Drying Up

[jaffacake1]

Does anyone know the latest guidelines in food handling on drying up?I was told today only to use kitchen roll,another person said change t towels everyday,this is for dealing with the publiThanks

[ummmm]

I'd change the towels more than once a day.

My uncle uses towels in his pub but he only sells rolls.

When I worked for a catering firm a few years back a lot of the dishes were washed by hand and dried with a towel.

Kitchen roll wouldn't go far...

[RATTER15]

Where I have worked. It comes out of dishwasher very hot and dries itself in a few seconds, no hand drying required.

[RATTER15]

Tea towels are a very big no no, full of bacteria!

[ummmm]

Ratter - where I worked they had 4 kitchens and only the main kitchen had a dishwasher. The bars had glass washers so no drying involved there.

[ummmm]

Not if they're changed regular, Ratter. We used to go through loads of them.

[DTCwordfan]

House kitchen with an Alzheimer's, I use paper towel...no idea where the mater has had the tea-towel and I hate to think, her cleaning up cloths gross me out but slowly I have control on the kitchen hygiene....(and overall).

[RATTER15]

On recent hygiene I have taken, we were told never to use tea towels only paper towels if drying is required. We were never permitted to use yes to wells in are kitchens either.
I only know what I was trained to do.

[Buenchico]

When I ran a sports club bar, many years ago, I had a constant battle with the (often elderly) volunteers who assisted me, because they kept drying the glasses with tea towels before putting them on the shelves and I tried to insist (as most pubs now do) that glasses should simply be allowed to drain (and NOT 'dried up' at all). That remains the best policy but it's clearly not so practical with things like dinner plates.

The Food Standards Agency simply says this:
"Wash or change dish cloths, tea towels, sponges and oven gloves regularly and let them dry before you use them again. Dirty, damp cloths are the perfect place for bacteria to breed"
https://www.food.gov.uk/news-updates/campaigns/kitchen-check

So the FSA certainly doesn't demand the use of 'one time' drying materials (such as kitchen roll) but such a policy might still be regarded as 'best practice'. (Conversely though, using up so much non-recyclable paper is far from being 'environmentally sound'!)

[RATTER15]

towels*

[ummmm]

Damp t towels should hang round a kitchen. You wash and dry up as one load and then dump the t towel in the wash and get fresh ones.

[EDDIE51]

I work in many commercial kitchens and you NEVER dry up. All items must be washed in hot water and detergent and then rinsed in clean water and left to drain and dry, this can be in a machine or by hand. The only time a cloth is used is to polish cutlery, the cutlery already clean from washing , not many places do that either, only 1 restaurant of all the places I work used a cloth to polish cutlery. The rest just put it through the dishwasher in a cutlery basket and leave it to dry.
I was taught it was a breach of health and safety to use a cloth to dry anything in a commercial kitchen!

[woofgang]

Well according to Chris’ post it isn’t!

[atalanta]

I never dry up anything. I leave things to dry in the draining rack. If anything is needed from the rack in a tearing hurry, I pour boiling water over it and wait until it dries of its own accord.

[ummmm]

Eddie...you were wrong the last time this was discussed and you're still wrong.

[EDDIE51]

I agree it is not actually against Health and safety rules, that was just what the place I was working at told us. But as a worker for one of the largest UK commercial catering companies in 7 locations we NEVER used tea towels or kitchen roll to dry items that had been washed, we were instructed that items must NEVER be hand dried and only left to drain and dry on their own.
I have also worked in the kitchens of 2 care homes and 3 schools again the rules were NO HAND DRYING of washed items.

[RATTER15]

Same here Eddie it was also drummed into us on hygiene course of which I have done a fair few.