Nowadays, restaurants and their professional kitchen mostly use stainless steel prep tables rather than wood, stone, or aluminum tables. When used often, it can accumulate bacteria that can easily increase on its surface and bring diseases. You can accomplish this by following our guide on how to clean stainless steel prep table. Meat, vegetables, and other cooking materials can pick those bacteria up onto their surface, and if not properly cooked, people might get sick. The prep table should always be clean to avoid this.
Disinfecting, Sanitizing, and Cleaning
Before we start us how to clean a stainless steel prep table guide, let us tackle first the terms: disinfecting, sanitizing, and cleaning. They might sound like the same thing, but actually, they are not.
What is Disinfecting?
If you want all bacteria and germs to be wiped out on the surface of your food stainless steel prep table, then disinfecting is what you must do. It is the most brutal form amongst the three because it uses chemicals to eradicate the bacteria and germs living in every nook and cranny of your surface table.
When buying a chemical, choose only the brands recommended by professionals because the EPA approves not all chemicals. You do not want to accidentally buy the wrong chemical and endanger those people who will eat the food you placed on the prep table.
Remember to wash the chemical down with water after you disinfect your table’s surface to make sure that the food you will place in there won’t have any chemicals on them.
What is Sanitizing?
Sanitizing is the toned-down version of disinfecting. It doesn’t use any chemicals to combat the pesky viruses and germs, which is good if you are more worried about the chemicals than the viruses and germs themselves. Chemicals are replaced with hot water between 140-150° F.
This method’s only drawback is that your table might not be as much as bacteria free as the disinfected one. In recent studies, Scientists claim that some viruses and bacteria can withstand high temperatures. Given that as it may, a sanitizing method is still better than not doing anything against the war against virus born diseases.
What is Cleaning?
This is the method we will be using in our how to clean a stainless steel prep table guide. Unfortunately, this is the simplest form of fighting the germs and viruses. Fighting might not be the exact term to be used because what you will do in this method is to reduce the number of germs and viruses.
You can do this simple method by using a clean cloth, soap, and water to wipe out the prep table’s surface. There’s no need to use chemicals or hot water. You can use plain cloth, soap, and water somehow to safeguard the prep table from the invasion of germs.
Vinegar for Cleaning?
Perhaps the most unusual entry here in how to clean the stainless steel prep table guide is the vinegar. People worldwide are claiming that it can be a substitute for chemicals and act as a disinfectant. The EPA does not approve it as a disinfectant; however, that does not mean that it cannot do anything against germs. Vinegar has disinfecting qualities according to experts but not as powerful as the real ones.
Cleaning a Stainless Steel Prep Table
If you are a worker for a restaurant or just someone who has a stainless steel prep table, you surely do not want it to be teeming with all kinds of abominations such as germs, bacteria, and viruses. With this simple cleaning method, you can make sure that your customers or family members will be protected from diseases. Prepare the needed cleaning items and follow the instructions below.
Cleaning Items
The items you will need are a container, a sponge, soap, and a couple of clean clothes.
Instructions
The first thing you will need to do is fill the container with half water then put a generous amount of soap into it. Dip your sponge into the mixture and start scrubbing the surface of your stainless steel prep table. Make sure to cover all the surfaces. Use a clean cloth to wipe down the soap and then rinse it with water. Wipe it down one more time with a clean cloth to ensure no water or moisture is left.
Sanitizing a Wood Prep Table
For a bonus topic and for those who have a wood prep table instead of the stainless steel, you can try this sanitizing method to reassure yourself that no bacteria or germs live in your prep table.
- The first rule of cleaning a wood prep table is to brush away food bits that fell onto the table. Do not use your hands but use clean cloth instead.
- Improvise a sanitizing mixture. A combination of hot water and a generous amount of liquid soap always work wonders.
- Wipe the wood prep table with a clean cloth, or a sponge dipped in your hot water and liquid soap solution. Make sure to cover all the surface of the table.
- Let your mixture dry into the wood prep table for a while.
- Rinse the wood prep table with water until you are sure that the mixture is totally out of the surface.
- Wipe the table with a clean cloth until there is no water left on the surface. The reason for this is that water can be a breeding place for bacteria or germs.
Conclusion
It comes without saying that cleanliness should be prioritized above all else, especially in the food station. You can use the methods discussed above in our guide on how to clean a stainless steel prep table. The only thing to remember here is to keep family and customers out from harm’s way by simply being responsible for cleaning the prep table. Here’s how to learn more about pizza tools.