Steamers

Introduction

Steamers are quickly becoming a work horse in the kitchen for fast vegetable cooking and reheating. They retain more nutrients and natural colors and flavors while cooking with water instead of oils and butter. Steamers produce faster cook times and increased productivity.

Steamer Tips

1. Always preheat your steamer

2. Break up frozen vegetables and season after steaming, not before.

3. Always steam vegetables in perforated pans.

4. When steaming meat in perforated pan, use a solid catch pan underneath.

5. Use a drain that is 6 ft away from the steamer.

Convection vs. Convectionless

Like convection ovens, convection steamers have a fan to get more even cooking.

Steam generator vs. “boilerless”

Steam generators, or boiler models, require water and drain connections, are more difficult to delime, but are higher production. Boilerless models have a heating element directly under the bottom of the interior cavity; simply add water directly to the cavity. They are simple to clean and generally last longer, but have smaller productions capacity.

What to look for

Groen’s polished mirror stainless steel interior and their top quality make them a top consideration. Always size your needs carefully.

As with any gas appliance, be sure and include a new AGA commercial gas flex hose. They are designed extremely heavy duty, usually with a brass quick connect. Standard, plumber supplied home-type flex hoses are not designed for commercial applications and are not NSF approved.