Heated Soak Tank For Bakery Kitchens

Assortment of new aluminum egg tart molds, food-grade, reusable, fluted design for easy release, ideal for mini tarts, quiches, cupcakes, puddings, and cheesecakes

Clean Pans Bake A Better Product

Look at the sheet pans coming out of your ovens right now. The dark ones and the newer ones are not baking the same product, and they haven’t been for a while.

Carbon and caramelized sugar build a layer that gets darker with every bake, and dark surfaces pull heat faster than clean metal does. It builds unevenly too, heaviest in the corners and along the seams, so one pan browns harder than the pan next to it on the same rack. Most bakeries handle this by scheduling extra scrubbing time, or by throwing away pans that are too far gone.

The FOG Tank® is a soak tank for bakery kitchens that takes the buildup off instead. Submerge your pans, trays, hood filters, and more, and the proprietary Tiger Carbon Removal Powder breaks the layer down while your team gets back to production. One fill of water and powder keeps working for a full month, so your bakery gets kitchen cookware and equipment that’s better cleaned while spending less on water, chemicals, labor, and electricity with every batch.

A Few Of Our Satisfied Customers

Why Bakery Pans Stop Baking The Same

Pan color changes how a bake turns out. Dark surfaces absorb heat faster and drive browning harder, which is why bakeware manufacturers sell blackened pans on purpose for crusty breads and why baking guidance tells you to adjust time and temperature when you switch to a darker pan. That’s a known variable, and a bakery can work with a known variable.

Carbon buildup is the same physics arriving uninvited. A pan darkens gradually, unevenly, and at a different rate from every other pan in the stack, depending on what ran on it and how often. Nobody adjusts a recipe for it because nobody can see it happening day to day. What shows up instead is a batch that browned too hard on one rack, a bottom crust that went further than it should have, and a slow drift in consistency that gets blamed on the oven.

What A Commercial Bakery Pan Cleaner Has To Break Down

Bakery residue is not the same problem as restaurant grease. Sugar caramelizes, then carbonizes, and what’s left behind is hard, dark, and bonded to the metal. Scrubbing it takes real time and real force, which is why the usual shortcuts are steel wool and aggressive scouring. Neither one takes carbon off, and both scar the pan surface trying.

Heat and chemistry get residue off without the force. Our Tiger Carbon Removal Powder is built to break down baked-on sugar and carbon rather than only grease, which is what makes The FOG Tank® an industrial bakery pan cleaner rather than just a soak bucket. It is non-caustic and non-toxic, fully biodegradable, and safe on food contact surfaces, so all that’s needed after it soaks is a quick rinse.

The FOG Tank® Means Fewer Pans In The Scrap Pile

A pan usually gets thrown out because the buildup won, not because the pan failed. Handling bakery pan cleaning on a routine rather than as a last-ditch rescue keeps that layer from ever setting hard enough to write a pan off, and pans that stay in service are pans you don’t have to waste time and money reordering.

How Our Heated Soak Tank Works For Bakeries

FILL

Fill with hot water to the ‘Fill Line’ marked inside, plug it in, and press ON. One fill runs the whole month, no matter how often you run the tank.

Person pours Tiger Carbon-Removal Powder into a FOG Tank

ADD

Once per month when you replace the water, slowly add the Tiger Carbon Removal Powder, which is formulated for baked-on sugar as well as grease.

Person adds dirty kitchen equipment to the FOG Tank

LOAD

Load sheet pans, bun pans, doughnut trays, vent hood filters, and more into the included lifting basket, so nobody has to reach into 185° F water. Whole racks can go in nested together rather than one pan at a time.

Close the lid and get back to production. Nothing needs scrubbing, scraping, or checking while it soaks.

REMOVE

Wearing gloves, lift the basket out, then remove each item and rinse it to clear the softened sugar and carbon. Pans come out clean and sanitized, ready for the next bake.

