ReplyUse an RO system for your water filtration.Pure water = no scale!
Regular Guest
I am looking for some input/opinion regarding a few steamer de-scaler applications. It seems that all of the manufacturers have their own products to descale their equipment. I work for a rather large school district with 31 kitchens; within those kitchens we have Market Forge, Stellar (MarFor,) Cleveland, etc. Most of our newer sites are using the Everpure SteamKleen system that that has a charcoal filter as well as a "scale stick" to slow the build-up of scale.
I have used each of the manufacturers' recommended de-scaling systems/products from the pour-it-in-and-cook-it method, to the pump-it-from-a-bucket, to Everpure's powder-introduced-thru-the-water-feed. I use PH strips to verify water quality after de-scaling and it seems that they all do just fine. The Everpure system is, by far, the simplest and easiest of all the other methods and seems to be the safest.
It appears that I may have just stumbled upon the answer I was looking for but welcome any opinions you may have regarding which methods are preferred in the field. Thank you...
Regular Guest
Use an RO system for your water filtration.Pure water = no scale!
Regular Guest
I like Lime-A-Way. Very simple, and many mfg recommend it. Also works weel in ice machines.
Regular Guest
I service 3 school districts, this year every steamer will have a Kleen steam attached.
They just work, period, if maintained.
For serious de scaling the everpure bags are the way to go.
Professional Member
Here in New Mexico we have very hard water. Every steamer that has a boiler is going to mean problems. The best descaler I have used is Cleveland Dissolve. As for water filters, the only thing I have found that actually works is RO. Be careful though you can still have electrolysis problems even with RO water. Ultimately the solution, I think, is boilerless steamers. Accutemp makes a very good boilerless unit and so does Cleveland.
Mark
Professional Member*
Descaling methods depend on how often the units have been descaled. Whwn I tackle something witrh severe buildup I set up a system with a pump and inflow full strength descaler into the boiler/generator and outflow to a reservior (bucket/pan) with the pump in it, I run this until all scale is removed. Sometimes as long as two days while changing descale solution if it starts degrading enough. Once the boilers in question are clean I develope a plan through close observation to stop having a repeat of the type of buildup that caused such drastic action.
Regular Guest
The best descaler I have found to use with the Everpure system is from Enerco. Far better than the orange descaler Everpure suggests and very reasonable.
Regular Guest
I work a 10 school system and have the Everpure system,with scale sticks on all of em. Vulcans,Clevelands and 2 MarFos.I also descale twice a year with the ScaleKleen kilo bags.Good results.
Our new county RO plant came on line last year.9/10(10th is on island)of my schools are on it,and you would not believe the difference! I haven't cleaned a solenoid in months.I'm definitely loving it.
Professional Member
carbon block filters work, RO can become aggressive.
Boilerless steamers still need to be cleaned daily. The only answer is dedicated maintenance.
Regular Guest
I know this is an older thread, but I'd like to add a couple of cents in here. What I tell our customers is that if you do nothing more than shut off the steamer every 4 hours and let the scale get out, you will have solved much of your potential problems.
With a "scale stick" system, all it does is keep the scale in suspension, ie, dissolved. If you never drain the boiler due to, say, 24-hour operation or a stuck drain solenoid, you *will* have a scale problem. The water can only hold so much before precipitating out the calcium. That's what the "automatic blowdown" systems try to do- enforce the dumping of the water charge.
RO is definately the way to go if staff can keep the salt in it. I've seen a place that spent thousands on 2 small RO units (not us), and after the first charge ran out, and us trying to edumacate everybody in sight, they never RO'd again. Still sitting inline, unused to this day.
BadBozo2315
Professional Member*
All our restaurants use the RO system for there steamers and they still get scale, and we change the filters every 3 to 6 months, depends on performance when we test them.
Originally Posted by pdrake65
Use an RO system for your water filtration.Pure water = no scale!
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Regular Guest
[QUOTE=caheiman30;16047271]All our restaurants use the RO system for there steamers and they still get scale, and we change the filters every 3 to 6 months, depends on performance when we test them.
Umm, that's simply not possible. RO, Reverse Osmosis, removes all dissolved solids in suspension. "Filters" do little more than remove the large bits of sand (wound core) and tast and odor (carbon block). They have zero effect on scale. "Scale stick" systems are merely a solid acidic material that will help keep scale from prcipitationg out on surfaces.
To be clear, a RO system uses salt for ion exchange and you have a hopper of salt pellets that must be refilled every once in a while.
I've never seen a McD's with a RO system here on the right coast, they all use multi-stage filter systems.
Again, RO will remove all scale from the water, where scale is defined as calcium carbonate.
If indeed they have RO systems, and are still scaleing up, I'd humbly suggest you have backflow prevention problems, and some foreign untreated water is getting in the supply line.
Professional Member
I agree with Bozo on this. Any of the dozens of McDonald's I've worked in merely have the cartridge filter array hanging back there on their multiplex.
I've not seen RO systems much here in Tennessee - and our water is very hard. However, an RO system is usually a large setup, centrally located in a machine room. With our work being involved on restaurant equipment, I never really ventured outside of the kitchen much - except for shutting off a breakers to equipment and such.
