Heated Soak Tank For School Kitchens

Campus And School Kitchen Cleaning That Keeps Up With Every Meal Period

The FOG Tank® is a heated soak tank that cleans school kitchen equipment without anyone scrubbing it. Sheet pans, hotel pans, roasting pans, and vent hood filters go into the lifting basket, the lid closes, and heat plus Tiger Carbon Removal Powder does the rest.

That matters in a building that runs on a set schedule. In a K‑12 cafeteria, breakfast service ends, lunch prep starts, and the window in between is short. On a college campus the line barely closes at all, because the students living there eat most of their meals in your dining halls. Either way, the people doing your school kitchen cleaning are often the same people plating the next meal. Cleaning that needs someone standing over it doesn’t fit that schedule, so it slides to the end of the day (or, in the case of hood filters, all the way to summer).

One fill of water and powder in The FOG Tank® lasts a month, whether you’re feeding 200 students out of a single elementary cafeteria or running a campus with a dozen kitchens. Buy or lease the size that matches your operation.

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School cook preparing lunch in the kitchen at school

A Few Of Our Satisfied Customers

School Kitchen Cleaning That Has To Fit An Academic Year

A school kitchen runs on a calendar unlike any other in the foodservice industry. A K‑12 kitchen has roughly 180 serving days, two meal periods stacked back-to-back most mornings, and a hard stop when the bell rings. A college dining hall runs a longer day for students who eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner on campus, then empties out over winter and summer breaks. Both land in the same place: a summer that is either the only real deep cleaning window of the year or the season when the crew is smallest.

That schedule leaves very little room for cleaning everything by hand. Cafeteria cooking is rough on equipment: sheet pans come out of the oven caked in carbon, roasting pans hold onto scorched proteins, fry baskets collect grease with every service, and vent hood filters load up long before the next inspection. When the only tools are a sink and a scrub pad, that work needs a person and a stretch of uninterrupted time, and a school kitchen reliably has neither.

So it accumulates. A single absence or a thin summer roster leaves the backlog growing faster than anyone can keep up with, and the pans that get written off as scrap were usually salvageable three months earlier. There’s a better way to keep school kitchen equipment clean without asking more of the people you have: The FOG Tank®

How Our Heated Soak Tank Works In A School Kitchen

FILL

Fill with hot water to the ‘Fill Line’ marked inside, plug into an outlet, and press ON. One fill lasts the month, so this is a once-a-month job for one person.

Person pours Tiger Carbon-Removal Powder into a FOG Tank

ADD

Slowly add the Tiger Carbon Removal Powder. A month’s supply of powder, ordered through the same stockroom you already use. The amount depends on your tank size.

Person adds dirty kitchen equipment to the FOG Tank

LOAD

Load sheet pans, hotel pans, roasting pans, and vent hood filters into the lifting basket. A crew can easily fill it in any lull between services.

Close the lid and get back to the line. Nobody watches it and nothing needs checking between meal periods.

REMOVE

While wearing gloves, lift the basket out and rinse off any softened residue. Everything comes out clean and fully sanitized, ready for tomorrow’s menu.

We are a culinary school with over 300 students utilizing multiple kitchens. As you can imagine, learning to cook in industrial kitchens is a significant step for our students. Managing the time and temperature of high-BTU stoves can be challenging and takes a toll on our cookware. In the past, we have experimented with various acid and decarbonization tanks, none of which proved effective after the initial uses. The chemicals would weaken, leading to frustration among students and chefs who had to manually work at removing tough burns and carbon buildup. We were introduced to the Hyginix system at the 2023 food show, and since then, we have acquired an additional unit. Together, they provide ample space and cleaning power to handle the mistakes of a class of 16 students. The fog tank efficiently cleans burnt pans, fryer baskets, small molds, sheet trays, and heavy-duty grates. We cannot speak highly enough about this excellent product. If you are considering it, rest assured that it will not disappoint. It truly is a pan saver!
Jay Zwerin CDM, CFPPCincinnati State College

Using the FOG tank is very useful in keeping our college kitchens cleaned! It is used quite a bit when we deep clean our kitchens twice a year, plus the normal daily use. It is extremely helpful during service when we have roasted chicken, turkey, beef and pork sheet pans. We put the pans in the tank. No more wasting of soap, degreaser and elbow grease!
T.W. StanciuSt. Norbert’s College

Getting School Kitchen Equipment Clean Before It Gets Sanitized

There is a distinction in allergen guidance that is easy to skip past: sanitizing and cleaning are two separate jobs. Sanitizer reduces bacteria on a surface, and guidance written for school nutrition programs states plainly that sanitizing sprays, gels, and bleach do not remove allergens. Taking residue off has to happen first, by washing it away.

