How to effectively clean your commercial dishwasher
To keep your commercial dishwasher at its peak performance it best to make cleaning the dishwasher common practice
Serving your customers with clean dishware is just as important as the food you serve. Regardless of how enticing your menu is, presenting your best-selling meal on dirty dishes can give your business a bad reputation. Even if you have a commercial dishwasher in the kitchen, overlooking the care it needs is simply a cause for embarrassment and loss of profits.
While it’s an extraordinary machine that washes and rinses your dish- and glassware, a commercial dishwasher doesn’t run on magic or sorcery that can clean itself. Food debris, grease, and other impurities can get stuck inside the dishwasher if you don’t clean it regularly.
That said, regular cleaning of your commercial dishwasher is necessary to ensure the machine’s performance is at the maximum level. This is equally important to prolong the commercial dishwasher’s life and getting satisfactory cleaning results for your dish- and glassware.
In this article, we identify when your commercial dishwasher needs cleaning to ensure the hygiene and performance of your dishwashing machine is optimal with some cleaning.
How do I know when to clean a commercial dishwasher?
If you notice any of the following signs, chances are that you need to clean your commercial dishwasher thoroughly for satisfactory clean results:
- Food particles appear on washed plates, dishes, pots, or glassware
- Strong smell coming from commercial dishwasher
- Unsatisfactory cleaning performance
- Different colours appearing on curtains or inside the dishwashing machine.
How to maintain the performance of a commercial dishwasher?
Much like how you use the shower. If you don’t clean it daily, it’ll become dirtier. The same goes for commercial dishwashers. Just because it’s a dishwasher, doesn’t mean that it can clean itself during the dishwashing cycles. And if the filters and jets are clogged or there’s limescale build-up, it’ll result in soiled dishes and glassware. It may even cause the heaters to burn.
To ensure that your commercial dishwasher performs at its best, it’s crucial that you get it cleaned daily to avoid the accumulation of food residue and prevent bacterial growth in the machine. Here are two things you need to perform daily:
1. Remove all food residue
Before putting the dishes and glassware into the dishwasher, always scrape, rinse, and remove as much food waste as possible. Otherwise, it’ll result in clogs in your jets and filters. Make sure to also clean the scrap/filter trays to prevent clogs.
2. Use the right detergent
Always use the correct dilution of detergent recommended by your chemical supplier or manufacturer. While it may be tempting to try cheaper alternatives to cut costs, this is one area where you need to adhere to the manufacturer’s guidelines.
How to clean the dishwasher?
Now that you know what it takes to maintain your commercial dishwasher, it’s time to learn how you can effectively clean your commercial dishwasher.
#1 Clean the nozzles
Commercial dishwashers have removable wash and rinse arms that have plenty of nozzles. The nozzles could get clogged by food solids, seeds and sometimes limescale, causing the water pressure to drop.
When this happens, your commercial dishwasher won’t be able to wash and rinse your dishes or glassware properly. So, spray clean the nozzles to remove small residue for better cleaning performance.
#2 Change tank water regularly
Commercial dishwashers pump recirculated water from their water tanks for cleaning of the dishes, followed by a final rinse with fresh water. Every time you put dirty dishes in the dishwasher, the tank water will become dirtier. If you don’t change it often, chances are that your dishes will also become dirtier instead of cleaner. So make sure to change the tank water regularly or when you notice the tank water is heavily soiled.
#3 Clean inside the dishwasher
Much like cleaning the walls of your bathroom, carefully clean the walls, corners, and door guides of your commercial dishwasher because food residues won’t always be visible. Use a soft cloth or a gentle brush to do it.
After you’re done cleaning, give the interior a good rinse to wash down any food debris into the filter. Manually remove the filter out for cleaning if your dishwasher doesn’t come with an auto debris removal function.
#4 Delime dishwasher regularly
Limescale is often the result of mineral deposits from hard water when the water is heated in the dishwashing machine. This makes the commercial dishwasher less efficient in cleaning. Not only that, but limescale build-up can also cause the dishwasher's heating element to malfunction and jeopardise hygiene or sanitisation level.
To prevent that from happening, take the time to delime your dishwashing machine using commercial descaling product or natural ingredients such as white vinegar and citric acid, to enhance its cleaning performance. The best time to delime it would be at the end of your working hours after you finish your daily dishwasher cleaning routine.
If these routines seem like a handful for you or your kitchen crew, you don’t have to worry about it with MEIKO’s commercial dishwashers. That’s because our dishwashing machines are built to fulfil all your dishwashing needs while delivering results that meet the highest standards of hygiene set by the authorities.
On top of that, our dishwashing machines have features such as a slanted roof, rounded corner, deep drawn tank, and self-cleaning cycle, which eases the cleaning work. However, minimal cleaning effort is still required.
As one of the top warewashing technology manufacturers in the world, MEIKO offers some of the best commercial dishwashers in the world. With an emphasis on making the world a cleaner place by using innovative technology for warewashing, cleaning, and disinfection, MEIKO can guarantee you clean solutions wherever and whenever you need them.
At the end of the washing operation the M-iQ cleans itself using the existing tank water. Only the parts which are blue have to be manually cleaned.
