Hood Cleaners. Which will work best for you?

Here at Soap Warehouse we have many products, that to some, seem that they can do the same thing. And in some cases that may be true, but the subtle differences of each product is for certain reasons and we hope that focusing on product groups together will help our customers find the right one for the job they are doing.

We will also tell you what current or customers in the past have personally found when using a certain product. For this first installation we will explore Hood Cleaners.

With hood cleaning the main chemical ingredients used are potassium hydroxide or sodium hydroxide. Both need to be used with care and special cautionary actions taken when using them. Such as wearing protective eye wear when mixing and applying, protective clothing and gloves to cover exposed skin. These chemicals are very caustic and that is what makes them such great grease cutters and removers. The ingredient potassium hydroxide is more water soluble than sodium hydroxide but costs more which is reflected in product pricing.

Now our basic 'Hood Cleaner' contains Potassium Hydroxide which some people prefer to handle and mix rather than Sodium Hydroxide, but there is really not much of a difference in their use. 'Smoke House' is our Sodium Hydroxide product. Both are used at 1:100 chemical to water ratio. They are used the same way by applying to a dry surface starting from the bottom up using hot water, allowing a short dwell time and then being rinsed with clear water from the top down into proper collection devices for treatment and disposal according to local wastewater codes.

The 'Smoke House' has been said to work the best on 'Chinese' restaurant grease, which seems to be different that 'normal' cooking grease at other restaurants. 'Smoke House' does costs less than the 'Hood Cleaner' but I have some clients that will only use 'Hood Cleaner' even on 'Chinese' grease and when they only want to purchase and use only one product.

Speaking of that, our Brown Derby also contains mainly Sodium Hydroxide, and we have had customers over the years that will use Brown Derby for anything and everything, including hood cleaning. We had a customer that had used Brown Derby for almost 5 years to do kitchen exhaust cleaning and I finally convicence them to try 'Smoke House' instead. Even though it costs exactly the same, the formulation and percentages of ingredients are different and he could not believe what a difference he got with using the 'Smoke House'. That is not to say that Brown Derby did not do a fair job of cleaning but once the same restraunt was cleaned using 'Smoke House' the difference was clear. He now only buys 'Smoke House' for his kitchen work and leaves using Brown Derby for his fleet washing.

We also have supplementary products like our 'Oven and Grill Cleaner' to be used on flat grill surfaces and inside ovens. Our foaming agent, which can be added to any of our products when additional cling time for vertical surfaces, like exhaust flues are needed. But even with foam, a little goes a long way. If you create too much foam height you are just wasting money on your chemicals because so much of the chemicals are suspended in the foam that never comes in contact with the greasy surface. Using just enough to create a stiff foam to increase dwell time is all you need.

Now these hood cleaners can not be used on aluminum without damage, there fore the cleaning of any aluminum framed filters that may be in an exhaust system, must be handled and cleaned with a different product, like our Mighty Green. It is non-hazardous, non-corrosive and safe on skin, so you can soak filters in a flat tank of concentrated product putting them in and out with your bare hands with out any worries. It also has a great clean scent. Just rinse with water to remove the grease once the filter has soaked for a long enough period of time. If the filters are really bad additional soaks maybe needed or the filter completely replaced. I have seen some pictures of some pretty bad clogged filters that Mighty Green has brought back to useable life.

Hopefully this breakdown of our different Kitchen Hood Cleaning products has helped you.