"We love ours! We have had it for about two months. We have already saved countless hours using it to clean everything from hood vent filters to full sized baking sheets, if it has grease, fat oil, baked, fried, or just built up a few hours in the f.o.g tank and it is like brand new. We LOVE IT!!"
Zackery White

What The FOG Tank® Cleans

Anything made of metal or heavy-duty plastic that comes out of your oven or mixer can go into The FOG Tank®. One tank covers the rack, the bench, the hood, and more:

Sheet pans
Muffin tins
Loaf pans
Cake pans
Bun and roll pans
Doughnut trays
Cooling racks
Mixer bowls
Dough hooks
Vent hood filters
Fry baskets
Cutting boards
Cambro containers
Other metal or heavy-duty plastic bakery equipment

The FOG Tank® Is One Bakery Tray Cleaner For The Whole Rack

Loading a full rack at once is the difference between a job somebody has to find time for and a job that happens while the oven runs. A large soak tank for bakery sheets can absorb a whole morning’s output in one load rather than in shifts. Our 40-gallon FOG Tank® holds 24 sheet pans and the 80-gallon model holds 50, and with several more sizes available, you can find the right one for your kitchen’s capacity. Because the tank is filled and emptied once a month, it does not have to sit next to a sink or even in the kitchen. Any covered area that is not exposed to the elements works.

Residue Collects On Cookware And Kitchen Equipment Where Nobody Is Looking

The flat face of a sheet pan is the easy part. What a scrub pad struggles with is everywhere else: the rolled edge of a bun pan, the seam where a loaf pan is welded, the ring around a doughnut tray cup, the corner radius of a cake pan, and the underside of a cooling rack where nothing gets wiped because nothing shows.

Puff pastry palmiers freshly baked on a tray. High end bakery workshop. Hand made cuisine.

Bakery Sanitation Between Bakes

Dough, butter, and sugar all leave residue that hardens into places a brush cannot reach at a useful angle. Bakery sanitation depends on that residue coming off before anything is sanitized, since sanitizer works on what it can actually touch.

Mixer bowls, dough hooks, and beater attachments face the same challenge. They have curves and joints that are awkward to clean by hand, and they touch every batch that goes through the bakery.

The solution is full immersion in a heated soak tank made for bakery sheets, pans, and other cookware and equipment. The FOG Tank® reaches the whole piece at the same time, seams and edges and undersides included, without anyone deciding how much attention each pan gets on a given morning. Items come out clean, sanitized, bacteria-free, and germ-free.

What The FOG Tank® Saves Your Bakery Every Month

Every part of how The FOG Tank® is built cuts costs in your bakery. Add them up across a full month of baking, and the savings compound fast.

Overhead view of a baking tin and muffin sheet

Less Water

A three-compartment sink needs fresh water every time it’s drained, sometimes several times a shift when pans are stacked up. The FOG Tank® fills once and keeps working for a month, so your bakery isn’t running the tap nearly as often, which can save 340,000 gallons of water or more each year.

Less Cleaning Chemicals

Instead of dosing a sink basin with cleaner every wash cycle, The FOG Tank® only needs Tiger Carbon Removal Powder added once per month, whether it runs a few times a week or nonstop.

Less Labor

With The FOG Tank®, nobody has to stand over a sink chipping burnt sugar off a sheet pan. Pans soak on their own, which frees up whoever would otherwise be scrubbing to prep, decorate, or pack orders instead, saving half an hour per day or more.

Less Electricity

The FOG Tank® is insulated, so with the lid closed it holds its temperature. That translates to $3,000 or more in energy savings each year.

Vent Hood Filter Cleaning Made Easy

Grease-laden vapor still shows up in bakeries, from butter working its way through laminated dough to any fryer running donuts or fritters. That vapor settles into the hood filters above your ovens, and a filter caked in grease is both a fire code problem and a maintenance headache.

Most bakeries clean filters one of two ways. Some pull them at closing and soak them in whatever sink is free, which ties up that sink for hours and uses fresh water and cleaner every time. Others go after them with a pressure washer or sprayer, which moves faster but keeps someone on the job the whole run and pours water the entire time.

The FOG Tank® takes hood filters out of your sink rotation entirely. Load them into the tank instead of the sink, and they come out noticeably lighter (half a pound on average) and fully degreased without anyone touching a scrub brush.

Clean filters keep your exhaust system pulling air the way it’s supposed to, which matters for fire safety and for the bakery sanitation standards inspectors check during a walkthrough. CaptiveAire endorses The FOG Tank® as the best method for cleaning hood filters. The removable filters are the part your own staff can clean under NFPA 96; the ductwork and hood structure above them stay with a qualified contractor.

Careful Baker Operating Trays With Pastries And Oven

One System For The Whole Bakery

The FOG Tank® isn’t meant to clean everything in your bakery, just the metal and heavy-duty plastic cookware and equipment that fit inside it. For the surfaces that don’t go in the tank, like oven interiors and worktables, GrimeGo® handles the job. It’s a non-toxic, non-caustic degreaser built to the same standards as the tank itself.

