18 Large Kitchen Equipment And Their Uses
When looking at a commercial kitchen and what kinds of equipment it holds, depending on the size of the kitchen you can spot 10-20 or more different kinds of large equipment that a quality restaurant has to have to be successful. The bigger and more complex the equipment is, the more expensive it gets. However, the equipment needed in a specific restaurant varies a lot. Is the restaurant focused on fast food burgers, fine dining, or is it a large catering kitchen? All these aspects will determine how much the kitchen built will cost and what big appliances does it need to function. Let’s go through the most common Large Kitchen Equipment and what they are used for.
Contents
Convection Oven
Convention oven is an oven that haves fans inside to circulate heat to achieve faster temperature rise time and more even cooking. This type of oven is usually used when cooking or roasting vegetables, meats, casseroles, cookies, and dishes that require even and hot temperatures.
Conventional Oven
Conventional oven differs from convention oven. It is a regular or so-called traditional oven that uses heating elements that are usually located in the top and bottom sections of the oven, but they can sometimes be found on the sides as well. A conventional oven is usually used for baked goods such as cakes because when using a convection oven when cooking a thick cake, for example, it can cook the outside faster than the inside which will result in a burned cake that is raw from the inside.
Pizza Oven
A pizza oven is used for, you guessed it, making a pizza. With this kind of oven, you can get to really high temperatures which are essential if you want to make the perfect pizza. You just can’t get nearly as good pizza with a conventional oven when compared to a pizza oven. However, if you aren’t making pizza in your restaurant, the odds are that you won’t need this oven.
Deep Fryer
Everybody knows the place where you can get the perfect fries, onion rings, wings, and other finger foods. Deep fryer will make that beautiful golden brown color and a crispy outside that we all love.
Griddle
Griddles or flat-top grills can be big-sized and expensive, but one of the most important pieces of equipment in the restaurant, depending on the menu of course. There is a couple of different kind of griddles but the most popular are gas and electric griddle. With the flat metal surface, you can make thin quesadillas, pancakes, omelets, and something that isn’t too thick and requires a long cooking time. Big steaks are best to cook with a traditional kitchen grill.
Grill
The grill is one of the most important pieces of equipment in the restaurant as well and the biggest ones can be unbelievably huge. A grill is usually used when cooking thick steaks, corn, hamburger patties, and any kind of other food that requires direct and radiant heat with a beautiful grilled and flamed feel.
Salamander
Salamander is an extremely valuable and important equipment to use if the restaurant is really doing everything perfectly and with absolute quality. Salamander is mainly used not for cooking, but to give certain ingredients and pieces of the portion a finishing touch. For example, you can toast hamburger buns, melt cheese, caramelized onions, and keep food warm if it is prematurely ready.
Open/Sealed Burner Stoves
Burner stoves are essential to any kitchen that needs to use pans, pots, kettles, and anything between. An open burner stove has an open flame coming from the stove that will result in higher temperatures. Ingredients can easily fall into the burner therefore it is harder to clean. Sealed burner stove has lower temperatures but in return, they are easier to clean.
Induction Stove
Large induction stoves aren’t super popular in commercial kitchens yet however, they are getting more notice every year. The benefits of an induction stove are that you can really quickly heat a pan, clean it really easily and safely, and get an even temperature through the cookware.
Tilting Skillet
This extremely popular large skillet with a tilting mechanism allows you to pour excess liquids off of your skillet, make cleaning effortless, and ease portioning to chafer pans. Tilting skilled is used to make large batches of food at once.
Food Processors
There are many kinds of food processors out there for many purposes. You can make salad dressings and dips with the small ones and with the big ones you can cut, slice, grind and do just about anything extremely quickly with a big and powerful one. Food processors are in the heart of every large and quickly prepared food batch.
Floor Mixer
When making a huge batch of bread, desserts, dough, or any kind of food that requires mixing, a floor mixer is a way to go. You can easily toss your ingredients there and go attend to other matters while the mixer mixes your dough or whatever it is that you are making at the moment.
Dishwasher
A really important part of a functioning kitchen as well. Dishwashers can be the biggest equipment in the restaurant and the cost isn’t from the low end either. Large catering kitchen dishwashers can cost easily more than 100,000$. However, a quality dishwasher is indeed needed in a fast and big customer-based restaurant so that everything can run smoothly. If dishes aren’t getting clean then everything will eventually stop.
Triple Sink/Double Sink
A big sink comes in handy in a restaurant where a lot of supplies will get dirty and fast. The benefits of having a triple or a double sink are that the work can be organized and be kept relatively clean at all times. Another side of the sink can be used in general use and for smaller supplies such as utensils, small bowls, and things like that, and the other side can be used for soaking hard-to-clean chafer pans, big pots, and doughy mixer bowls.
Walk-In Refrigerator/Freezer
A Reach-in refrigerator or a freezer isn’t just going to be enough in a commercial restaurant. When planning the week’s menu and the orders that came in you can’t just store them in 10 different small refrigerators. A walk-in fridge and freezer will keep you easily organized because there are so much room and space.
Reach-In Refrigerator/Freezer
However, in addition to walk-ins, there is always a need for a reach-in because you can quickly get the most used ingredients and prepped foods to your use.
Ventilation System
Without a ventilation system, there wouldn’t be a kitchen, to begin with. Ventilation keeps the kitchen’s air fresh and sucks all the hot and greasy air so that the restaurant can be a relatively cool, enjoyable, and hygienic place to work. There are certain regulations and types of ventilation that a restaurant kitchen needs to have in order to keep in business. Of course, the regulation rules vary depending on the country and location.
Ansul System
The safety net of every quality kitchen. The Ansul system is specifically designed for commercial kitchens, and will automatically detect fire and the alarming temperature rising and will then suppress the fire.
Conclusion
These large restaurant kitchen equipment are essential in every commercial kitchen that wants to do quality work. Not everything is needed in one restaurant because when comparing a small pizza restaurant to a huge catering kitchen, the needs are really different.
If you have a story to tell about large kitchen equipment and supplies, feel free to speak up in the comment section and let’s talk about it!