Hot Food Tables or Steam Tables

Hot food tables may be referred to as steam tables and can be powered by gas or electricity. Varying models support wet heat or wet and dry heat. They can be used back of the house to keep food warm for serving, or front of the house for operator service or customer self-service. Some models include operator side cutting boards and individual controls for each well.
Wet and Dry - the most common and price conscious model requires a double pan system. The heated wells each require a 12" x 20" water pan filled with preheated hot water, then the food pans drop into the water pans for moist heat. Food pans (full-size, half-size, one-third size) may be set directly into each well for dry heat. Smaller food pans (one-fourth, one-sixth) require additional support to avoid the pans dropping down into the wells.

An Introduction to Hot Food Holding Equipment

In either application, the role of hot food holding equipment is to store menu items at the food safe temperature of 140 degrees F, maintaining the items quality, until they are ready to be served to the customer.

Back–of-the-house hot holding equipment tends to consist of full- and half-sized cabinets and drawer warmers. Merchandise hot holding equipment keep items at the point of service. Some of the more common pieces of equipment in this category include four-sided glass humidified cabinets, sandwich slides and even heated wells for buffets.

Most hot food holding units operate on 120V and can require a good amount of electricity to keep them holding food at the right temperature.

In addition, the abundance of open kitchens has driven manufacturers to enhance the appearance of these pieces of equipment. Some manufacturers even offer operators the ability to customize the exterior of their units through the placement of logos or other graphic elements.

How Hot Food Holding Equipment Supports Menu Execution

Hot food holding equipment can support a variety of foodservice operations. Some key users for this product include catering, school foodservice, supermarkets, prisons and healthcare. Basically, any foodservice operator that needs to keep warm a specific menu item for a period of time can use a piece of hot food holding equipment.

By allowing the foodservice staff to prepare menu items in advance and hold them safely while maintaining product quality, hot food holding cabinets can help relieve production burdens and improve service to customers. Also, by working ahead, foodservice operators can potentially cut down on the amount of labor they need to serve customers.

There really is no target product for hot food holding equipment. Rather, deciding what piece of hot food holding equipment best suits a foodservice operation comes down to what menu items they tend to hold and for how long. For example, muscle meats such as pork loins, turkey breasts and the like tend to keep well in many pieces of hot food holding equipment because they dont dry out quickly. But crispy items, such as fried chicken, tend to be harder to hold because the operator is trying to achieve two goals: crunchy outside and moist inside.

Exactly what features a foodservice operator is looking for in hot food holding equipment depends a lot on what menu items are being held and their state. For example, is the food in sheet pans or hotel pans? Is the food plated or packaged? Packaged products tend to require less humidity because the package holds the moisture. Non-packaged food will most likely require humidified cabinets to help product retain its moisture. Foil reflects the heat instead of helping the product absorb the heat.

How to Know When to Replace a Piece of Hot Food Holding Equipment

If treated well, it is not uncommon for a piece of hot food holding equipment to last for a long time. More often than not, foodservice operators tend to replace their hot food holding equipment based on appearance rather than the item wearing out. Also, some operators may recognize the need to add more pieces of hot food holding equipment to help provide better customer service.

To determine whether a foodservice operation requires additional hot food holding equipment, examine the workflow and use of labor during busy periods. For example, in the back of the house, lets say that the fry station can keep up with dinner demand but the grilling station continues to fall behind. Using this scenario, it is probably wise to add some hot food holding for the grill station to help it keep up with some of that demand.

On the point of service side, deli cases and buffets only hold a specific amount of food. So in the event a specific item runs out operators need to have a backup or risk of losing sales. Properly placed hot food holding equipment can have these backup items ready to access in a timely manner that can have a minimal impact on service.

Still, there are a few signs that a piece of hot food holding equipment needs replacing. One indicator is that the units door does not close securely, allowing heat to escape. Some hot food holding units feature latches or magnets that hold the doors shut. In other cases, the doors gasket could break down. If these become damaged in any way, it will become difficult for the equipment to maintain the proper temperatures or the unit may work harder to do so, resulting in increased energy consumption. Also, if the unit is not holding temperature or returning to temperature quickly, and the door seems to be in working order, then that could be a sign the heating element is starting to fail.

Specifying Hot Food Holding Equipment

In addition to keeping menu items at desired temperatures, hot food holding equipment can provide countless other benefits to many foodservice operations.

Like most other pieces of foodservice equipment it is important to take into account a number of considerations before deciding what kinds of units to purchase, how many are necessary and where they should be placed. Before deciding which hot food holding equipment to purchase or how many units will be needed, it is important to understand how the foodservice operator intends to use these items. There are two basic applications for this equipment:

Bulk Food Holding: This applies to those operators that produce food faster than they can serve it or in advance of their peak service periods. For example, school foodservice operators need to prepare their menu items well in advance of the students arrival in the lunchroom. This also reduces the on-demand production burden in the kitchen.

Banqueting: This refers to foodservice operators that needs to feed a plated meal to a large group all at once.

After understanding how the units are being used, then foodservice operators can collaborate with their supply chain partners to take the next steps in the specifying and purchasing processes.

