Commercial Steamer

Commercial Steamer Repair

Common Commercial Steamer Repairs

• Clogged Commercial Steamer Water Filter
• Commercial Steamer Door Won’t Stay Closed
• Commercial Steamer Leaking Water

Professional Commercial Steamer Installation
When it comes to the equipment in your restaurant or commercial kitchen, you need it to be consistent. One of the best things you can do for your appliances is to have them professionally installed and repaired. With all the use that your kitchen gets, a solid professional installation is a great way to start off your equipment on the right foot.

One of the main benefits of having the Raleigh, Durham Chapel Hill commercial steamer installation experts at Boer Brothers Heating and Cooling professionally install your equipment is that it will get done right. Our technicians have years of experience working with all types and brands of commercial steamers. We know how they work and can make all of the final connections for you.

Why Steamers are Great

These days steam has become more than just a prop in climactic scenes in horror movies. The commercial food steamer is following suit by breaking out of its traditional roles. More and more chefs are discovering the advantages of cooking everything from the common, like vegetables and seafood, to the less-typical, like steaks and bread, in liquid water’s gassy brother.

For the home chef, cooking with steam can be as simple as setting a metal colander over boiling water in a covered pot. The process takes some more specialized equipment, like a dedicated commercial food steamer, when it comes to restaurant food steamers that cook in larger batches – like in school cafeterias and restaurants. Getting commercial steamer repair right is important because steams burns like fire.

What We Offer

Emergency Service
30-Day Warranty on Labor
90-Day Warranty on Parts
Rapid Response Time

It’s getting hot in here: How a commercial food steamer works

Cooling in a commercial steamer is completely different than you likely expect it to be. You might assume that if you stick food in a steamy environment, it’s going to emerge soggy and dripping wet.

That’s not actually the case, though. The atmosphere of the cooking compartment in a commercial food steamer is more of a dry wet (yes, we know it’s an oxymoron), with that “dry-wet” particularly pronounced in boiler-based units. The steam is a vehicle for spreading an even heat throughout the unit, with that warmth released immediately after contact with the food.

Still, there are some benefits from the moisture of the steam. Because it’s cooking in a steamy environment, your food isn’t going to lose its natural moisture, though fats will simply melt off. In fact, if you put a product like poultry into one of these units, you may even notice it plumping as it cooks.

After it passes its heat on, the steam then is either collected by a condensate drain, like in boiler-based models, or is partially recaptured, as in boilerless units.

From childhood we learn that water’s maximum temperature is 212 degrees Fahrenheit or 100 degrees Celsius. Above those temperatures, water moves from liquid to gas form, a.k.a. steam. Like water, steam can only get up to 212/100 degrees, meaning it provides consistent and predictable heating, with the one exception being when it’s, to quote Freddie Mercury, under pressure.

Keeping steam in a pressurized container, like in a commercial food steamer, allows for it to be heated even beyond that maximum. The higher the pressure that’s allowed to build up in a restaurant food steamer, the higher the temperature of the water vapor, which, unlike most humans, gets excited when it’s under pressure and starts running around like crazy, working up more heat.

Advantages of steam: The health benefits of using a commercial food steamer

We’ve all heard that cooking can sap vegetables of some of those vital nutrients that make stomaching healthy things like spinach and lima beans worth it. While that’s true to some extent, the good news is steaming can help retain more of the vitamins found in those greens, oranges, yellows and reds. Because it doesn’t involve throwing out the nutrients with the bathwater, so to speak, like boiling does, steam is a better option for cooking vegetables than boiling.

Recent studies have also indicated other beneficial elements in foods are actually made more readily usable by the body or are enhanced through cooking. For instance, lycopene, beta-carotene and quercetin, all of which have been found to promote health and fight disease are believed to be more effective after cooking.

The health benefits don’t end there, though. Using a commercial food steamer doesn’t require the use of fats like oils or butter in the cooking process. That cuts out a lot of the unhealthy stuff that can take away from the healthy nature of the vegetables.

“But you’re also taking away a couple of the chief flavor elements,” you may be thinking.

While it’s true you’re losing the taste from the fats, steaming gives you the chance to replace it with others. Commercial kitchen steamers offer the opportunity for spices to be added either before or after cooking.

