How to Maintain Kitchen Hygiene With Used Cooking Oil

The kitchen is the heart and soul of the home. However, it can fast become a source of food borne bacteria if you don’t keep it clean all the time. It requires more effort and work to keep clean, than any other room in the home.

When you deep-fry food a lot, you are going to generate a lot of used cooking oil, well, “a lot” being relative here, depending on your cooking habits. Also, a commercial kitchen will generate more oil than a residential one.

So, how do you handle kitchen hygiene with used cooking oil? Here are some tips you can put to work easily:

Strain the oil to remove food particles before storing it

After the cooking oil has cooled down, you can strain it to remove the small food particles, particularly if you would like to reuse the oil. You can use a regular kitchen strainer for that or a cheesecloth.

Removing the food particles from the oil prevents it from developing odor. If you would like to keep the oil and reuse it in the near future, you can strain the oil, and then store it in jars, or bottles.

You can then reuse the frying oil for cooking different types of food. In fact, depending on the quality of the oil, you can reuse it up to eight times.

If you intend to throw the used frying oil away, there is no need for straining the oil. Just let it cool down, pack it in a bottle and throw it away in the trash.

You could also solidify the oil to make it easier to handle with the rest of the trash.

Choose recycling because it is cleaner

If you have a commercial kitchen that generates tens of pounds of used frying oil per week, you can work with a recycling company to sell your old cooking oil to them. This is one of the easiest ways to keep your kitchen clean from used oil.

The recycling company like Grand Natural is going to provide you with the containers for storing the oil, so managing the oil becomes easier. When it cools down, you can just pour it in the collecting containers, and cover it. The recycling company will come to collect the oil.

When you are saving the used frying oil for recycling, there is less wastage and spillage in the kitchen. With the kitchen staff knowing the designated places for the oil, less of it will find its way into the kitchen sink, and even less will find its way to the floor.

Even if you would like to recycle the used cooking oil from your home kitchen, it is simple. First, find out whether there are recycling centers near you that can take the oil. If they're, find out the quality that they accept so that you can try to meet it.

Collect all of your used frying oil, store it well and drop it off at these centers. This way, you do not have to worry about how to safely dispose it.

Clean up the oil spills in the kitchen

Oil spills in the kitchen are inevitable. Therefore, knowing how to get rid of them is beneficial. Here are a few ways to help you clean up frying oil spills:

First, clean up the spill as soon as it happens. This helps to prevent the oil from spreading on the floor or on the counter. Remember, the oil itself will be colorless, so if you do not clean it up as soon as it spills, it poses a serious risk of slipping and falling. Oil is slippery, and it can be a serious workplace hazard if left on the floor.

Secondly, no oil spill is too small to ignore. If a small amount pours on the kitchen counter, wipe it up as soon as possible with paper towels. After that, you can clean the counter with warm water and soap, to remove the oil completely.

Thirdly, if the oil spill is large, you need to use advanced methods to clean it up. You can use flour to soak up the oil. Just sprinkle the flour on the oil and then let it stay for a few minutes, and once it has soaked the oil up, collect the flour, and throw it in the trash.

You could also sprinkle the oil with salt or baking soda, and again let it stay for some minutes to soak it up completely. After that, collect it and throw it in the trash. You can then use water and soap to completely clean the place that had the spill.

Sand and sawdust are also good absorbents, and they can help you to clean up the oil.

Don’t pour the oil down the sinks or keep it in open containers

Do not pour the frying oil down the sinks. If you do that, your kitchen will never truly be clean, and you run the risk of the pipes clogging up, and costing a lot of money to repair.

If you have oil lodged in the drain pipes, it is going to attract bugs like roaches, and it can also breed bacteria. Such bacteria can find their way into the food, or into your cooking appliances, and cause illnesses.

Even if you have a FOG tank that can capture the fats, oils, and greases that come from the sinks, avoid pouring the oil down. Your grease tank will fill up too fast.

Do not keep the oil in open containers too, because it will attract bugs, and when it reacts with oxygen, it starts to develop odors that attract rodents and bugs.

Conclusion

To maintain proper kitchen hygiene with used frying oil, you need to have cleaning products such as bleach, baking soda, detergents, and others ready.

You also need to minimize spills as much as possible, which will mean less cleaning to do. As soon as the spill happens, clean it up immediately. That way, you lower the risk of personal injury from sleeping.

Keep all the appliances that cook with oil clean. If you leave them dirty, they attract bugs, and foodborne bacteria.

Finally, knowing how to properly dispose of used frying oil leaves you with enough space in the kitchen, and less grease to deal with.