Commercial Fryers
At least once a week, most people eat one or more of their meals away from home. Chances are that no matter what the meal is or where it is coming from, a commercial fryer could have been used in the cooking process. Commercial fryers are not your ordinary household fryers, and there are a variety of them, aside from the French fry fryers at your local fast food restaurant. Surprisingly, there is quite a bit of interesting information about fryers, starting with the main differences between each type.
If you love to make things like fries, battered chicken strips or fish nuggets, hush puppies, and other fried goodies, then you likely have a home fryer. In fact, you likely have a deep fryer, since these make it much easier to fry up your favorite foods in larger batches than a simple frying pan coated in oil would do. Your home deep fryer probably has the capacity to hold up to a gallon or so of oil and came with some kind of fryer basket that allows you to take out several pieces of your fried food at once. This may also look like a strainer our soup skimmer.
These home deep fryers are great, and for a small or even large family, they are ideal, because they don't take up too much counter space and can still provide enough food for a large meal in a relatively short amount of time. However, if you own a restaurant, even a small one, a home fryer is not enough for your cooking needs.
This is where the commercial deep fryer comes in. Commercial deep fryers are large machines that can accommodate dozens of large food orders per day, often with several being able to cook at one time. If you have ever ordered a hamburger and fries from a local food joint, you have seen one brand of commercial deep fryer used for your fries. This is actually just one of many types of commercial fryers, as you will soon see.
There are two main food items that are typically used in commercial deep fryers—oil and shortening. The stable oils used in most fryers can last up to 100 hours, meaning that you don't have to change the oil each and every day after use, like you might with a home fryer. In fact, depending on how many batches you do each day in your commercial deep fryer, you may go through all the oil and actually have to add more to it.
Typically, if you do 50 large batches of food, such as fries in a commercial deep fryer, you would be short four pounds of oil. This is because some of the oil from the fryer does absorb into the food, even if you drain it. Let's say you started your day with a fryer that holds 20 gallons. After fifty batches, 1/5th of your oil would be gone and need to be replaced.
Shortening comes in tubs or bricks and quickly melts down to a liquid for frying purposes. Using shortening in commercial deep fryers used to be very popular because once the shortening melts down, it can last from 200 to 300 hours—2-3x as long as oil. This means you get just as many batches out of it without it having to be changed as often. Shortening is not used as much now, however, because it is so high in fat and calories. Now, most restaurants opt for healthier fry oils like vegetable, canola, and the like. Which type you would use in your commercial fryer would depend on what you are frying and if you are trying to save fat and calories or not.
A countertop commercial fryer is the fryer you typically see at a burger or fast food establishment. It can be used for such things as fries, hush puppies, chicken nuggets, batches of fried chicken, and anything else small enough to fit in its basket.
A countertop commercial fryer will have at least one, but up to four baskets, that fit perfectly and were custom built for that particular fryer. They have hooks where you can hang the baskets to let excess oil drain off the food before you serve it to your customers. They are called countertop fryers, because they fit in perfectly between counters so they do not disrupt the flow of your kitchen or prep area.
There is a range of sizes to choose from when it comes to countertop fryers. They can hold up to 10 lbs of oil on smaller models or as much as 30 lbs of oil on the larger models. The size you choose is largely dependent upon your particular business' needs and budget, not to mention the space you have in your kitchen to fit a fryer.
Gas fryers are exactly what they sound like. They are commercial sized fryers that use gas to heat up the oil. If your stove at home has an open flame instead of heating coils, then you use gas for those items, and they heat your food. The same principle applies to gas fryers. The gas can be natural or manufactured, whichever your local gas or utility provider uses.
Gas fryers are thought by some to give your fried foods a more authentic taste. This is a matter of preference, and there is no truth to support it. The only real drawback to having gas fryers is that in some areas, gas for heating purposes (which is what gas fryers are considered, since the oil has to be heated) can be a bit on the pricey side. This is not the case everywhere, though, and if your area has inexpensive natural gas, then a gas-powered commercial deep fryer is a viable option.
Electric fryers are just as effective at frying your food as a gas commercial fryer, but use electricity instead. An electric fryer will use coils like those found on an electric range in your kitchen to heat the oil from inside the oil tank. These coils heat very quickly and so can have your oil ready for cooking in just a matter of minutes, depending on how much oil you need.
