In a restaurant kitchen, the cooking line — ranges, griddles, fryers and the hood above them — collects grease faster than anything else in the building. Within a few days of heavy service, splattered oil bakes into a hard, sticky film that a mop and an all-purpose cleaner only smear around. Cleaning that film is a degreasing job, and it needs heat. Here is the equipment that kitchen operators and cleaning contractors actually rely on.
Start with the machine that does the real work: high-temperature steam
Grease polymerises at high temperature, and heat is what releases it again. A steam machine that delivers genuinely hot, dry steam softens baked-on deposits on stovetops, griddle backs, fryer frames and hood panels without scouring the stainless steel. Because the steam carries most of the cleaning effort, the method uses far less water and far less detergent than hose-and-spray washing — a practical advantage in a kitchen that has to stay dry enough to be safe to walk on.
Look for a machine with switchable dry and wet steam modes: dry steam to cut grease, wet steam to rinse it away. Commercial kitchen steam cleaning is normally done with this type of unit. A fixed installation such as the PowerDe HW02 produces steam at 160°C with 0.8 MPa vapour pressure from a 6 kW heater fed by ordinary tap water, with an 80 L SUS304 stainless tank and protection against leakage, short circuit, high temperature, high voltage and water shortage. The manufacturer lists kitchens and commercial cleaning among the application areas for its steam cleaning equipment.
Equipment for hoods, filters and ducts
Grease-laden vapour condenses on hood interiors, filters and the first metres of duct, where it thickens into a fire hazard. Fire codes require grease extraction systems to be cleaned at set intervals, and most contractors work in this order, with this kit:
- A soak tank sized for the filters being cleaned, so faceplates and filters can be immersed while the rest of the line is worked on
- A steam lance and plastic scrapers for hood interiors and accessible duct runs — commercial range hood grease removal is the part of the job where steam pays for itself fastest
- A heavy-duty degreaser for carbonised deposits that steam alone will not lift
- Brushes with non-metallic bristles, so polished stainless surfaces are not scratched
Floors, drains and the area around the line
Degreasing drives grease and rinse water onto the floor, so floor equipment matters as much as the machine itself. A wet vacuum or a squeegee and bucket keeps rinse water out of walkways during the job. A floor tool for the steam machine cleans tile grout and drain surrounds, where mopping only spreads a grease film around. Where local rules require it, route the grease-laden rinse water through a grease interceptor rather than straight into the drain, and keep wet-floor signage up until the area is dry.
Supporting tools and safety gear
Steam at 160°C causes burns in seconds, so anyone operating the machine needs heat-resistant gloves, eye protection and long sleeves or an apron. Keep plastic scrapers and wooden paddles close to hand to lift softened grease before it re-hardens, and microfibre cloths for the final wipe-down of equipment fronts. A simple caddy of these items is the difference between a two-hour clean and a four-hour one.
Fixed or mobile: choosing the right configuration
If the cleaning happens in one place — a wash corner behind a central kitchen — a fixed 220 V machine plumbed to a water line is the simplest setup, because the unit is ready the moment service ends. For multi-site work, or where no power or water sits near the cleaning point, battery-powered mobile units cover vehicle and equipment cleaning and can suit spread-out sites. Before buying anything on the list, check three things: the power supply available at the cleaning point, the water inlet, and whether the tank and heater size match the workload. The commercial steam cleaning equipment range lists fixed, hand-pushed and driving-style models with their power and tank specifications, which makes that comparison straightforward.
A realistic schedule
- Daily: wipe equipment fronts and stovetops while they are still warm, and remove and wipe the hood faceplates
- Weekly: soak and degrease the filters, steam the backs and sides of fryers and ranges, and clean the floor at each cooking position
- Monthly or quarterly: a full hood and duct degrease, timed to the interval your local fire code requires
The heart of the equipment list is a single machine: one that produces genuinely high-temperature steam at useful pressure. Everything else on the list — scrapers, soak tanks, wet vacuums, gloves — exists to support it. If you are specifying equipment for a new kitchen or replacing ageing units, work with a manufacturer that can configure heater power, tank material and steam modes to your workload instead of accepting one generic machine for every job.