Baking Sheets Get Named Specifically

Allergen cleaning guidance for schools asks kitchens to clean and sanitize trays and baking sheets after every use, and the stated reason is that oils seep through wax paper and other pan liners. A liner protects the food on top of it. It does not protect the pan underneath. Whatever soaked through is still on the metal for the next batch, and a hurried pass with a scrub pad in a shared sink is a hard thing to verify.

Where A Heated Soak Tank Helps

Submerging a pan takes residue off rather than covering it over. Buildup in the corners, along the seams, and around the rivets comes away, and items come out of The FOG Tank® clean and fully sanitized instead of sanitized over a layer that never lifted. For a kitchen handling allergen requests every single service, a pan that started genuinely clean is a better starting point than a pan that only looks clean.

How It Fits Your Allergen Program

The FOG Tank® is school kitchen cleaning equipment, and it strengthens the first step your allergen procedures already depend on. Your district’s labeling, dedicated utensils, prep sequencing, and staff training stay exactly as they are. But by using the tank, the pans entering those procedures come to you genuinely clean.

Hood Filter And Kitchen Exhaust Cleaning For Schools

Health and safety inspectors show up with their own rubric, and their grading is toughest on the exhaust system. Hood filters loaded with grease are exactly what they look for, and worse, that buildup raises the risk of fire above a line full of open flame. In most schools the filters get left to soak in the three-compartment sink, pressure washed or sprayed, or scrubbed by hand after service, each of which takes a significant amount of water and labor.

Named the best method for cleaning hood filters by CaptiveAire, the FOG Tank® clears that problem. Set the hood filters in, let them soak, and pull them out with the grease and carbon gone without anyone scrubbing. Colleges and universities that handle commercial kitchen hood vent cleaning across several buildings can run filters regularly year-round, loading the same FOG Tank with sheet pans and cookware during service. Filters come out around half a pound lighter than ones cleaned in a three-compartment sink, and every hood on campus stays clean without extra stewarding time and labor going into it. Filters cleaned this way go back to bare metal, which takes the grease that feeds a hood fire out of the equation rather than moving it around.

The tank handles the removable filters, which under NFPA 96 is the part your own staff is permitted to clean. The hood structure, the ductwork, and the rooftop fan stay with a qualified contractor on the schedule your district already keeps. However, some contractors will discount their services or give you a credit for cleaning the filters yourself, contributing to even greater savings.

Female cook waiting for a student to choose his lunch in the cafeteria

What The FOG Tank® Cleans For Your School

Any cookware or kitchen equipment made of metal or heavy-duty plastic that comes out of your cafeteria ovens or off the serving line can go into The FOG Tank®. If you’re looking for school kitchen cleaning that also takes care of the hood filters nobody wants to touch, one FOG Tank covers the whole list:

Sheet pans
Bun and roll pans
Hotel pans
Steam table pans
Roasting pans
Stock pots
Cooling racks
Fry baskets
Vent hood filters
Cutting boards
Cambro containers
Other metal or heavy-duty plastic school kitchen equipment

That range is what makes The FOG Tank® one of the most versatile cleaning machines a school kitchen can own, and you may be surprised by how much fits in a single load. Pans and trays can nest inside each other and still get clean, allowing you to pack even more items into the tank. For a culinary program, it also covers the pans a student ruins while learning, which is the difference between a teaching moment and a purchase order.

Cleaner Pans, Better Food

Carbon buildup isn’t only a cleanliness problem. A pan carrying a layer of baked-on carbon holds and transfers heat unevenly, so a sheet tray of roasted vegetables browns hard on one corner and stays pale on the other, and a roasting pan that hasn’t been stripped in months passes old scorched flavor into whatever goes in next. Equipment that starts clean cooks evenly, which shows up on the plate.

