Traulsen TBC Blast Chillers Make Quick Cooling a Snap

Blast chillers have been growing in popularity in the commercial kitchen both for their ability to preserve food safety and as a part of the preparation process themselves in some modern cuisine. We’re certain that trend will get a further boost with the introduction of the new Traulsen TBC blast chillers line, which pairs high-performance rapid refrigeration with the super-easy-to-use Epicon Visual Interface.

Like other blast chillers, Traulsen TBC models are factory-preset to lower the temperature of food from nearly 160 degrees Fahrenheit to 37 degrees within just 90 minutes. That in itself is an impressive accomplishment, especially since that moves your product out of the danger zone for bacterial growth, which stretches from 46 degrees to about 154 degrees, much quicker than normal refrigeration can. Read on to learn more about the additional features available on the TBC blast chillers.

Traulsen Blast Chillers Do the Thinking for You

There are several ways Traulsen TBC blast chillers can work to preserve the quality and safety of your food, and all of them are incredibly easy. In fact, one of the ways it can do its work is without you having to change any settings at all.

Since these models are factory-preset to achieve an internal food temperature of 37 degrees, all it takes to get things chilling is inserting a probe into the food and pushing the start button on the touchscreen interface. The machine does all the work for you thanks to the Auto Menu program, which alerts you when it has completed its work. The Auto Menu setting also allows you the opportunity to use "EZ TIME," a function that works with the probe to ensure the chilling is done within 90 minutes.

But what if you’re preparing something like steamed lobsters or beautiful cheesecakes that you don’t want to ruin by puncturing it with a probe? Using Auto Menu, you can pull up a saved product by name, with the exact steps needed to achieve the required temperatures stored in the blast chiller’s computer. That establishes the exact settings needed to achieve safe temperatures in whatever food is in the blast chiller.

Manual Menu Allows You to Call the Shots

Having an automatic option that essentially does the work for you is nice, but sometimes you need to be in complete control in the kitchen. Traulsen TCB blast chillers give you that opportunity with the Manual Menu mode, but don’t think manual means difficult. Thanks to the Epicon visual interface, controlling the system is as easy as (chilling) pie.

You have three options when it comes to setting the program in Manual Menu: By temperature, by time, and by preset recipe. Each operation is given a name so that the exact process can be stored for the next time, for instance, lasagna fills the blast chiller.

Setting by temperature allows you to specify an exact level you want your food to get to, while chilling by time constrains the blast chiller to reach the factory preset 37 degrees within that range. By product allows you to pick a similar program – for instance, if you typically chill your lasagna to the same level as your pre-cooked steaks – to create a new recipe for that product. In any case, you’re given four chill setting options:

1. Standard, which offers basic operation.
2. Speed, reducing the chill time by about 10 percent for high-volume batches.
3. Delicate, which helps retain moisture and food quality.
4. Energy, using about 10 percent less energy than the Standard cycle.

Epicon Visual Interface

The Epicon control system includes a digital tape printer that can make keeping records necessary under food safety regulations a breeze. It tracks exactly each dish’s progress through and out of the "danger zone," that stretch of temperatures where bacterial growth is most likely, producing a receipt showing that information. Since these Traulsen TBC blast chillers require a user ID for each cycle, the documentation they produce also meets the requirement that the employee responsible for handling the food be recorded in the data.

On top of all those additions to make your life easier, there’s an add-on option for the TBC blast chillers that takes it one step further. Traulsen offers a label printer that can create adhesive documentation of information like when the product was prepared for cold storage and at what temperature. That not only ensures the safety of your food with ease, it also eliminates the effort of deciphering some hurried chef’s scrawl on a handwritten label.

Find a Blast Chiller For Your Kitchen

Since these units would make a great addition to almost any commercial kitchen, Traulsen is making them in multiple build types so there is one to fit in almost any space. There’s the typical upright reach-in, which is akin to a reach-in commercial refrigeration. There’s also an undercounter model that’s perfect for operations that are tight on space or just have a small amount of food that needs to be chilled on a regular basis.

Finally, there’s the high-volume options, the TBC1H and 2H models. These are available in either roll-in or roll-thru designs that can accommodate an entire rack of pans at one time.TBC1H models are single-section blast chillers, offering room for up to 26 food pans on one rack at a time. TBC2H units have two sections and can accommodate 52 pans on two racks.

Though they deal in large quantities, they can still get the job done quickly and efficiently. Fully-loaded with anywhere from 150-200 pounds of food for the TBC1H or 300-400 pounds for the TBC2H, they’ll still achieve a cooling from 135 degrees to 40 degrees in just an hour and a half. Meanwhile, it takes just two hours to achieve the same results for 200 pounds in a 1H or 500 pounds in a 2H. Even 300 to 600 pounds of food can be cooled to safe storage temperatures in about two and a half hours. That’s well under the four hour requirement under HACCP, which is of huge importance for large kitchens and events facilities.

If all these incredible features have you convinced, the good news is KaTom stocks the Traulsen TBC blast chillers line. For more information or assistance making a purchase, please contact us at info@katom.com or by phone at 1-800-541-8683.