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SERVICELINE TIPS & HINTS

FRYERS: MAINTENENCE TIPS AND HINTS

Cleaning: Oil can build up around control dials, making them more difficult to move and risking the dial breaking. Clean around the dial as part of your regular routine; if the dial pulls off, clean behind and replace the dial. Ensure that ventilation fitted above the fryer is clean and operational.

Oil checks: Fryers are the cause of many personal injury accidents and fire hazards. Most important, if oil starts to smoke at normal temperature settings, the thermostat may be faulty, so get it checked before it all catches fire. Also, if the oil becomes cloudy when hot, or very dark, change it. Filtering the oil every day is a great habit to get into – most of the running cost of a fryer is in oil, so maximizing economy and cooking quality makes sense. Before draining the oil, ensure the fryer is switched off long enough for the oil to cool to 60DegC or lower. Don’t leave it switched on at low temperature, or the oil may overheat when the level drops below the thermostat probe.

Thermostats: If you notice the fryer is not cooking normally, the thermostat probe may be out of calibration leading to inefficient cooking. Thermostats naturally ‘wander’ from their pre-sets over time, so over the life of a fryer, having them re-calibrated several times to ensure maximum energy efficiency and operating safety is not uncommon. A common cause of damage to thermostats is when refitting electric elements after cleaning, so lower them carefully into position and don’t damage the thermostat probes.

New fryers not working: As fryers become more and more electrically sophisticated new equipment that refuses to work is not uncommon. The fryers could have been tripped during installation as the power was switched off/on; or they were tested and left on without any oil. It will take an engineer around 10 minutes to re-set the fryers. If the thermostat trips out, you may be able to reset it, but don’t do that more than once. Call a service engineer to check it.

Filtering: Fryers with internal filtering systems rely on the filters to stop food debris from clogging the pump. Make sure you know how to remove and clean the filters before filtering the oil.

Gas fryers: Gas fryers must be checked regularly for proper combustion to ensure that CO levels are within acceptable tolerances. Thermostats must be checked periodically to ensure they continue to function correctly. Electrical cables need to be inspected to ensure there is no damage or earthing faults. A qualified Service Engineer can carry out these checks for you.

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