That matters more on a campus than almost anywhere else. Students living in your residence halls eat nearly every meal from your kitchens. They compare notes constantly, and campus dining gets ranked and reviewed by people choosing where to enroll. Cookware that turns out food the way the recipe intended is part of how that reputation gets built.

Saving You Time and Money

Over a school year the savings stack up in four main places, and The FOG Tank® benefits page lays out even more ways to take advantage of our school kitchen cleaning equipment.

Overhead view of a clean metal frying pan, frying basket, and pizza pan

Water

A three-compartment sink or dish machine gets drained and refilled all day long. The FOG Tank fills once and runs for a month, which keeps thousands of gallons out of the drain across a semester.

Chemicals

One dose of Tiger Carbon Removal Powder lasts the whole month instead of a fresh pour for every load, so you order less and store less cleaning product in a stockroom that’s already tight. The powder is food safe and non-caustic, and it gives off no harsh fumes in a kitchen sitting inside a school.

Labor

Every service leaves pans, trays, and sheets to scrub by hand. Schools tell us that moving that work into The FOG Tank® cuts stewarding time by half an hour a day or more, and those hours come back to prep and service.

Electricity

The insulated stainless steel tank holds 185° F on its own while the lid is closed, so it’s not constantly drawing extra power to reheat the water. Customers report saving $3,000 or more a year in energy costs at a single location.

That’s the practical case for a district: the spending is predictable. One tank, the same amount of powder your tank size calls for each month, and a labor line that stops absorbing hours nobody planned for. You know what to budget before the year even begins, with no guessing at how many cases of detergent and sanitizer a semester will burn through and no surprise partway through the year when the cleaning supply line runs dry early.

School Kitchen Cleaning FAQs

Can The FOG Tank® clean our kitchen exhaust hood filters?

Yes, and for many schools that is a top reason they buy one. Load the vent hood filters into The FOG Tank®, let them soak, and rinse off the loosened grease and carbon. There is no competing for space in the sink and no scrubbing at the end of a shift. Filters are the part of the exhaust system your staff can clean; the ductwork and hood structure still need a qualified contractor.

Does The FOG Tank® help with allergen cleaning?

Yes. Allergen procedures depend on residue being washed off the pan, and washing residue off is exactly what a full soak in the tank does. Guidance for school nutrition programs names trays and baking sheets specifically, because oils seep through pan liners and stay on the metal for the next batch. Submerging a pan lifts that residue instead of covering it, so every pan entering your allergen procedures starts genuinely clean. Meanwhile, your labeling, dedicated equipment, and prep sequencing keep working the way they already do.

How does The FOG Tank® clean baked-on carbon and grease from school kitchen equipment?

Hot water and a cleaning powder work together inside The FOG Tank® to break down whatever is stuck to a pan or a filter, from baked-on carbon to the grease that cakes on during service. Cookware and equipment go in, The FOG Tank does its work, and what comes out needs only a rinse. There is no scrubbing at any point in the process.

What about summer break, when we do our kitchen deep clean with a smaller crew?

That’s when a soak tank earns the most. Summer is usually the only stretch long enough for a full deep clean and the season with the fewest people available to do it, which is a bad combination for a job that depends on labor hours. Loading The FOG Tank® and walking away means even a small crew can keep up with dirty cookware and kitchen equipment once scrubbing is no longer a bottleneck. In fact, crews are able to more easily wash items as they’re dirtied throughout the year, leaving less accumulated cookware and equipment to handle over summer break.

What happens to our chemical shipments over summer and winter break?

That depends on whether you purchased or rented the tank. If you purchased it, tell us your academic calendar and we’ll schedule powder shipments around your closures, then start them back up when your kitchens reopen. If you’re renting, the monthly payment continues while you have the equipment and we ship chemicals for every month of the rental.

Is the Tiger Carbon Removal Powder safe to use in a school kitchen?

It is. The Tiger Carbon Removal Powder is non-caustic and non-toxic. It is also fully biodegradable and safe on both aluminum and food contact surfaces, which matters in a kitchen full of students and staff. Cookware and equipment comes out of The FOG Tank® clean and sanitized, so a quick rinse to clear any softened fragments is all it takes before each piece goes back into service.

