Article

How to make sure your dishes are properly sanitized

Ideally, one person should clean the dishes and the other person sanitize and handle the clean ones. If this isn’t possible, strict procedures must be followed to disinfect hands between loads.

November 24, 2014

By Mark Masterson,

Customer Experience Manager at IceMachinesPlus.com

Cleanliness is one of the first kitchen lessons all chefs learn about. Messy kitchens not only drive people crazy and are a bother to work in, but they are also usually unsanitary. From a health perspective, however, cleaning is only the first step.Sterilizing kitchen equipmenteliminates harmful bacteria that you can’t see and that a wash rag can’t get.

In many places, a commercial dishwasher is responsible for the bulk of sterilization, but how do you know if it’s working? Is there a way to see if your water temperature and chemicals are enough to meet food safety requirements? Fortunately, there is.

Sterilization

Before we can measure sterilization levels, we have to define the processes that make something sterile. The two main methods are heat sterilization and chemical sterilization.

For heat sterilization, water temperature must be kept at 171 degrees or higher. Warewashing machines need to be at least 180 degrees. The water must also not be allowed to get above 194 degrees to prevent it from baking any remaining food on the dish.

Chemical sterilization can also be done with a chlorine-based sanitizer. Two other sanitizers are quaternary ammonium and iodine, though the latter isn’t seen much in foodservice these days. When these sanitizers are used at the proper temperature and concentration, they work to eliminate bacteria. When these sanitizers are used, the temperature of the water is normally around 120 degrees.

Is it working?

The cleanliness of your sterilization system’s water is important. Food particles in your dishwasher or sanitizer basin will degrade the effectiveness of either method of sanitization. All plates should be scraped, cleaned with soap, and rinsed before they are placed into the sanitizer solution. If you use a dishwasher, the bottom should be cleaned out at least once a day and more if it needs it.

To test temperature or the presence of chemical sterilization, test strips are used. In fact, the FDA Model Food Code requires strip testing. Using strips is the easiest way to measure whether your dishes are being properly sanitized. If the strips do not pass, then it’s time to check your water temperature and whether your sanitizer is being correctly correctly.

You need very little chemical sanitizer to do the job. High concentrations of sanitizing chemicals can cause violent effects in people. If you get a report of a sick customer, be sure to check for both too much and too little sanitizer.

Recontamination

Even if your dishes come out of the washer sanitized, it just takes one wrong move to add bacteria back to them. One common fault is to have a single dishwasher in the back. If one dishwasher is constantly moving between dirty and clean dishes, it is incredibly easy to contaminate the dishes. Ideally, one person should clean the dishes and the other person sanitize and handle the clean ones. If this isn’t possible, strict procedures must be followed to disinfect hands between loads.

A second contamination hazard is stacking wet dishes. When this happens, water can collect on top of the dish which can attract bacteria. All dishes should be dry before stacking. During drying, the dishes can be inspected to ensure cleanliness.

Finally, all of your back of the house employees should watch what they do with their cleaning cloths. It’s quite common for these cloths to get very dirty over the course of a night. Ideally, cleaning cloths should be kept in a bucket of sanitizing solution between uses. If your cooks choose to carry a dry cloth for handling hot pans and trays they must keep the rags separate to avoid cross-contamination. It takes just one swipe with a used wash cloth to put a lot of bacteria back on a plate, even if it looks clean.

Keeping your dishes sanitized is a crucial part of food safety and restaurant maintenance. It takes just one mistake to cause a disaster in the kitchen, one that no restaurant can afford.

Mark Masterson is the Customer Experience Manager atIceMachinesPlus.com and has more than 10 years of experience in the restaurant and bar industry. 

^{Photo provided by Wikimedia.}