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Can I ask why it takes / took 45 minutes? That feels like a lot to clean one machine. Was that all 'active' time or was there a 'put things in the dishwasher

Can I ask why it takes / took 45 minutes? That feels like a lot to clean one machine. Was that all 'active' time or was there a 'put things in the dishwasher / autoclave and let it sterilize for X minutes?' Were there a lot of separate parts to wash? Now I'm curious :)

loongloong 2y ago
Maybe a good idea to work for a short stint in a commercial kitchen? Not a snark.. it's quite eye opening to see (and actually use) how much food a piece of commercial kitchen equipment processeses in a day and then how much effort it takes to clean them. An example of cleaning a commercial deep fryer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFR5CN_kuI0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFR5CN_kuI0 One can also try googling for other more detailed versions showing all the efforts in digging out all the burnt sediments/sludge :)
bombcar 2y ago
Properly cleaning those types of machines is complicated. If you ever watch someone wash the soda machine it’s an hour+ process. (And it’s often skipped, if you ever get soda that tastes off you’ve found someplace that doesn’t deep clean.)
joezydeco 2y ago
I did this for a year and a half in high school. The McD procedure involves draining the barrel, flushing it with water, then disassembling each barrel assembly and removing every o-ring and gasket. https://youtu.be/SaYTx7qNJU4?si=Y2ZjWHQJHiKQfAFh https://youtu.be/SaYTx7qNJU4?si=Y2ZjWHQJHiKQfAFh Each part is washed in detergent, rinsed, and sanitized. Rings and gaskets are relubricated with food safe petroleum jelly, then everything is reassembled. Forget one ring or misalign one gasket and the machine will shoot dairy everywhere when repressurized. Cleanup and rework after that is messy, and probably wasted a lot of other nearby product and disposables. So don't do that. After reassembly the machine is flushed with sanitizer then clear water then primed with the mix you saved from the beginning. Let's hope you stored it properly in the cooler before it started to spoil. It's expensive. If nothing has exploded it's ready for use after an hour of cooling down. To do this in 45 minutes with no catastrophic errors is pro-level. And this is why McD went to a self-sanitizing machine.
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  Basically right, where I worked the parts were set in trays to air-dry overnight. There was a spot on the tray for each part, o-ring, and gasket so you could easily see if any were missing. The machines were reassembled the next morning. So the closers only had to break them down, wash, and sanitize. Once a week any dairy mix left in the machine was discarded, this "breaks the cycle" of any bacteria in the mix. So on that night, you tried to let the machines run very low to minimize waste. It's sort of complicated the first few times but it becomes very routine. Like everything at McDonalds, there is a detailed step-by-step written procedure on how to do it.
  - joezydeco 2y ago
    Yeah, I was thinking more about the grandparent above that said it took 45 minutes and that had to mean breakdown/cleaning/reassembly in one step. I was there in 1985-86 and we did like you said, one crew member did the cleaning at close and let it air dry for the morning crew. But that was also because shakes/ice cream wasn't served during the breakfast shift. Someone had time in the morning to assemble and prime the machine before 10:30am (me). I'm guessing 24/7 operation changed when and how the cleaning was done, leading to more contamination instead of less.
WBrentWilliams 2y ago
The machine from 30+ years ago that I regularly took apart and put back together had about 35 user-cleanable parts for the milkshake side and 12 for the ice cream side. The worst part of the ordeal was removing the rubber o-rings They went on easily enough, but removing took quite a bit of patience. The whole process took about 30 minutes, start-to-finish, including soaking the washed parts in bleach -- no dishwasher as the blades used to cut the frozen ice cream base from the inside of the machine would dull and ding causing damage to the machine. The new machines came in long after I moved on to other jobs. In ideal situations, they re-pasteurize the mix overnight, leading to a drop in 1-2 person-hours of labor.

loongloong 2y ago

Maybe a good idea to work for a short stint in a commercial kitchen? Not a snark.. it's quite eye opening to see (and actually use) how much food a piece of commercial kitchen equipment processeses in a day and then how much effort it takes to clean them. An example of cleaning a commercial deep fryer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFR5CN_kuI0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFR5CN_kuI0 One can also try googling for other more detailed versions showing all the efforts in digging out all the burnt sediments/sludge :)

bombcar 2y ago

Properly cleaning those types of machines is complicated. If you ever watch someone wash the soda machine it’s an hour+ process. (And it’s often skipped, if you ever get soda that tastes off you’ve found someplace that doesn’t deep clean.)

joezydeco 2y ago

I did this for a year and a half in high school. The McD procedure involves draining the barrel, flushing it with water, then disassembling each barrel assembly and removing every o-ring and gasket. https://youtu.be/SaYTx7qNJU4?si=Y2ZjWHQJHiKQfAFh https://youtu.be/SaYTx7qNJU4?si=Y2ZjWHQJHiKQfAFh Each part is washed in detergent, rinsed, and sanitized. Rings and gaskets are relubricated with food safe petroleum jelly, then everything is reassembled. Forget one ring or misalign one gasket and the machine will shoot dairy everywhere when repressurized. Cleanup and rework after that is messy, and probably wasted a lot of other nearby product and disposables. So don't do that. After reassembly the machine is flushed with sanitizer then clear water then primed with the mix you saved from the beginning. Let's hope you stored it properly in the cooler before it started to spoil. It's expensive. If nothing has exploded it's ready for use after an hour of cooling down. To do this in 45 minutes with no catastrophic errors is pro-level. And this is why McD went to a self-sanitizing machine.

SoftTalker 2y ago
Basically right, where I worked the parts were set in trays to air-dry overnight. There was a spot on the tray for each part, o-ring, and gasket so you could easily see if any were missing. The machines were reassembled the next morning. So the closers only had to break them down, wash, and sanitize. Once a week any dairy mix left in the machine was discarded, this "breaks the cycle" of any bacteria in the mix. So on that night, you tried to let the machines run very low to minimize waste. It's sort of complicated the first few times but it becomes very routine. Like everything at McDonalds, there is a detailed step-by-step written procedure on how to do it.
- joezydeco 2y ago
  Yeah, I was thinking more about the grandparent above that said it took 45 minutes and that had to mean breakdown/cleaning/reassembly in one step. I was there in 1985-86 and we did like you said, one crew member did the cleaning at close and let it air dry for the morning crew. But that was also because shakes/ice cream wasn't served during the breakfast shift. Someone had time in the morning to assemble and prime the machine before 10:30am (me). I'm guessing 24/7 operation changed when and how the cleaning was done, leading to more contamination instead of less.

WBrentWilliams 2y ago

The machine from 30+ years ago that I regularly took apart and put back together had about 35 user-cleanable parts for the milkshake side and 12 for the ice cream side. The worst part of the ordeal was removing the rubber o-rings They went on easily enough, but removing took quite a bit of patience. The whole process took about 30 minutes, start-to-finish, including soaking the washed parts in bleach -- no dishwasher as the blades used to cut the frozen ice cream base from the inside of the machine would dull and ding causing damage to the machine. The new machines came in long after I moved on to other jobs. In ideal situations, they re-pasteurize the mix overnight, leading to a drop in 1-2 person-hours of labor.