Bakery Cleaning Products That Cover Both Halves Of The Room

Between GrimeGo® and The FOG Tank®, these bakery cleaning products cover just about everything that needs cleaning in your kitchen. What fits in the tank goes in the tank, and what does not gets wiped down with the same non-caustic chemistry. One standard, one supplier, and nothing caustic stored in a room where food is made.

Trusted By Bakeries Nationwide

Certification matters when you’re bringing new equipment into a food production space. The FOG Tank® carries both NSF (National Sanitation Foundation) and UL (Underwriters Laboratories) certification, and it’s already running in thousands of bakeries and commercial kitchens across all 50 states and worldwide. The tank body is 304 stainless steel, the same grade used in most bakery equipment already, so it stands up to daily hot soaking without warping or corroding. We still have tanks in service today that have been in service for over 20 years. Read testimonials from our customers, or reach out directly with questions about your setup.

Cheerful female baker is standing and holding a basket of pastry. She is proposing food to her customer. The African-American woman is looking forward and smiling. Realizing a dream. Small business concept

Frequently Asked Questions About Our Bakery Soak Tanks

How does a soak tank for bakery kitchens clean dirty pans and bakeware?

Hot water and a cleaning powder work together inside The FOG Tank® to break down whatever’s stuck to a pan, whether that’s burnt sugar or baked-on carbon. Pans and other items go in, the tank does its work over several hours, and what comes out just needs a rinse. There’s no scrubbing at any point in the process.

Will cleaning the carbon off our sheets and pans actually change how my product bakes?

Thoroughly cleaning your cookware should make your bakes more consistent, because it removes a variable rather than adding one. Dark surfaces absorb heat faster than clean metal, so a pan carrying a heavy carbon layer browns harder than a clean pan at the same oven setting. Buildup accumulates unevenly across a set of pans, which is what makes it hard to compensate for. Getting that carbon off puts your pans back on the same footing.

How is bakery residue different from restaurant grease?

Sugar is the key difference between the residue bakeries usually see and the grease typically found in restaurants. Sugar caramelizes and then carbonizes into a hard, dark layer bonded to the metal, and it does not respond to a degreaser the way fat does. Tiger Carbon Removal Powder is formulated for baked-on sugar and carbon as well as grease, which is what makes The FOG Tank® a bakery pan cleaner and not only a soak tank.

Is the Tiger Carbon Removal Powder safe for aluminum and food contact surfaces?

It is. The Tiger Carbon Removal Powder is non-caustic and non-toxic. It’s also fully biodegradable and safe on both aluminum and food contact surfaces. Pans come out of The FOG Tank® clean and sanitized. Simply give them a quick rinse to clear any softened fragments, and they’re ready to go back into rotation.

How many sheet pans fit in one load in The FOG Tank®?

24 sheet pans fit in the 40-gallon FOG Tank® and 50 in the 80-gallon one, with larger models available above that. Sizes start at 25 gallons and run up to 126 gallons, so the right one depends on how much comes off your racks in a morning. Our team can size it against your actual output to help you determine the best fit.

How often do you change the water and powder in The FOG Tank®?

Once a month. Fill with water to the marked line and add the appropriate amount of powder for your tank size, and the solution keeps its cleaning strength whether The FOG Tank® runs a couple of times a week or every single day. That’s what makes it a more efficient bakery pan cleaner than washing pans one at a time at a sink.

Does a soak tank replace a three-compartment sink?

All of your daily washing and heavy carbon removal for pans, trays, and other metal or heavy-duty plastic cookware and equipment can move into The FOG Tank®, which is where the time and water savings come from. Health codes still require a three-compartment sink on site, so the tank works alongside it. The more cleaning you move from your sink to the tank, the more you can save.

Can The FOG Tank® handle hood filters and pans in the same load?

Yes, and most bakeries run them together. Filters and pans can share a load as long as you’re within the tank’s capacity. We offer several sizes to accommodate whatever your kitchen needs.

Clean Better, Bake Smarter With The FOG Tank®

Bakeries that switch to The FOG Tank® usually notice the difference within the first few soaks. Fewer pans end up in the trash, and staff spend less time standing at a sink. The pans that stay in rotation go back to behaving like the pans they were when you bought them.

Lease or purchase options are both available, depending on what makes the most sense in acquiring a soak tank for your bakery.

Contact us during business hours by calling (858) 566-6212 or at any time by filling out our contact form online to talk through the right tank size for your bakery.