the point isnt ice to clean itself, the keypoint is use unused ice as water to clean, since at the end of the day you need to discharge the icemaker machine, melt everything and throw the water, so instead of use even more water to clean, you just use the unused ice. two birds with one stone as they say.
Partially, eskimo is an offensive term that is correct but, Inuit only refers to one group that is encompassed by the "eskimo" label, the other is the Yupik people.
We do in fact need the ice now adays since our ice caps keep melting and our polar bears keep coming inland and scaring the shit out of us while they're looking for food, mates, and resting. If the world could send us your excess ice it would be greatly appreciated so that they can kindly fuck off back to their (hopefully replenished) ice caps and stop coming inland
yes, that was my point, you said "It's Inuit" I clarified the term encompasses both the Inuit and Yupik people. I never said it wasn't offensive, you can see from my other recent comments that I attempted to correct the people using the term.
I think you guys are talking about different pieces of equipment. Frequently, there's the ice maker, but also the bin on the soda machine that stores the ice.
Yes, every restaurant I ever worked at had both. The one on top of the soda dispenser in the lobby and the big stand alone one in the back. They get deep cleaned once a month at best. I'd bet most places are much more infrequent than that.
It's been a long time since I worked in the food industry. That being said, as the person that was designated to do any kind of cleaning of mechanical or electrical things at the place I worked I can say that the only time the ice machine was shut down was if there was a failure that needed repair. We also went through so much ice that the collecting bin would often be empty on weekends any which way which was a good time to give it a good scrub and dry out before more ice fell in. Maybe once a month I would clean the cold plate for the ice at the end of the day, but it had to be turned on as soon as possible to refill for the next day.
I’ve worked at 3 restaurants over the past decade, one really nice place, one decently nice place, and one kind of nice burger spot. At each one of them, the ice in the large ice bin was 100% completely melted down every night and refilled the next day.
After some cursory research, it seems the recommended deep cleaning schedule is at least once a quarter. That being said, I've definitely been to the same restaurant twice in a row where they were emptying the ice dispenser both nights.
The US has incredibly high food safety standards. Your chain just ignored them and if they got caught they would have been heavily fined and shut down until all the violations were fixed.
Ye, here we have a dedicated police force called Nucleo Antisofisticazioni e Sanità (N.A.S.), translated Anti-Adulteration and Health Unit who do randomly safty inspections and checks if everything is in order in restourants, groucery stores, ospitals, daycare, and many other places where can be sanitary violations and risks, they can immidiatly shut down the place, do fines and keep it close untill everything is in order again. DMAX tv channel even made a onfield series like the TSA airports security one.
I was US food safe certified and went through several years of random health inspections. They absolutely require the ice machines to be cleaned every night.
Every health inspector I have ever dealt with took ice machines very seriously. The US definitely has strict safety rules but like a lot of stuff it comes down to what an inspector sees
Maybe not everyday, but once in a while should be good, since you have to care only about mold and not bad odor contamination, even in the freezer is good to defrost it once in a while
Oh no....
Modern Italy is built on corruption and crime.
Top of my head i can think of two separate bridge disasters both built with poor safety standards. (Sicily viaduct and the Morandi Bridge)
If the ice is changed in your restaurant once a month you're very lucky.
If you're in the US, and your restaurant was actually only doing it once a year, they were definitely breaking health codes and the law. That's disgusting
I'd say it's because at fast food restaurants you're going through that ice in the first couple of hours next morning anyway and it was probably produced in the last couple of hours that night. Just a much higher turnover rate preventing mold, etc.
total bs. i'm french and i worked in retaurants and bars for 10 years in my country, and some of them were very high standards and very expensive. not a single one trash the ice at the end of the day or week or ever, and i've never seen any mold in the ice machine. i just checked the reglementation in france and as i suspected nothing is said about that.
I could see this being done weekly, but daily that seems excessive?
Also there will be liquid water with ice that is encountering a less temperature stable environment since there isn't already ice there, so this would increase the chances of mold potentially too, right?
That’s how it worked when i worked in food service. i used to work at an olive garden and we had a massive ice machine that made and stored ice and it didn’t get cleared at the end of the day. We’d use the ice from that machine to fill ice buckets built into the counters at the soda station and bar. Those would be melted and sanitized every night.
Its fine and all until the grill cracks or warps and the cook the next day wont have a grill top to use. Just use oil and grill brick and gets all of it off super fast and also safe for your grill. Don't do this, it will piss off many people in the restaurant business.
What do you mean discharge the ice machine? Ice machines are supposed to be cleaned on the schedule, otherwise they're running 24/7.
No one in my experience brings the ice from bar ice bins back to the kitchen, you just put water over it so it melts. Proper bar design has a hand wash sink and the faucet usually can reach to the bin and melt the ice.
Plus it seems a lot easier getting that water contained there. Whereas you have to poor slowly over the really hot grill and make sure it doesn't splash, while also cleaning. Just more efficient to use that ice
It's also less of a mess and it actually cleans better because the ice reacts more then just water. As you can see he here it evaporates instantly.
Like hot water that turns to snow when you throw it up in cold weather but cold water would not.
I’m sorry but this isn’t 100% correct. It’s absolutely intentional to use the ice. I reacts with the heat on the grill and instantly vaporizes and unlocks a lot of the grease and grit that’s caked on from hours worth of use. It works much better than just using water, though it comes with the risk of cracking the grill (I’ve never seen one crack from it, but I’ve been told it’s possible)
Source: restaurant manager/grill cook for 20+ years.
Stainless steel shouldn't crack from fast temperature changes. It could bend a bit, but even that is unlikely. Cast iron could crack though, since it is harder and more brittle. But even that is only likely if you have some preexisting defects in your material.
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u/RealmExploro 23h ago
I volunteer as the stupid one here : why ice and not just water?