Overcome the Top Four Warewash Challenges, Part 1 of 2

If your organization or facility has a warewash process, you know you have experienced some frustrations with it! The top four that we’ve seen are:

Dishes not coming clean
Spotting on silverware
Lime scale build-up
Increasing chemical costs

Today’s blog will give you some solutions to counter the first two common problems, and next week we’ll tackle lime scale build-up the challenge of increasing chemical costs.

Dishes not coming clean in your dish washer:

When it comes to dirty dishes, there are four areas to check first: pre-scrap procedures, wash time, water (temperature/pressure) and chemical. If just one of these are off, you will notice poor results in the cleanliness of your dishes.

Be sure to properly pre-scrap all dish ware before you rack and put into the dish machine. All dish ware should be free of loose food soils and anything else left on the plate after use. Missing this step can negatively affect the remainder of the warewash process (clogging of wash/rinse jets, pump impeller, etc…) Also, remember to use the correct rack for the type of dishes being washed!
The proper wash time ensures that the dishes have an adequate amount of time in the machine to allow the mechanical/chemical action and water temperature/pressure to clean the dish ware.
Water is important for many reasons. Two areas of importance are water temperature and water pressure:
- High temp dish machines rely on water temperature to sanitize all dish ware. The second reason is that higher water temperatures assist with breaking up food soils that are set on the dish ware.
- Water pressure is important because that is what ultimately breaks the food soils loose from the dish ware surface. Poor water pressure will result in food soil left on the dish ware. Some things that effect water pressure are lime scale build-up, loose end caps on wash and rinse arms, and issues with the pump on the dish machine.
It is important to ensure you are using chemicals specifically designed for mechanical warewash machines. The proper detergent assists in lifting food soils from the dish ware surface and keeping the soils suspended in the water to be discarded down the drain. On low temp dish machines a chlorine based sanitizer is used to properly sanitize all dish ware. Rinse additive is used to create a sheeting action on the dish ware surface. This assists with the drying process and eliminating water spots.

Spotting on silverware:

Spotting on silverware is a fairly common concern. Here are process tips and things you may want to look into when you are trying to find the source of the problem:

Prior to washing, be sure that your ware has been properly soaked (using correct silverware pre-soak), placed into proper racks, and not overfilled.
Be sure you are not out of rinse additive. Check to ensure you have rinse additive in your container and it is properly pumping in to your machine (Nichols Film Free Plus).
Check to ensure that your rinse jets are un-obstructed and have adequate pressure to hit the surface of all dish ware in the dish machine. If there is no water pressure, make sure your incoming water line is turned on.
Be sure that all scrap trays inside of your machine are clear of obstruction.
Double check the water in your wash tank to be sure it is clean. It is always a good idea to stop your machine periodically, drain and refill with clean water.
In areas where you have extremely high water hardness, rinse additive alone will not work to remove spotting. You may also need to look in to a point of use water softener for your dish machine.

If you check all of these areas and your issues persist, be sure to call your chemical provider and have them provide a comprehensive review of your procedures, chemicals, etc. Here at Nichols, we have several warewash experts who help our warewash customers work through issues. It’s just one more way we deliver on the Promise of I.K.E., Innovation, Knowledge and Excellence. If you’d like to learn more about the new Nichols Brand line of warewash products, check out our new Warewash Line Card or our full Nichols Brand Catalog.

About the Author: Patrick Dermyer is HACCP and ServSAFE certified. He spearheads our Laundry, Warewash, and Food Processing solutions, covering Michigan, Indiana and Ohio. If you are having an issue, chances are Nichols has a solution to assist. We invite you to connect with Patrick on LinkedIN.