked on infrared grills tends to taste better than meat prepared on traditional grills. The reason for this is heat distribution. With traditional grills, it’s hardly uncommon for heat to be unevenly distributed throughout a piece of meat. Alternatively, infrared grills provide a far more even distribution of heat, thus ensuring more flavorful entrées.  

Easy to Clean

Grill cleaning is among the most cumbersome chores restaurant workers have to tackle. Not only does it need to be performed multiple times a day, it frequently hampers outgoing orders. Fortunately, purging infrared grills of gristle and food particles doesn’t require copious amounts of scrubbing and scraping. Simply turn the temperature up to “high,” watch the residual particles burn away and resume cooking. 

A reliable infrared grill is guaranteed to make a welcome addition to any restaurant kitchen. Since grills are vitally important tools at any given eatery, it’s only natural for restaurateurs to want the highest-quality grills currently available. If fast heating times, even distribution of heat, and easy cleaning are what you’re after, a cutting-edge infrared grill should be right up your alley.