Catering Equipment In Focus: Keeping It Cool With Ice Makers Part 1

By Author: Equip Supply
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Ice serves four main functions for catering establishments, it helps keep food and drink cool, prevents bacterial growth in susceptible food items, helps maintain carbonation in soft drinks and makes salad bars and food displays look aesthetically appealing to customers. With all these functions it’s not surprising that even small businesses find themselves opting for commercial ice making machines rather than relying on ice-makers built into their freezers.

This article serves to give readers an understanding of how ice makers work in very simple terms. It should be read as a prelude to “Keeping it Cool with Ice Makers Part 2” which discusses the important things to consider when buying an ice machine.

Industrial ice making machines have three main components: an ice production unit, a storage bin and a dispensing mechanism. The ice production unit serves to make the ice. It may produce cubers, which are clear and solid and tend to melt slowly or it may produce flakers or crushed ice which are literally like flakes or crushed up pieces of ice that melt a lot faster than cubes. The production unit needed ...
... to produce cubers is more complicated than that required for flakers. The latter tend to have a lot less moving parts and as a result are typically less expensive than their cuber counterparts.

We now move to storage bins, which is where ice is held prior to dispensation. These bins are insulated and come equipped with a drain. They may be made with plastic, aluminium or steel and may have an automatic or manual refill capability. The typical capacity of storage bins can range anywhere from 180 to 365 kg. Finally there is the dispensing mechanism, which is responsible for moving the ice from the storage bin into a customer’s glass or wherever it is needed.

So how do these components come together? Well the ice production unit does the “behind the scenes work” making the ice and getting it ready to put into storage and subsequently dispensing. The storage bin and the dispensing mechanism are the parts that are at the forefront of the machine. Where these two components are placed in a machine can have an impact on how it operates and varies according to the volume aimed at. In gravity fed dispensers the storage bin is above the dispensing mechanism. With the help of gravity the ice comes down and gets dispensed into it’s final location. Ice makers with this kind of dispensation mechanism tend to be cheaper than other forms. However they are not always the most appropriate choice. Where there is a lot of ice involved it might be better to have a storage bin adjacent to the dispenser. In this situation a rotating arm draws ice up from the bin and dispenses it into the glass or container. Some storage bins are designed to stand on the floor or sit on a countertop, or alternatively they may be integrated into a counter. The latter is good for keeping ice away from the view of customers however storage compartments located above the counter tend to dispense a better quality of ice on a consistent basis.

Finally for convenience there are storage bins that are mobile making them perfect for transferring ice to the point of use.

Having gained an understanding of how ice makers work, readers can now move on to “Keeping It Cool With Ice Makers Part 2” which outlines important considerations when purchasing an ice maker.