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

Once a month. Fill The FOG Tank® with water to the marked line and add a fresh batch of Tiger Carbon Removal Powder, and the solution holds its cleaning strength whether The FOG Tank runs a couple of times a week or every day through the school year. That makes it a more efficient way to clean school kitchen equipment than washing every pan one at a time at a sink.

How do we fill the tank in the first place?

With the hose the tank ships with, or any standard hose your kitchen already has. Run the water to the marked fill line, add the amount of Tiger Carbon Removal Powder your tank size calls for, press ON, and the tank is good to go until the same time next month.

How do we empty the tank at the end of the month?

Unplug the tank the night before and let the water cool. Once it has cooled, you can drain it through the hose and empty it the way your kitchen handles other wash water. Tiger Carbon Removal Powder is non-caustic, non-toxic, and fully biodegradable, so there is no hazardous waste procedure for your custodial staff to follow.

The water gets dark after the first wash. Are items still coming out clean?

Yes, and it’s what we expect to see. The water darkens after the very first wash because that color is the grease and carbon the solution has already pulled off your pans. Water stays at 185° F for the full month and items stay submerged for the whole soak, which is what cleans and sanitizes them. Rinse each piece on the way out and it’s ready for the next service.

What if a pan goes in without being scraped first?

It still comes out clean. Scraping isn’t what makes the tank work, and skipping it won’t affect how well anything cleans. The reason we recommend it is that loose food sits in the tank for the whole month until the next water change and could start to smell, the same way a trash can with old food in it does. Scraping first keeps that from building up.

Does The FOG Tank® replace a three-compartment sink?

The FOG Tank® is designed to work alongside your three-compartment sink, and the less you need to use the sink for pots, pans, trays, and hood filters, the more you save on water, chemicals, and labor. Health codes still require a sink on site, and nothing about The FOG Tank changes that; what changes is how often your team actually has to use it.

Will The FOG Tank® fit in a small school kitchen?

Yes. The FOG Tank® comes in several sizes, and the 25-gallon and 40-gallon models both fit under the drainboard of a standard three-compartment sink or a countertop. Larger units are built for central kitchens that cook for more than one school, so there is a size for a single elementary cafeteria and a size for a full campus. Because the tank is filled and emptied only once a month, it also doesn’t have to sit next to a sink, or even inside the kitchen. A storage room or any covered space that isn’t exposed to the elements works.

What about pans that are already badly burnt?

Those are the ones The FOG Tank® handles with ease while other methods fail. Even trays and pans you had written off as scrap come out looking new, so your worst baking sheets can finally make the grade.

Can we use Perkins V funds to pay for The FOG Tank®?

Possibly, if your school runs a CTE culinary arts or hospitality program. The purchase has to tie back to your Comprehensive Local Needs Assessment and to labor market data showing demand for culinary and hospitality graduates, and the equipment has to serve student instruction rather than general kitchen use. Your CTE director or grant coordinator can tell you where your program stands.

Paying For A FOG Tank® With Perkins V Funding

Schools with a Career and Technical Education (CTE) culinary arts or hospitality program may be able to purchase The FOG Tank® with Perkins V grant funds.

Qualifying generally comes down to two things:

The purchase needs to connect back to your school’s Comprehensive Local Needs Assessment.
It needs support from local labor market data showing demand for trained culinary and hospitality graduates.

You also need to pay attention to how the soak tank equipment gets used. Perkins V funds have to go toward student instruction rather than general kitchen use, which is where The FOG Tank® fits the requirement well. Students learn sanitation standards and equipment care on the same heated soak tank they will find in a working commercial kitchen after they graduate, so the tank is teaching the skill while it cleans.

Your CTE director or grant coordinator is the right person to ask about whether your program qualifies. If it does, get in touch and we will put together the quote and equipment specifications you need for the paperwork.

Lease Or Buy For Your School Kitchen

Between the labor hours it hands back and the water, chemicals, and energy it saves, The FOG Tank® tends to pay for itself within six to eight months. Tell us about your operation, whether that’s a single elementary cafeteria or a campus running a dozen kitchens, and we’ll help you land on the right size.

Even if you’re opening a new building or just replaced a set of pans, it’s a great time to bring a tank in. Buildup never gets started, and the savings begin with the first load instead of after a few years of scrubbing.

We’re ready when you are, just get in touch.