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Electric Vulcan Deep Fryer Won’t Drain
I have a 2 yo fryer that needed extra TLC. I drained the oil, filled it with water and boil-out powder, and let it percolate. It was pretty dirty so I let it sit overnight.
The next day I heated it back up and scrubbed a bit more. When I tried to drain the cleaning solution nothing came out! I hand dumped the solution and checked both sides of the drain. It feels like there is another piece of metal – perhaps a safety valve?
I cannot find any information online regarding this and am hoping someone here can help! Thanks in advance!!
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7 Replies
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There’s no “safety valve”. It’s just a ball valve…and that’s it.
Sound like some debris has clogged the drain. I recommend using a clean out rod to push the blockage through the opened valve.
I couldn’t find a verified version of Vulcan’s clean out rod, but here’s one Frymaster supplies with all of their fryers:
<b itemprop=”name”>Frymaster 27″ Cleanout Rod
Perhaps you should contact Vulcan directly about the availability of their clean out rod:
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Thanks for the reply! I actually got through to corporate Vulcan.
It seems the fryer boil out powder solidified and is blocking the drain. I have a cleanout rod but this stuff is solid. Ecolab suggested pouring hot water on it to get it to dissolve. I did that and tomorrow will try to drill through the blockage.
The powder is a Keystone/Ecolab boil-out product. The main ingredient is sodium metasilicate. I looked that up and it’s nickname is “liquid glass”!
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WOW! Never heard of THAT happening!
Nice to know. Thanks for the feedback.
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FWIW:
Passage through the drain valve is narrower than the actual outlet pipe welded to the fryvat. Maybe you could try ram-rodding the blockage from underneath (up into the valve) with the clean out rod – in an attempt to dislodge it back into the vat.
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Interesting, found this little tid bit; dehydrated sodium metasilicate forms cement or binding agent. And just to top that off, cement is strongest when cured under water.
Maybe a steam cleaner would cut it. Maybe Ectolabs has something that cuts it.
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You must have gotten some cross contamination of a salt, acid, or alcohol for the reaction to happen. It is a <font color=”#0066CC”>anti-flocculant. </font>Everyone uses it daily in soaps. Especially laundry soap. It’s what replaced tri sodium phosphate as a main soap base. It dissolves best with cold water. ph is 12.7 at 1% solution, so be careful.
Seems that one could put a small pump in the tank and keep water moving on it to dissolve it.
This out of the chemical book; Chemical Properties
The metasilicates are highly water soluble, but insoluble in
alcohol, acid, and salt solutions. Solutions of sodium metasilicate,
when heated or acidified, are hydrolyzed to free sodium
ions and silicic acid. In moist air, they are corrosive to metals,
including zinc, aluminum, tin, and lead, forming hydrogen
gas. They are all strong bases reacting violently with acid.<font color=”#0066CC”>Among inorganic electrolytes, sodium
metasilicate’s active alkalinity and PH buffering index is the highest.
It has strong moistening, emulsifying and saponifying effect on fats. It
is excellent at eliminating, dispersing and suspending impurities, and
it can prevent impurities from recollecting. It has strong cleansing,
buffering and neutralizing abilities, can emulsify fats and oils, is an
anti-flocculant for inorganic matter, protects metals from erosion, can
replace sodium tripolyphosphate in producing detergents and metal
cleansing agents, thus reducing the environmental pollution of sodium
tripolyphosphate.</font> -
Thanks for the suggestions! I am trying them out today. I’ll post my results.
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