Dishwashing

When working in a restaurant kitchen, regardless of your role, you must be aware of the steps that need to be followed in order to keep it clean, sanitized, and pest-free.

First of all, cleaning and sanitizing are two different concepts. The former involves soapy water and rinsing to remove superficial dirt and grease, while the latter involves several steps in order to remove harmful bacteria.

For manual dishwashing, three sinks are recommended: one for washing, one for rinsing, and one for disinfecting. Make sure you save room for air-drying of dishware.

Steps to manual dishwashing

• Scrape dishware using hot water and nylon brushes or pads; soak flatware and utensils for 10-15 minutes in hot water and commercial soaking chemical; pre-soak dirty pots and pans)
• Wash in hot (45 °C/113 °F) water and detergent
• Rinse in clean warm water
• Sanitize for 2 min in 28ml/1oz commercial chlorine bleach per 4,5L/1gallon water
• Use chemical test strips to check sanitizer concentration
• Air dry

Mechanical Dishwashing

Mechanical dishwashers can be high-temperature or low-temperature ones. The former, involve a wash cycle of 60 °C/140 °F and a final rinse cycle of at least 82 °C/180 °F and run for at least 10 seconds. On the other hand, low-temperature ones involve a hot wash cycle similar to the high-temperature ones, but their final rinse uses warm/cold water with chemical sanitizer. The latter must have a concentration of 50ppm chlorine or 12.5ppm iodine, or follow the manufacturer’s instructions.

Glasswashers operate at lower temperatures, 50-60 °C/120-140 °F since chemical sanitizers are used instead of hot water. Make sure you scrub them first because glass washers do not remove sugar/cream/juice residue.

Keep in mind that proper maintenance of your dishwasher is critical to ensure it operates properly. To check its proper operation, make sure it reaches the temperatures mentioned above. To check sanitizer residue, use sanitizer test papers. Final chlorine residual sanitizer should be 50ppm or higher.