It doesn’t matter whether you are frying donuts, French fries,
or chicken fingers, every commercial fryer needs to be cleaned and
maintained regularly. Commercial fryers today can be either gas powered
or electric. It is important to know which type you have before you try
to clean it. Also, remember that fryers made from stainless steel are
always going to be easier to clean and maintain. If you haven’t
purchased your commercial fryer yet, I would always recommend going
stainless for these machines.
Types of Fryers
Before
we talk about cleaning your commercial fryer, let’s talk about the 3
different types of fryers you may have. There are all purpose,
pressurized, and specialty fryers. Each is used in a slightly different
way. All purpose (the most common) fryers have heating elements
underneath and use top loading baskets which get submerged in the oil.
Foods placed in all purpose fryers are typically coated in batter to
seal in the flavor. A pressurized fryer looks more like a kettle than a
traditional fryer. It locks in steam to create pressure cooking. This is
a fast cook and requires less heat because of the pressure. The last
types of fryers (specialty fryers) are used to cook things like donuts
or fish. They have timers for cooking specific items, special racks for
holding the food and varied temperature controls to allow for frying a
variety of different foods.
Cleaning Your Fryer
The process of cleaning a commercial fryer is pretty straight
forward. Follow these directions if you want to clean your fryer
properly and quickly:
- Drain your fryer daily for the best operation.
- Clean up any stickiness in and around your fryer. The fact is that
these units have a tendency to build up with grease. Regular checks for
these deposits will reduce build up.
- Remove crumbs, sediment, or any other crud from the vat of your
fryer. As you cook, these things are going to get caught in the vat.
This reduces the efficiency of your fryer. Cleaning this area is going
to be essential in maintaining a fryer that does the job without sucking
a lot of power.
- Wash the kettle with hot alkaline solution as required.
- Dry your Fryer with a dry cloth, not heat. Heat will cost you more,
increase kitchen temperature, and ruin your burner. Drying your unit
with a towel once cleaned is a more practical approach.
- Clean the element regularly. Like the oil in the vat, the element
itself works harder when it is dirty. If it is clean you won’t waste any
energy when cooking.
Other Maintenance Tips
When it comes to using your commercial fryer, don’t let it overheat!
This is one of the biggest mistakes an owner or operator can make. Read
your owner’s manual to find out what your average heating time is and
stick to it. If you under heat or over heat your fryer, you will be
wasting energy and could cause unnecessary strain on the element.
Commercial fryer elements are not cheap to replace so it makes sense to
take good care of it from day one.