Some things to know before you steam:Cooking correctly using a commercial food steamer

In their first experiences with a steamer, many cooks assume they need to put a lid or other cover on whatever they’re cooking, based on years of experience with other methods of bringing heat to food. That’s actually counterproductive because in a steamer, it’s the steam itself that does the cooking, not the pan as in other methods. So the food should have the maximum exposure to the steam.

If you do make the mistake of covering your food, you’ll end up spending longer to cook it in a steamer than in another type of oven because the heat isn’t getting to the food and you’ll probably overcook. However, if used correctly, a steamer can cut your cooking time by 25 to 35 percent over conventional or convection ovens.

It’s also nearly impossible to overcook something in a commercial food steamer when it’s used properly. What do we mean by that? Something has to go really wrong, like the entire kitchen staff suddenly being beamed up by aliens, or you have to really try to ruin a meal in a steamer.

Unlike dry ovens, which can have areas of varying temperature throughout, steamers offer even heating that will keep food at a steady temperature. As long as you don’t set the thermostat too hot, you’re not going to come out with unintentionally blackened food. Beyond that, the moisture in the cooking keeps things from drying out.

So, even if the person keeping an eye on the food in the steamer gets a phone call and neglects to take it out for a while after it should have been pulled, it should still be the evenly-cooked and moist dish you expected.

What can get steamed?: The foods that can be cooked in a commercial food steamer

It seems there’s a lot of confusion about what can cook in a commercial food steamer. In America, we’re used to using steam to cook a limited range of foods, with most applications involving seafood or vegetables. However, in much Asian cooking, the meats are steamed, while vegetables are always cooked on the stovetop. This only proves that a whole bunch of foods, from meats to vegetables to seafood and even bread, can get the benefits of a trip to the sauna. Long story short, you’ll probably end up needing either a bigger commercial food steamer or more than one when you know all the uses for such units in your commercial kitchen.

Bread

Walk into any bakery and you’re likely to see brown-domed loaves of bread that look like they’ve come out of some kind of perfect bread mold. The secret is simple steam, and the perfect tool is a commercial steamer combo oven

Most breads are made with some sort of leavening agent, such as yeast, that helps to give the end product that light, airy consistency. It’s that additive that makes the loaf rise in baking as gasses in it expand and the yeast, activated by the heat, gives its last bit of service.

During the crucial period in the first 5 to 10 minutes of baking, steam from a combination oven can help keep the outside of the dough from cooking much faster than the inner portion by keeping the forming crust moist. That helps the loaf develop that perfect crust and keeps if from splitting in unpredictable ways. Beyond that, it also leaves a bit of moisture on the surface that promotes the dissolution, then crystallization of sugars on the surface, which leaves a light sheen on the crust.

After this short time of steaming, humidity in a combination oven should be reduced for the remainder of the baking time. If no such unit is available, the loaf’s formative minutes can be spent in a commercial food steamer with a move to a regular dry oven after the brief tropical stay.

Poultry

In the culinary world, there are few things worse than eating a dry piece of poultry. When it’s not cooked properly, chicken and turkey can become unpalatably dry and chewy in a way that can remind those you’re feeding of vaguely poultry-flavored gum.

All that can be avoided, though, with the help of a commercial food steamer. Since the air is moist in these units, unlike the dry heat of a conventional oven, the meat retains its natural moistness and tenderness. Further, it holds onto more of its flavor and nutrients, meaning it tastes better and is better for you.

Be forewarned: Whether you’re cooking beef or poultry, the meat is likely to come out looking different than you and those you’re serving might expect it to. That’s because steaming doesn’t add the coloring that other types of cooking can. To fix that, simply steam the meat to nearly done, then use a more traditional method, such as a grill or oven, to finish for a beautiful presentation and a moist meal.

Rice

Rice, though traditionally an Asian food, is growing in popularity across all cuisines in America. A commercial food steamer is one of the healthiest ways of cooking this cereal grain because it does not rely on the addition of fats and allows for better retention of the nutrients applied to certain rice products through the enriching process.

While rice can be cooked in a standard commercial food steamer, that task is more conveniently done in a rice cooker which is designed for perfect cooking and leaves valuable space in a steamer free.