How do you determine the appropriate number of hot food holding units needed?
The number of units needed depends on capacity, meaning the number of pans of food a foodservice operation is producing to feed the number of customers. For example, if customer demand has an operator producing up to 50 sheet pans of food each day, then four full-sized units will be appropriate.

In a banqueting application, it is important to know the covered height of plates and diameter of covered plates, before determining how many units are appropriate.

How can you tell what the most relevant features are for a particular foodservice operation?
It is important to know what pans the operation uses. If an operator uses either steam or sheet pans exclusively, then a unit with fixed racks could be appropriate. If the operator uses a combination of both sheet pans and steam table pans, or believes their menu could change in the future, then a unit with adjustable racks would be appropriate.

In addition, it is important to know if the operator plans to keep the units stationary, or if they plan to transport them from one room to another or to different buildings. Operators transporting the units on and off a truck, for example, should consider a unit with heavier duty construction. These units may be better suited to withstand the impact of the vibrations that come with transportation, as well as any impact associated with loading/unloading from a truck or moving the unit from one location to another. And because units being transported may sit on a truck or loading dock unplugged for extended periods of time, it is important to specify hot holding equipment that is well insulated and maintains its heat.

What considerations should a foodservice operator weigh when trying to decide where to place hot food holding units?
Most insulated units use 120 volts and 15 amps of electricity, which means foodservice operators can place their hot food holding equipment where they would like. First, operators should examine their workflow and position the cabinets in a place where they make most sense.

Of course, the boundaries of common sense should apply here. For example, a unit placed too close to various pieces of cooking equipment could become too hot and that would have an adverse effect on the food.

What are some common mistakes operators make when purchasing hot food holding equipment?
The biggest mistake most operators make is not fully considering what size they need and understanding what they want to accomplish. Once they understand how much food they need to hold and why they are holding the food and for how long, they can begin to make informed purchasing decisions. Also, there is a tendency to buy on price and thats where operators can get in trouble because they purchase a unit that does not meet their needs or can compromise food quality.

When it comes to hot food holding equipment, a state-of-the-art unit is easy to use and maintains consistent temperatures, which allows operators to focus on other aspects of their business, like cooking food and serving customers.

How to Maintain a Piece of Hot Food Holding Equipment

Unlike other pieces of foodservice equipment, maintaining a piece of hot food holding equipment is rather straightforward.

Operators should clean their hot food holding units with soap and water and if something spills, staff should wipe it out. If the unit has a fan, baffle panel or an exposed heating element, staff should clean them regularly, too.

Exactly how often a piece of hot food holding equipment needs to be cleaned depends on the menu items it holds. For example, a unit that holds greasy food items should probably be cleaned once a week. In contrast, a unit that holds baked items may be able to go as long as a month without being cleaned.

Most hot food holding equipment tends to feature aluminum interiors. As such, the biggest mistake foodservice operators can make in these instances is using chemicals that will pit the aluminum and scrubby pads that will leave scratches. Also, foodservice operators should avoid dumping cold water on the units hot surface because doing so will eventually snap a weld and lead to the cabinets insulation getting wet, compromising its ability to hold temperature.

In some instances, a spray-on cleaner is recommended for helping maintain the cabinet. When thats the case, spray the cleaner on there, let it sit for a couple of minutes and wipe it off.

When cleaning a humidified unit, if the operator is not using distilled water to help generate the cabinet moisture, then they need to use a de-liming agent. When this is the case, the foodservice operator should avoid caustic cleaners, opting instead for a gentle, perhaps even citrus-based, cleaning solutions.

Energy Efficiency and Hot Food Holding Equipment

The good news is that hot food holding equipment carries an Energy Star rating. The bad news is that this category is up for review by Energy Star and the products will need to go through a more stringent series of testing and verification steps in order to earn this rating. So the future for this product category is uncertain at the moment as foodservice equipment manufacturers continue to come to grips with the new Energy Star regulations.

Still, specifying an energy-efficient piece of hot food holding equipment can have its benefits. There is a good chance an energy-efficient piece of hot food holding equipment will cost more up front, but that unit should generate a positive return on investment for the operator over its life through lower utility costs.

Because each operation is unique in its own right, it is important to gauge the return based on how the item is used across the foodservice enterprise. For example, a multi-unit operator may want to look at the investment based on how much money the unit will save across all of its locations. Lowering electricity costs by a few hundred dollars per piece of equipment per location can generate substantial savings quickly. In the case of a standalone foodservice operation, consider the savings the hot food holding equipment can provide in a context with other energy-efficient items in use.

When it comes to renovating or constructing new foodservice operations, it is important to understand whether the facility is pursuing LEED certification (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). For example, by itself, a piece of energy-efficient hot food holding equipment cant generate a single LEED point for a new foodservice operation, but it can play an important role in the operations ability to accumulate LEED points.

Bain-Marie

A bain-marie (pronounced "bane mah-REE") is a container filled with hot water that is used during the cooking process, as with baked custards like cheesecake or creme brulee.

The steam from the water fills the oven and keeps the custard moist, so that it doesnt crack while it bakes.

A bain-marie can also be used for holding a finished product, as with a Hollandaise sauce.