Operating a commercial kitchen means you’re probably aware of hood vents and what they do. You also probably know all about what a job cleaning their filters can be. Venting the heat from your cooktops, grills, and frying stations means they also accumulate a lot of grease. This can lead to a potentially dangerous situation, as a buildup of grease can increase the risk of fires in your kitchen. It also can lead to poor ventilation and unpleasant smells that can impact your working environment.
Keeping restaurant hood filters clean from day to day usually means a lot of soaking and scrubbing or running them through the dishwasher. These methods not only require a lot of time, but also consume other resources such as detergent and water, not to mention the energy used to get everything hot enough to cut through the greasy buildup. Fortunately, knowing how to clean commercial hood filters with a soak tank can make the job much easier, faster, and more eco-friendly.
How a Soak Tank Makes Cleanup Easier
You may think you already understand commercial kitchen hood filter cleaning, but a soak tank offers a number of benefits over the traditional methods. Because they use the same water and solution for 30 days straight, there’s no need to keep running the water or adding more soap each time you clean. They also require no scrubbing, meaning you can just drop the filters into the tank and do something else while the cycle runs in the background. Once it’s done, all you need to do is rinse away any carbon particles that may be left behind and you’re finished. When you know how to clean commercial hood vents with this equipment, you’ll experience better results and a more-efficient kitchen.
How to Clean Commercial Kitchen Exhaust Hood Filters With FOG Tank
The FOG Tank commercial soak tank utilizes our proprietary, non-toxic, and eco-friendly Tiger Carbon Removal Powder® to clean a wide range of metal kitchen equipment. Here’s a step-by-step guide to using it for your hood vent filters and more:
- Step 1: Add water and Tiger Carbon Removal Powder to the tank. You only need to change the water and solution once every 30 days.
- Step 2: Drop items to be cleaned inside the tank. The insulated stainless steel tank maintains an operating temperature of 185 degrees without needing to use as much power to reheat the water as a dishwasher does.
- Step 3: Handle other tasks while the FOG Tank works. As it goes through its cleaning cycle, you and your employees will be free to do other jobs. There’s no scrubbing necessary.
- Step 4: Remove and rinse off your implements. There may be some particles of carbon left behind on your filters that can be removed with a quick rinse.
What Can You Clean With a FOG Tank?
One important advantage of the FOG Tank is that it’s large enough to clean a lot of kitchen tools and equipment at the same time. The spacious tank allows you to fit in as many implements and elements you can without worrying about losing cleaning power. This means practically all metal elements of your vent hood filter — including vents, ducts, fans, hoods, filters, and more can be cleaned thoroughly in a single session.
How Often Should Hood Filters Be Cleaned?
The general rule of thumb is that a kitchen hood should be cleaned about every three months. But it’s important to note that the rule of thumb is only a general guideline. If your kitchen puts your hood filters through a lot of punishment, you’ll probably want to clean them more often. Your menu also can have an impact on your hood filters, as deep frying or cooking techniques that result in a lot of steam can cause your filters to become dirty that much faster.
Also, take into consideration the layout of your kitchen. If you have one appliance that does most of the work, chances are that hood filter will be in need of cleaning much more often than if the workload is spread out across multiple appliances. No matter how often your hood filters need to be cleaned, creating a schedule and sticking to it will be key for keeping your kitchen safe and efficient. Fortunately, FOG Tank makes it quick and easy to clean restaurant hood vents, so it’s much simpler to stay on top of what needs to get done.
FOG Tank is available in a wide range of sizes for use in numerous industries and applications. To learn more or get yours today, get in touch with one of our representatives.