5 Tips To Cleaner Dishes
5 Tips for Cleaner Dishes for your customers
There are simple things that can be done to increase the cleanliness of your dishes, and to increase the lifespan of your dishwasher, and ultimately save you some money long term. These are...
1. Make sure that Detergent and Rinse Aid are being drawn in.
Don’t use household dishwasher tablets – they are not formulated for commercial machines. Use a commercial Dishwasher Detergent and Rinse Aid.
Are they being drawn into the machine? This is one of the 1st things to check if you are not getting the correct washing and drying results from your machine.
• Check that the tubes are going into the correct containers. Normally the blue/green tube is for rinse aid, and clear or yellow for the detergent.
• The tubing may be old and brittle and curling inside the containers. The end of the tube may not be in the liquid, it may be drawing air instead.
Done these checks and still seems as if there is no liquid going into the machine? Use a marker pen, and mark the level with a line and date it also. Check a few days later.
2. Are the wash & rinse arms spinning?
With the machine switched off, and the dishwasher door or hood open, try and spin the wash and rinse arms with your hand. They should spin freely.
If they do not spin easily, remove them carefully and clean them out. Take care of broken glass, and broken dish fragments, etc. Make sure that the wash/rinse arm housings are cleaned too (top and bottom).
If any of the wash/rinse jets are missing, let your dishwasher engineer know, so that new ones can be ordered (not always easy on older models). Hand tighten any loose jets.
With missing jets, the wash or rinse will lose pressure and will not be effective. Also, when jets go missing, they are usually the culprits which block wash pums and drain pumps.
3. Washing and rinsing temperatures – are they high enough?
Ideally the wash water in a commercial dishwasher should be between 55°C-65°C, and the rinse temperature should be minimum 82°C. If you have had the machine for some time, the dishwasher operator will be used to working with the hot dishes and will notice a difference if the temperature drops or becomes too hot.
Your machine may be fitted with a temperature display that will show when the temperatures are not at their optimum.
4. Is the machine clean inside?
This one is a biggy! Here is a dishwasher and filters before being cleaned -
Commercial dishwasher detergent and rinse aid will clean the dishes only. They do not clean the inside of your machine. This has to be done separately.
The best way of cleaning the inside of the dishwasher is to use a chemical cleaning liquid or powder at the end of service, put it through a few cycles without any dishes in it, and then drain it down.
Remove the filters and clean them thoroughly! Use a nail brush or pot brush.
Wipe the inside of the machine down with a damp cloth and remove any food deposits, spoons, forks, etc. from inside the wash tank of the machine.
Clean around the door frame and opening with a damp cloth.
Here is the same Dishwasher and wash pump filter after being cleaned -
Massive difference!
It's easy to imagine the difference in the end results of your dishes when they come out of a machine like this. The wash pump will be able to freely draw wash water through this cleaned filter. It had no chance before hand!
Again, take care when cleaning in case there is broken glass, crockery and other sharp objects in the bottom of the dishwasher wash tank.
5. Leave the door or hood of the Dishwasher open when finished.
Finally, once the machine has been emptied down, cleaned out and then switched off, the door or hood of your commercial dishwasher should be left open to allow fresh air to circulate. Make sure that staff know that the door is to be left open, especially with frontloading dishwashers, as the open door can become a trip hazard, or give someone a sore leg if they walk into it!
When it is left closed repeatedly overnight, the machine becomes the perfect breeding ground for bacteria – a hot and moist atmosphere.
When left open, the bacteria does not get the same chance to breed and combined with a regular cleaning routine and a reliable dishwasher cleaner, the machine will remain as fresh as it was the day it was installed.
If you need more help with any of these steps, or would like an engineer to call to your premises, please get in touch with Intellico on 0800 074 8122.
- Richard Hose