Bakery Racks - Cleaning strife!

Hi all,

Could anyone please give me some suggestions for cleaning bakery trolleys and trays. I am new to the company and can see that the trolleys have never been cleaned. They were originally stainless steel and are now coated in blackened carbon which has completely solidified on the surface.
It has been mentioned that they must be dipped in caustic to get the carbon build up off but i cannot find a company in Ireland that will do it. I also heard tell that there may be a UK company that would come to Ireland to do it.

Any recommendations?

Thanks,
Nic.

Dear niciward,

Caustic soda is certainly a standard procedure for deep-friers although a few other chemicals are typically added to the pot. The problem from yr point of view is IMEX that high temperatures are also required.

I noticed one alternative, heavy duty looking approach, specific to yr industry here which looks bit more user - friendly if available yr area -

http://vapor-steam-c...kery-racks.html

A preliminary demo request is recommended

Rgds / Charles.C

Not sure how this happened. I'm Linked In now and on Twitter (but learning) and then I got this from one of my contacts direct from Linked In.

Hi Simon, generally you are dealing with burn on protein and carbonised deposits so a high temperature caustic (10% or greater) solution unless they are aluminium in which case a high surfactant solution would be better as caustic would corrode aluminium. Any professional chemical manufacturer should be able to advise.

Temperature 70oC or better - DO NOT ADD caustic to HOT solution however as it may blow up in your face caused by 'heat of solution'

Hope that helps.

Jim Flynn

Please find below few links that might help us:

Solution from ECOLAB
Ecolab United Kingdom
Cleaning and Sanitizing in food processing and service area

Soils may be classified as:

soluble in water (sugars, some starches, most salts);
soluble in acid (limestone and most mineral deposits);
soluble in alkali (protein, fat emulsions);

Food equipment cleaning & sanitizing
Cleaning & sanitizing of equipments and containers
Chemicals used for cleaning and sanitizing

I've never worked in bakery but I've worked in ready meals and irrespective of using caustic, these trays blacken over time, none of it flaking off or causing a food safety issue; more just "it doesn't look right". Caustic is the only thing which I think would get it off. MIP PB (ecolab) in a traywash would help but if the soiling is bad, it might not get it off. If you do use caustics, obviously the health and safety is paramount. You'll get some horrendous burns from NaOH.

Would Soaking the trays in oven de-greaser such as CHEF or D9 and scrubbing with a brush get good results for cleaning the trays?