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Griddle & Caked grease
Well,
Today was interesting, but my highlight was when I got called into the kitchen due to a piece of caked grease starting to smoke/burn.
I went to the griddle, its one of the MSA 72 griddles from Vulcan, I look in the left side and I see this black caked charcoal looking grease. Its all on the inside of the left side of the unit, where the grease chutes are that lead to the pan collecting grease and whatever trash is scraped off the griddle.
It seems like its somehow leaking on the side of the flat top, I have another one and its not anywhere near as bad, not sure what it could be or if its normal and is supposed to be watched and kept at bay by cleaning it. Any ideas?
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5 Replies
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The grease should all be going into the drain pan. You have shown us a picture with the auxiliary front shelf. It could be when they installed the shelf the mount for the drain tube got disengaged or moved. Inspect that the tube is fully over the protrusions on the bottom of the griddle and centered over the pan. Any residual carbon buildup will allow grease to wick outside of where it belongs.
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Interesting, I just took the front off to check it out, seems it could be coming from multiple seams and just have built up over the last couple of years.Â
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I managed to get most of the stuff off so I think it might just be a matter of watching out for it and handling it before it builds up too much, I guess its normal since there are seams that would allow greasy water or greases to run down there, I was afraid it would be a crack of some sort but I couldn’t find any when looking for it.
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The grease chute is completely wrapped by the cover on it which also has a lip going into the chute to prevent it from running down to the wrong places.
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The capillary action of grease/oil changes with it’s temperature. below 100 F it is thick and slow. raise it to 100 to 250 and it wants to go everywhere. even up. Above 325 it now wants to pool together. Carbon build up is to oil what cotton cloth is to water. I used to teach cold weather training and I would set a pan of water under a table with jeans on the table to demonstrate the danger. Like I mentioned earlier,I have seen back splash seams wicking from the grill person slamming their spatula against it. I seem to remember that you griddle has a stainless trough in the front and a chute down the left side. They wipe residue off of their tools in the hole. I don’t remember how long the nipple is, Most are short though. The wiping action is just like a putty knife with Spackle. So at a high angle, like near vertical, it pushes up between the nipple and chute.. Have fun lifting the front to clean it.
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Lol, so I guess its pretty much inevitable. I did not know grease had any type of capillary action.Â
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We got 90% of it out last night, couldn’t get behind the grease chute as the framing is in the way but I Am not all that worried about that part, more the side near the burner
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Looks like it will be okay now, just gotta have the cleaners maintain it.
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Sorry olivero, I’m coming waaaaay late to the party. Most if not all the griddles that I’ve worked on are welded all the way around and should not be leaking there. There are some things that the employees can do to make the weld fail, the worst being, using ice to clean the griddle top. it causes the top to contract at a much faster rate than the “ribbon” or sides. This causes the weld to crack.
As for oil, its way thinner in viscosity water. It will leak through when a water leak test says something is good. When you heat it up, it gets even worse. This is why fryer companies leak check their pots with old motor oil instead of water.
I hope you solved your mystery by now and stopped the weeping.
Rico
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