Kitchen Hygiene, please
Kitchens can be
very dirty places if the management wants it to
be, or leaves it piling up trash. Kitchen
hygiene should be emphasized a lot - Not only kitchens
that provide food for airplane trips (with HACCP
checkpoints) but also the standard kitchen in
restaurants we visit all the time. It's daunting to see
many restaurants here in Malaysia do not keep up to the
standard of hygiene in the kitchen.
Today, Food Central is
going to talk about kitchen hygiene,
focusing on drains. Somewhat during our dear Chef - Mr.
Sun's time in a Chinese kitchen before, he pointed out
that there are different types of drains constructed in
restaurants. Some don't even have a proper drainage
system, or open drains topped with 1 1/2 inch thick
holes.
Drains are very
important in a kitchen, especially when it's a
commercial, busy kitchen. For home kitchens,
there may not be so much hassle as cooking activities
and preparations aren't done at large every single day.
Filters on the other
hand could cover filters for the sink, filters for the
ventilation equipment, filters for the drains and
filters for the water system. Filters play a huge role
in ensuring comfortable, safe kitchen handling and food
quality - And also depending on how well it's maintained
and kept.
Kitchen Drainage
Systems
A proper commercial kitchen should
always be designed in a way where it wouldn't contain
any water on the floor - Lest accidents are bound to
occur. Like the bathroom, the drain is a hole kept on
one side of the bathroom, while its landscape is
made such a way it's lower, to enable gravity to
flush excess water into the drain.
Raw and cooked food;
water, sauces or soups; dirt and sand; plastic
materials; sometimes even kitchen utensils, are often
found on the kitchen floor, and they become dangerous
once it's on the floor. Not to say everything has to go
into the drain, but it's more of a mini sewerage system
for the kitchen. Here are some common uses of the drain.
- Draining
convenience during kitchen cleaning.
- To drain unusable
liquid or dangerous liquidized materials in a large
amount without cross contamination (liquid with
strong acid, hot oil/greasy items or scraps of
chemicals cleaned in a water solution)
- To keep the
kitchen floor off excess water.
- Transfer liquid
from in the kitchen to an appropriate place (rather
than the sink).
There are many misuses
of the drain, also. In certain kitchens (which are not
supposed to be made kitchens), drains are not available,
sometimes to the extent of not having a hole for
drainage at all. At times when kitchen staff are less
disciplined, trash will see its way to the drain. Or
maybe sometimes, when a soup needs to be thrown away,
they still contain certain solid materials.
Although there are
requirements in building a kitchen but there's no law to
it stating that in a kitchen, you need this much of
drain build or you will not be able to get your license.
Have a drain for your kitchen, and you can see that
things get very much easier. You can follow these few
tips to better drains in your kitchen:
- Below the grill
frame used to cover the drain, have another
layer of filtering wire where they can
filter off bigger solid items. Alternatively, you
can also use drain frames with smaller holes in
diameter to allow only liquid to pass, not solid
items. But this alternative method is bad in the
long run. Rubbish will be on the floor after liquid
has been drained.
- Scrap the sides of
your drain in order to not accumulate rubbish that
are stuck.
- If your kitchen
floor is cleaned from time to time, you might not
have a smelly drain. Should you encounter this, 1
cup of baking soda into 4 quarts of hot water will
help a lot.
- At times, the
drain can grow plants, or roots. Use hot water to
wash it away or acidic items like vinegar to take
them off. If you're encountering something like tree
roots growing out of the drain, consult a
professional drainage company immediately.
