Welcome to our Ask the Pro series, where our Product Managers answer frequently asked questions about our equipment. This edition features Randell’s Dave Rademacher. There are also Ask the Pro articles about Avtec, Groen and Power Soak.
The questions are:
When should the pan rail for the cold wall prep table be turned on?
Dave Rademacher: The cold pan should be turned on in the cold wall prep tables approximately 45 minutes to an hour before you’re going to load the product. That ensures the cold well is saturated with refrigerant and allows [the table] to maintain the proper level of cold when you insert the pans.
What temperature should the pan rail opening be set to?
DR: The temperature of the pan opening can vary. Typically, it could be anywhere from the single digits all the way up into the high 20s. It really depends on your environment, and that’s why we have that flexibility in there so you can adjust it to the proper temperature to satisfy the temperature that you’re looking for in your pans.
What we do recommend though, is only making adjustments in two degree increments at a time, that way it helps you dial in faster to the proper temperature setting for your environment.
When should the pan rail be turned off?
DR: The pan opening should be turned off each night. That allows you to fully clean and sanitize the rail through the standard drain in the pan opening. That ensures that everything is cleaned and sanitized, and then you can just leave the lid open and allow it to air-dry overnight.
How many pan adapter bars do you need to accommodate different configurations?
DR: The pan openings all come standard with adapter bars and the adapter bars that come standard in the pan openings will allow you to put any combination of fractional pans into the pan openings. So really, you should never need to add any additional adapter bars for the pan opening itself.
Do I need tools to remove or replace the drawers, covers or gaskets?
DR: No. We have all three of these items designed so you can fully remove them without tools. That makes it much easier for anyone to do that at any time without having to track down any tools to do it. The drawer cartridges are removed with some simple pins on the cartridge itself, as well as some thumb screws.
Then on the covers, they’re either removable just by lifting them off or by using those same thumb screw assemblies that we use in the drawer cartridges. And then on the gaskets that exist on the doors and the drawers, those are both press-fit and they’re removable without tools. But more importantly, they’re able to be reinstalled into the door or drawer without tools as well.
What depth of pans can be used in the drawers?
DR: The pan openings will accept up to a 6-inch-deep pan and the drawers are a combination, depending on the model. But typically, a double-tiered set of drawers will take a 6-inch-deep pan, and a triple-tiered set of drawers will take up to a 4-inch-deep set of pans.
Is it better to use cold wall over forced air?
DR: Using cold wall in lieu of forced air is absolutely a must in certain situations. Three of those specifically are:
One, high-heat environments – so right on the cook line, adjacent to high-heat producing equipment.
Secondly, very messy operations. Pizza operations tend to be pretty messy because they’re moving pretty quickly, as well as breading operations where you’re breading chicken or breading anything in general.
Third, when you want to operate the prep table without a cover in place. That could be either with liftoff covers because you have passover counters or your front of the house where your customers can see your product. When you have no cover in place, we definitely recommend using cold wall just to ensure safe temperature holding.
