Hi Beef sandwich:
The addition of a fryer can add enormously to you sales volume and profit structure:
Try to estimate the volume of sales you hope to attain. That will determine what capacity fryer to purchase. When you move to buy your fryer please select one with a built in filter and set up a procedure to filter your oil several times a day. . Use the very best oil you can find if you wish to be successful.
Fryers produce heat and fumes. The best way to remove that heat and fumes is to have a ventilation system that extracts both to the outside of the building. Of course there are, what are termed as ventless hoods. These systems are in my opinion poor excuses for proper ventilation. First off the ventless system removes no heat, and fryers create a lot of that. Second, that type of hood is only approved for use over electric fryers. Electricity is a marvelous phenomena but the worst and most expensive method of producing heat. Gas is best!
The next consideration is the hood and ventilation system. Before exploring those ramifications let me make a recommendation. If you are going to put in a fryer, put in a ventilation system large enough for two fryers. It does not cost much more to set up for two and it would cost you as much again to put in a second system. The rational being that if your venture into frying is even marginally successful you will wish you had two fryers.
The ventilation systems are vital to the success of the food service facility. Poor ventilation can be so offensive to the olfactory system of your customers as to destroy your business. If you have ever been into an old greasy spoon or fishy smelling establishment you know what I am saying. The olfactory system is one of the most sensitive of the human body. Offensive orders can make people regurgitate.
A poorly designed hood, ventilation system, can make your facility stink. The tragedy of that is that you will not know it. Be assured that your olfactory system will quickly become accustomed to and ignore any persistent disagreeable orders. You will never know how bad your place smells until you take at least a month vacation. This condition can exist even in a carry out if a large percentage of the customers pick up. Many an operator has gone out of business because of unpleasant odors due to poor ventilation and never realized why.
Now to the ventilation system: The hood itself and the amount of air exhausted is critical to the environment of your facility and the content of your pocket book. By National building codes. The hood should overlap the equipment by at least 6 inches. Your exhaust fan should extract 400 cubic feet of air per minute or more for each foot of perimeter of the hood. For two good fryers that could be 48 inches front to back and probably 60 inches wide. That would require an exhaust fan that extracts a minimum of 5200 CFM of air per minute.
Again by national building codes,the air extracted will have to be replaced into your building. That is commonly known as make up air. As you will not want 5200 CFM of air, cold in the winter and hot in the summer, pouring into your kitchen, that air must be heated or cooled as the season requires. Heating and cooling that amount of air would be expensive. We can reduce that amount of air by switching to a certified hood. That is a hood system that has been tested and approved by UL or ETL. One model can bring a substantial amount of the required make up air in to the lower rear section of the hood unheated and uncooled. As that air never leaves the environment of the hood it does not have to be tempered. Using this system we can exhaust as little as 2600 CFM and return up to 1560 CFM directly into the lower rear of the same size hood. We then have to replace only 1040 CFM of the exhausted air with heated and cooled air. Substantial savings, as make up air costs about $1.50 or more per CFM per year.
Depending on the size of your air conditioning system the required make up air for your system may already Be available through that source. Depending on the jurisdiction up to 160 CFM per ton of A/C can be utilized as make up air. As 10 ton of ac is about right for the average carryout you should have plenty of usable air for make up.
The price for the system described, probably less than $3500,00 any competent HVAC company should be able to install. You will need to have a local fire protection company install a system.
George Mills
