A charbroiler can transform how your food offerings in a commercial kitchen. Restaurants proudly tout their charbroiled menu items as a significant differentiation in terms of food quality. They bring substantial value to a restaurant’s brand due to the unique flavor they provide and the added attractiveness of the meal preparation itself.
While a charbroiler is one of the most valuable restaurant cooking equipment, it can also be complicated and challenging to maintain.
What Makes a Charbroiler Different from Grills?
Typically charbroilers are larger than grills and allow commercial kitchens to cook larger quantities of food quicker.
How do they work? They work by heating a heating element with a gas flame and radiating the heat to a grill grate. Their design generates rapid and steady heat, allowing for more precise temperature control than grills. Temperatures can be controlled with the use of responsive valves and sensors. Charbroilers are a high-energy appliance, frequently using between 15,000 and 30,000 BTU (British Thermal Units) of gas per burner every hour, necessitating adequate indoor ventilation.
What Do You Cook on a Charbroiler?
A charbroiler is a fantastic tool for imparting smoky, char-grilled taste to meats such as steak, poultry, fish, and other seafood and creating delectable grill marks on vegetables and sandwiches.
When a restaurant identifies they are using a charbroiler for certain foods on the menu, you can benefit from that grilled flavor that can elevate some foods. While this cooking method isn’t suitable for all foods, for those that pair well with that ultimate grilled taste, cooking on a charbroiler can help you bring out the flavor in a great many foods.
Charbroiler grates must also be seasoned for optimal taste. The grates should be extensively coated with cooking oil (the higher the smoke point, the better), either sprayed or wiped on. Then heat the charbroiler for several minutes. The grates will smoke for 15–20 minutes before stopping. The charbroiler should now be switched off and cooled. Then wipe off the oil residue. The cooking oil will leave a protective coating on the grates, similar to a well-seasoned cast iron pan. If the charbroiler isn’t used for a while, the food won’t get a rusty flavor.
Why is it Better Depending on What You’re Cooking?
Charbroilers are designed to cook meals quickly and efficiently while grilling large quantities of food. Grills and stoves are neither adequate substitutes nor alternatives to them. They are available in various sizes ranging from 12 inches wide to 84 inches broad in length. As a result, they can be used both in the home and in the workplace. The charbroilers used in restaurants are noticeably larger.
The precise phrase “charbroiler” is most commonly linked with the commercial cooking industry. Grilling imparts a characteristic calming, seasoned taste to the meat, a burnt peppery appearance, and a strong charcoal fragrance. Charbroilers make it simple to achieve the benefits listed above through indoor cooking while maintaining precise control. They can deal with ample amounts of orders and require speedy preparation in a commercial-grade facility.
While both a grill and a charbroiler have a place in a kitchen, there are many benefits to cooking on a charbroiler in a commercial or even residential kitchen to allow you to reach maximum efficiency and meet customers’ orders promptly.