Tips, bags, pans ect. How do you keep everything squaky clean? Just looking to learn some new tricks and see how others do things.
I boil my tips in water and vinegar. Then I just rinse them and air dry. It seems to really cut all the grease from the buttercream icing.
tthardy78, I used to use the garbage bags too, but now ziplock has these giant ziplock bags. They work great and you can see what's in them. I keep my boards in them and don't have to worry about ehm getting dusty.
I use hydrogen peroxide instead of bleach to soak tips and wipe down counters. Just the regular 3% you buy in the grocery store (or at Big Lots where it's $.39/bottle!)
It's just as powerful as bleach for disinfecting, and it's not as smelly or harmful to your skin.
(Plus I love it when I see it bubbling as it attacks a bacteria 
)
I'm not a big fan of bleach - freaks me out for some reason - don't know why - just has always sounded bad to me (I'm sure it cleans well -just my personal preference) . I've used those Clorox wipes or just soap & water to clean the counter-tops. Other stuff goes in the dishwasher. I use disposable bags or those paper bags you roll yourself..... For tips & nails & things I soak them first with that Dawn foam soap and really hot water and then i put them in a little mesh baggie in the dishwasher. For my mixing bowl imbetween cake batter & icing, etc. - I just fill it up w/ that Dawn foam soap & hot water and let it sit a minute - that Dawn really does kill grease!!!!
I bought a baby bottle sanitizer at a yard sale for like $5 and I use it for my tips and little stuff. For the grease, I use the foam dish detergent, nothing beats it! For my bags and stuff I wash them with the foam soap, and then I rinse in bleach water, and rinse well again in clear water.
There is a product called 'Wescadyne' but it's commercial and I don't know where to get it. Maybe a restaurant supply or even online.
I used to be a cook and that's what our aides had to use to clean up. It was a state facility and they had surprise Public Health inspections all the time.
Great product if you can locate it.
For the dishes part I like to use that dawn in the pump bottle. You put the soap on the sponge and don't fill up the sink with water, the soap is applied directly to the dish so it's great when I have stuff with icing on it. Besides I don't like sinks with water that has junk floating in it.
For counters I use the same soap and then wipe with a paper towel unless they're gross and then it's bleach.
For all my cleaning, kitchen and entire house, I use a line of products from United Laboratories, Earthsmart, that are all commercial grade/used in commercial kitchens, etc. Degreasers, cleaners, sanitizers, weee I love these products 
There is a product called 'Wescadyne' but it's commercial and I don't know where to get it. Maybe a restaurant supply or even online.
I used to be a cook and that's what our aides had to use to clean up. It was a state facility and they had surprise Public Health inspections all the time.
Great product if you can locate it.
corrected spelling: Wescodyne -- an iodine based disinfectant detergent.
bleach here....at restaurant supply you can get test strips to mix it to the standards set by National Restaurant Assoc./my local health codes.
also, hydrogen peroxide by itself alone is NOT recognized as a sanitizer by many, if not most, health codes. it is used in combination w/ other chemicals.
for those interested, the FDA's Center for Food Safety Info on: disenfectant solutions (owww. my head hurts reading that!!)
I'll just go to the restaurant supply store and buy premade or stick to bleach at 50ppm at 70-120 degrees.
Before I wash dishes, I spray the sink with bleach, let it sit then fill with the hottest water I've got and dish soap and a little bleach. After they are rinsed I let them air dry. Everything is supposed to air dry on a rack not a towel and no drying with a towel from what I was reading a while back.
I love the giant ziploc bags. They hold so much!
hate to burst anyones bubble but soap and water don not cut it for sanitizing, that's considered cleaning. Sanitizing is when you kill of the microorganisims. Sorry 
the best way and most cost effeciant is a bleach water mix at 110 degrees. just wear gloves or risk killing your hands.
Hi Doug ~ Thanks for the spelling correction. I thought it looked wrong but just couldn't seem to get it right. It's been about 15 yrs since I've seen it.
I just use bleach/water to wash down counters.
don't thank me....thank google!
Doug, if you go back down the URL on that hurty page ...
You come to this:
http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/fc01-toc.html
THAT one is understandable.
Thanks for the link!
At my shop I use sanitizing tablets...the heath department told me that they prefer this. they make me have them all over the shop and I have to wash the dishes, then rinse & then dip them in the sanitizing solution.
I believe I found them at GFS but I'm not 100% sure.
as ge978 post the tablets are the best. If I had a business I would use these....but I don't have one yet, may be one day. Ge978 is dead on what the health department likes. I'm toying with after I'm done with school becoming a health inspector...creepy I know. 
But all the aspects of culinary fascinate me. 
I just want to keep people safe from nasty resaurants and be there to say this place rocks and you know your stuff. The roaches and rats way may sway me though. The thought makes me shudder.
It sounds like some people out there may be over sanitizing. By that I mean using too much bleach - which at high concentrations is a posion. In a 16 oz spray bottle, there should be 3 drops of bleach. No more. In a 16 gallon sink (commerial size) there should only be a few tablespoons. If your sanitizing solution smells like bleach, it is too strong. If it is eating up your hands, it is too strong. You could give someone a food borne illness by not sanitizing your equipment properly, but you could also posion someone by over sanitizing.
It sounds like some people out there may be over sanitizing. By that I mean using too much bleach - which at high concentrations is a posion. In a 16 oz spray bottle, there should be 3 drops of bleach. No more. In a 16 gallon sink (commerial size) there should only be a few tablespoons. If your sanitizing solution smells like bleach, it is too strong. If it is eating up your hands, it is too strong. You could give someone a food borne illness by not sanitizing your equipment properly, but you could also posion someone by over sanitizing.
resturant supply will have test strips to use to tell when at proper level...and it IS a lot less than you'd think
Mari's dead on -- if it smells of bleach it is TOO strong.
GFS? I am not good with these initial things. What is GFS?
Sorry, sometimes I forget not everyone has one near them:
It stands for Gordon Food Service... they sell restaurant supplies, bulk foods, paper goods,etc. You don't need a membership...its open to the public.
Thank you all so much for all the replies. I love this place... so much to learn!
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