Basic Tips to Help you Determine the Type of Coolroom you Need for your Business

03 June 2015

Apart from the industrial-grade appliances that populate your kitchen, you know, the ones that cook huge quantities of food for your hungry guests, a walk-in coolroom or freezer is the biggest investment you’ll make. As such, you need to make your buying decision based on certain factors. These include but are not limited to what’s being stored in the room and whether a combination workflow is to be put in place by the kitchen manager. We’ll come back to this latter factor further on in our discussion. Learn what features and factors determine the type of cooling space you’ll adopt. The typical coolroom, for instance, doesn’t drop the interior climate down to subzero realms, but it is responsible for creating a low temperature space, one that’s reminiscent of a frosty cellar.

That last romanticized image works well for wine cellars where cold beverages are placed on hold for an evening soiree, say around the 15ºC mark, but the temperature needs to drop before it can be classed as a coolroom. Note, the frosty but almost comfortable 7.5ºC level is considered suitable for these purposes. Now, without further ado, let’s fill in some of the details that determine the type of coolroom for any particular business.

1. Size and Location – It’s best to start with the building blocks of the project. Discuss where the room is to be installed. A modular approach can be used here to build the cooling room onsite, or it’s possible to build the unit outside. Internal and externally installed units use different construction techniques, so know where the unit is going and the capacity required.

2. Preparation or Storage – It’s true that some boundaries are soft edged and without definition. The freezing of food is not one of these instances. If you want a preparation and short-term storage area for food that’s being served soon, opt for a coolroom. On the other hand, a heavily insulated walk-in freezer is the only solution when you’re storing perishable food items such as meat.

3. Incorporate Scientific Precision – There are many monitoring and control options for differing coolroom scenarios, but some applications simply demand high accuracy. The storage of sensitive laboratory materials and pharmaceuticals demand nth-degree accuracy. Additionally, this business environment comes with added hygiene and clinical accessories, parts that include glass-panelled cabinets and easy-wash steel shelving.

4. The Combi Coolroom – We promised we’d return to the aforementioned combination workflow, and here we are. This configuration splits the climate-control paradigm down the middle, offering the convenience of a prep room and a companion cooling space that enacts a dual-zone model of operation. Assign one room to prep work and adjust the second to take on the role of walk-in freezer or a secondary coolroom.

Other types of coolroom include beer cooling areas and large spaces for storing just-slaughtered meat on rows of hooks. Some variants combine elements of industrial models, partnering high-capacity outlays with domestic scaled features. Above all, it’s imperative to know the purpose of the room and record these labelled functions with pen and pencil before ever laying down a single insulating panel.

Mark Connelly
C&M Coolroom Services
E-mail: markconnelly@cmcoolrooms.com.au
Mobile: 0412 536 315

Optimized by NetwizardSEO.com.au