Since electricity is usually cheaper and cleaner environmentally than gas, electric fryers are generally cheaper to maintain. No gas line is needed either, just somewhere to plug the machine in, along with an adapter since the plug is usually a large commercial or three-pronged plug. Many of the newer, more efficient commercial fryer models are electric fryers.
Everyone (or almost everyone) loves a donut. The chewy goodness of this sweet tooth cure has many varieties, all of which are fried. Because donuts are often bought by the dozen, donut makers must have huge commercial sized fryers in which to make their donuts. These special donut deep fryers must be able to put out a large amount of donuts each hour in order to satisfy demands.
This demand for high production machines is why there is a separate market made especially for donut fryers. The largest of the commercial fryers, donut fryers look very different and function differently from the average commercial fryer.
A donut fryer must hold a large amount of oil—up to 150 lbs, to be exact. It must also come with a donut turner that won't melt in the high-temperature oil, as you flip the donuts to make sure they are equally golden brown on both sides. There is also a special screen needed to bring the donuts out of the oil. You can't use a basket like you would on fries, because the donuts are very fragile when first taken out of the oil and can break or crush other donuts beneath them. Most also have a drying table that also doubles as a lid for when you are done using the oil to fry.
All fryers must be cleaned on a regular basis and cared for in order to maintain optimum production. A fryer that has a clogged oil drain will not be able to have fresh oil put in it, or may keep some of the old oil that can eventually spoil and ruin any new oil you place into the vat.
If you don't scrub down the sides of your deep fryer, it can form a crust where the oil line is. Not only is this unappetizing for diners to see (if they can see the kitchen from the cash register, like at many fast food eateries), but it is also unsanitary and potentially unhealthy. For this reason, fryer manufacturers have special deep fryer brushes that are meant to tackle even the toughest of oil line skins and stains.
Proper oil filtering and fryer sanitizing will not only help you pass your inevitable health inspections, but it will also help your food taste better. Food that comes out of a clean deep fryer with new, unspoiled oil always tastes better than food from a poorly cleaned fryer.
We already touched on the subject of electric deep fryers versus gas deep fryers. The cost of natural gas in your area will often help determine which type of fryer you buy. In some states or cities, electricity is more expensive than natural gas, while in other areas just the opposite is true.
Because you want to be profitable in your business, it makes sense that you want to choose the cheapest method of warming your frying oil, since this cost will deplete your bottom line if it gets out of hand.
Luckily, many commercial deep fryer manufacturers understand that you need to cut costs anywhere you can to increase profit—they are in business to make money, too! Therefore, many have come up with energy efficient models of deep fryers in order to help cut your costs. Of course, the main reason they do this is because it is environmentally sound to do so. Even though the environmental aspect of it is worthy, anything that can help you save money on top of that is business gold.
You should check out the prices of these models, and how many energy units they would use per hour. You can then contact your local natural gas or electricity provider and see what their costs are. You can then estimate what your monthly bill might be and see which energy efficient commercial deep fryer is right for you. Of course, your monthly bill could fluctuate depending upon how much food you produce, but getting a ballpark estimate is always good for business.
Commercial deep fryers are much larger than what you are likely used to. These do not fit on top of the counter (though there is such a thing as a countertop commercial fryer), and they use a lot more energy and oil to get going. Of course, this means they also produce a lot more food at a rapid rate.
Some examples of commercial deep fryers include countertop fryers, which don't actually fit on top of the counter, but rather fit between counters and look a lot like a counter. They have one or more baskets that bring the food up from the fryer, instead of straining the items as you would with a home fryer.
Donut commercial fryers are a specialty fryer made for donuts and other delicate bakery pastries that need to be deep fried. Instead of the traditional basket of a deep fryer, they have fryer trays that bring out the donuts in single lines rather than stacked baskets. This helps preserve the shape of the pastries and prevents damage.
As people try to save both money and the environment, many models of fryers are trying to become more energy efficient. These models use less gas or electricity, while still producing the same amount of food in the same amount of time. They generally cost about the same or a little more than a traditional model, but that money will earn itself back in the long run.