Commercial Dishwasher advice for Chocolate kitchen

[YetiChocolates]

Hey all!

 

My landlord is building a new building and I get to move into the new space and design it how I want! 🤩 I'm very excited to say the least because I have quickly grown out of my current space. With the new space I asked if it would be possible to add a commercial dishwasher to the common dish cleaning area for a couple reasons - one I'm tired to spending a ton of time doing dishes 😆, and I feel overall it will save on water so I'm not constantly filling 3 sinks every time I need to do a load of dishes. I'm trying to do some research on the best options for commercial dishwashers, and specifically ones that would work well for a chocolate kitchen, so was hoping those of you who have a commercial space that might have a commercial dishwasher could give me some advice.  Any help with this would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!!!

[gfron1]

I lease mine and won't every buy again. They service it monthly and that's included in the price. They'll have options of hot or cold water, and size/location. Now I have an left to right, but previousy I had a corner unit. At our bar we have a small one that's quieter but has a very small profile. A leasing agent will have options for you to consider. 

 

DO. NOT. USE. SYSCO or any other EcoLab system. They lock you into arrangements that you may not want and for a price higher than anyone else. They are trying to sell you convenience. I found a company through my commercial equipment repair company, and they have the lowest price, year to year leasing so i can bail at any time, and they do not require that I buy their chems - unlike SYSCO and many other places. They happen to have the cheapest chems so I often do, but I can also grab some at Restaurant Depot in a pinch.

 

In New Mexico we bought, and felt great about that until we started having repairs and that happens a lot, which brings in mechanical repairs and plumbing repairs, we had to dial in our own chems which sometimes led to issues with our health inspector, etc. I think the $80/month I pay for my machine and servicing is well worth it.

[pastrygirl]

Some places I've worked in Seattle have used Auto Chlor but I don't know how competitive they are or if they serve Wenatchee.

 

Harsh chemicals can damage chocolate molds, I'm not sure on specifics but you may want to keep washing molds by hand.  The machine would still be good for bowls & utensils.

Edited March 5 by pastrygirl (log)

[YetiChocolates]

On 3/4/2024 at 11:36 AM, gfron1 said:

I lease mine and won't every buy again. They service it monthly and that's included in the price. They'll have options of hot or cold water, and size/location. Now I have an left to right, but previousy I had a corner unit. At our bar we have a small one that's quieter but has a very small profile. A leasing agent will have options for you to consider. 

 

DO. NOT. USE. SYSCO or any other EcoLab system. They lock you into arrangements that you may not want and for a price higher than anyone else. They are trying to sell you convenience. I found a company through my commercial equipment repair company, and they have the lowest price, year to year leasing so i can bail at any time, and they do not require that I buy their chems - unlike SYSCO and many other places. They happen to have the cheapest chems so I often do, but I can also grab some at Restaurant Depot in a pinch.

 

In New Mexico we bought, and felt great about that until we started having repairs and that happens a lot, which brings in mechanical repairs and plumbing repairs, we had to dial in our own chems which sometimes led to issues with our health inspector, etc. I think the $80/month I pay for my machine and servicing is well worth it.

 

Thanks for the info Rob, I passed it along to my landlord and he thought it was an excellent idea so hopefully we can find someone other than Sysco to use 🤞

[YetiChocolates]

On 3/4/2024 at 9:04 PM, pastrygirl said:

Some places I've worked in Seattle have used Auto Chlor but I don't know how competitive they are or if they serve Wenatchee.

 

Harsh chemicals can damage chocolate molds, I'm not sure on specifics but you may want to keep washing molds by hand.  The machine would still be good for bowls & utensils.

 

Yeah, given that I only just recently started washing my molds with dish soap, the idea of putting them through the dishwasher is an absolute hard pass. But not spending hours washing bowls, pots and utensils sounds appealing.