The resort I NOW work at has multiple RO systems though. With the place being a "mini-city" with it's own infrastructure, I've been told that the hotel's plumbing provides both, treated and untreated water, to designated areas. However, I'm not certain if our steam-generating appliances (Rational combi-ovens) have the treated water source fed to them. I'll have to ask when I go into work this evening. Our 3rd shift kitchen maintenance guys (not me) maintain the salt tanks, so they may school me up on this topic. Since the responsibility of that maintenance is our shop's, I anticipate hearing that the combi-ovens are getting the treated stuff.
Our Rationals still DO get scale accumulation and must be periodically descaled. But from what I've seen, that problem isn't nearly as prevalent as equipment I'd encountered when I was doing field service work.
Nonetheless, thanks for the advice Bozo. I learned something new today that's worth knowing....
Professional Member*
The steamer and espresso machines are the only thing we have hooked up to the RO system. When I'm in a store tomorrow, I'll take a picture of the RO system.
The filters on the Multiplex are called the Quad filters, we have them too, but they are before the RO system.
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Regular Guest
>The filters on the Multiplex are called the Quad filters, we have them too, but they are before the RO system.
I've always like that about McD's- the soda tower always had good tasting water (no clorine etc) to start with. I could always tell if a restaurant had good filtering system or not. Yecch!
BTW, y'all can keep those automatic fry dispensers- I hate working on them. Probably because we don't stock parts for them and have to troubleshoot a bunch, and hope we ordered the correct part.
I had a manager call us the other day and complain we were sending him the wrong paper size for his fryer filter pan. So I double checked the number with Frymaster, grabbed a fresh box and went down to the store. The manager tells me here's only been working there 2 weeks. He shows me how they've been carefully cutting the paper to fit into the area where the *treated filter pad* goes (LOV fryer). I patiently explained you can use either paper, like this stuff here, or you can buy the treated filter pads- we'll sell you whichever you want.
Professional Member*
I hate the fry dispensers too. They are a pain, at least the RAM ones, the newer Franke ones are easy to work on
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Professional Member
I never had any complaints about RAM units. I'll admit I only got my hands one of their new ones with the freezer cabinet, but RAM (or Automated Equipment for awhile now) is very helpful on the phone. At one point, I learned to work on their original AFDs (pneumatic or electric) units without even calling them for help...
Franke? Well, I had a few managers ready to wheel those out to the dumpster after their warranty expired and they were getting eaten up with repair costs.
I had several stores that lost the left-hand power supply and board (right-hand side when standing behind unit) several times before I discovered that a blob of frozen line condensation from the poorly insulated suction line ABOVE those components - from the top-mounted condenser - would melt off at some point and run water down onto those components.
I called Franke about that and they said if the units were placed under a window or near a heat source, that was the cause of their problem. In other words, no fault attributed to their design(@%#&!?) Anyway, I had a solution for that problem if those stores would approve another repair, but they said "NO" and would just replace the units altogether.
Since I'm no longer servicing McD's, I haven't seen anything newer from Franke.
Next item on the hit list? That vicious-looking, "gotta-have-'cause-we-only-got-one" three-phase monstrosity of a toaster - the Antunes UTX ones. I only worked on enough of those to really dislike them...ALLOT!
With that, I leave you with this...
Regular Guest
Gaaa! Don't get old, kids.
To clarify/correct my previous post (yer honor), the salt-using units are water softeners, not RO (reverse osmosis). The salt is used to do some crap with ion exchange blah blah blah. RO uses high pressure to drive water through a permeable membrane.
>Our Rationals still DO get scale accumulation and must be periodically descaled.
Yeah, I work on a lot of them. They do some of the most brain-dead things... I've got a college with an electric, no treatment system on the water, and very bad scale problem as they just leave it steaming 20 hours a day on continious.
Anyway what happens is the elbow where the water enters the boiler will scale up every 2 months due to it being so small in diameter. I have to pull the boiler out, and horse around to get it clear.
Professional Member
Ahh! I guess that proves I know diddly about water treatment. All I've even fooled with are filters on or behind dedicated equipment.
We gotta do the same. We HAD a pump (Rational's) to get descaler into the SCCs, but it crapped out. Most of the time we pull the boiler. On some, if nothing is horribly plugged up, we can remove probes and pour it in with a funnel.
Rationals are a piece of work, with their sensors for everything. They're designed to be so sensitive that I'm surprised they don't have a fault code for using foul language towards it.
Regular Guest
>Rationals are a piece of work, with their sensors for everything. They're designed to be so sensitive that I'm surprised they don't have a fault code for using foul language towards it.
Bwahah! I love how they designed the makeup/humidity control air intake pipe (that leaks) right above the bazillion dollar motor. The motor that if you breathe heavily on it will short out and you no longer get the magic green light to come on any more.
And when I first saw their new SCC WE "White Efficiency" series, I nearly had a heart attack! I mean, I work in Savannah, GA on occation, and I'm one of the more open-minded guys you'll meet. However, it might be a somewhat hard sell to the folks hereabouts.
But we digress, once again. Is there a general Manufacturers Engineering Goofyness threads in these forums?
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