Freezer, which exist and what to look for when choosing

Multifunctional equipment that is installed in various trading floors or catering establishments, such as a restaurant, on the shop floor or in warehouses, and even in medical laboratories, is a freezer, designed to store and freeze the necessary products or materials. Today, a wide selection of such professional equipment is offered: it can be a compact narrow cabinet freezer with glass or a huge two-door freezer, where there is no glass door.

Purpose and features

All professional freezers are divided into two subspecies, taking into account the features of the temperature regime set in them:

medium temperature - with a working temperature range from +2 to +10 degrees, mainly such cabinets are designed to preserve, cool various liquids, confectionery and dairy products;
low temperature - those that maintain a temperature in the range from 0 to -18 degrees and are intended for long-term storage and freezing of meat and fish products, semi-finished products.

Kinds

Freezers differ in their purpose.

Demo

This version of the freezer can often be found in modern food halls. Its main purpose is not only to preserve the taste, proper quality of the product, but also to encourage the buyer to buy. A feature of such a cabinet is glass sashes.

Industrial

These domestic freezers are also used in modern trade, but unlike the above-described display cases, which may look like a narrow design, they are large freezers designed exclusively for quick freezing and storage of a large number of products. Used mainly in warehouses or in industrial production.

Medical

From the name it is easy to guess that this type of freezer is used to store various medicines in hospitals, pharmacies, including narcotic, psychotropic and toxic substances. As well as similar freezers, many modern laboratories use for the safety of samples, analyzes, reagents and other materials that require special storage conditions. Some medical cabinets may also have a glass door.

Confectionery

Such a household cabinet is a medium-temperature version of freezing equipment, which includes a ventilation system in its installation that protects baking, fresh bakery products from unwanted airing. Often confectionery glass cabinet it is installed in the accompanying trading floors, it is supplied with special fluorescent lamps of attractive golden yellow color, which favorably emphasize all the beauty and freshness of confectionery. Such freezers with a glass door can be decorated in different stylistic directions and made of various materials.

Bar

Such a freezer is used for rapid cooling of various alcoholic beverages, short-term storage of ice cream and ice for cocktails, as well as for cooling and storing shots. The bar cabinet is a mini version of conventional freezing equipment, and often a glass door is installed in it. Basically, this bar freezer option is installed in the respective entertainment venues: bars, restaurants, cafeterias. But this option can be not only interesting to bars and other similar institutions, but also serve for private use. That is why such vertical models are not considered exclusively options for bar use.

Wine

Such freezing equipment is a modern mini version of the wine cellar. Inside, the small cabinet is equipped with special shelves, thanks to which the wine is in constant contact with the cork of the bottle and prevents it from drying out and forming cracks that will allow unwanted air to pass to the alcoholic beverage. The humidity of such a freezer is always observed in the region of 70-80%, which creates the most comfortable conditions for the good storage of wine drinks, this is what makes a wine cabinet different from a similar bar system, which is intended for the preservation of strong alcoholic drinks.

For storing cigars

Such a compact design is called a humidor, which literally translates from the Latin language as “wet cabinet”. It is not particularly popular in Russia, and in few places it can be found. Rather, it refers to those items that are used only by specialized stores or people who are true connoisseurs of good high-quality cigars. Such narrow small cabinets are distinguished by their ability to maintain a constant air humidity in the range of 65-70% inside their box in order to preserve all the taste, the richness of the aroma of exquisite products, avoiding obscure taste impurities, as well as to preserve cigars from fungal infections, tobacco beetles pests.

Combined

The combination cabinet is an ideal device for those who want to save on the purchase of a separate refrigerator and a household freezer. He is two-chamber vertical a cabinet that saves space by placing compartments on top of each other. A glass door is often installed on top in this design, and blind shelves on the bottom. This household installation is especially relevant in the markets, in supermarkets, in restaurants, cafeterias, at any food industry enterprises.

All freezing equipment differs among themselves in basic technical characteristics:

capacity;
type of management;
power of freezing;
freezer class;
defrost options;
additional functionality.

Capacity is one of the main parameters of the freezer, which is primarily taken into account when choosing it. Today, manufacturers offer a wide variety of variations of freezing vertical or horizontal cabinets. They can have small, medium or large capacity. The best option for volume is from 80 to 410 liters. The exact figure depends on the scale of the products you plan to freeze. So, for domestic needs there will be enough volume up to 260 liters. It is better for owners of bars, restaurants and retail outlets to choose a freezer structure up to 400 liters for such establishments.

By type of control, freezers are divided into:

with mechanical control - where the temperature control is carried out using a standard switch;
Electromechanically controlled - where the temperature is adjusted using an electromechanical thermostat;
electronically controlled - the most convenient of all the above.

The power of freezing shows what is the total mass of products that freezing equipment can freeze per day. The average value ranges from 3 to 24 kg.

The class of the freezer is an equally important indicator, which is marked with a special icon - a snowflake. The higher this parameter, the more useful properties of the products are preserved during freezing. Possible freezer classes:

(6˚ below zero) - 1 week;
** (12˚ below zero) - 1 month;
*** (18˚ below zero) - up to 3 months;
**** (24˚ below zero) - from 6 months to 1 year.

Any freezing equipment requires defrosting sooner or later, and therefore it is important to take into account such a nuance as the defrosting method. This can be done manually or using a specialized fan that circulates the air and removes accumulated moisture to the outside.

Freezing equipment can be equipped with additional functions that make working with an industrial freezer even more convenient and comfortable. This can be, for example, carbon filters for air purification in the internal space, an external lock for fixing and protecting against unauthorized access to frozen products, devices for automatically closing the door, provided it is opened up to 45 degrees, or a sound indicator for closing the door of the freezer.

The dimensions of household freezers can be very different: from the smallest to the largest in height. It can be a vertical or horizontal design. And also the freezer can be narrow or wide in width. This parameter is determined only by your needs.

Two-door wardrobes are especially popular. If the area of the room where you plan to install a professional freezer design does not have the ability to install large two-door options, then when buying, it is recommended to pay attention to models with sliding doors made according to the type of vertical sliding wardrobe. In this case, you do not need to choose the cheapest, simplest version of the door guiding mechanism, since it is on the sliding doors of a vertical design that the main load in the form of daily openings and closures up to hundreds of thousands of times will be assigned. It is extremely important to choose a freezer compartment with a reliable, high-quality door mechanism from all the compact options offered by manufacturers.

The internal filling of the freezer depends on its purpose. The following can be installed in the freezer:

shelves of various types;
compartments and boxes for fruits and vegetables;
pastry baking sheets;
hooks for hanging certain products;
boxes with or without pallets.

Moreover, the shelves themselves can be placed at different levels of inclination, with different frequencies and will be made not only of glass, but also of plastic.

Freezing equipment for storing food products often has standard sizes and volumes of internal space. For example, the classic “rack” is an industrial cabinet with 185 x 60 x 60 parameters.

Before acquiring such equipment, you need to determine not only the technical characteristics and internal content, but also with such nuances as:

target destination;
energy saving class;
conditions and intensity of use;
temperature condition;
spaciousness and dimensions of the cabinet.

If freezing equipment is chosen for a shop window in a cafe or for demonstration and sale of certain products in a store, you should pay attention to compact freezers with a glass door, which will come in handy due to the inside lighting and a full view of the contents provided by glass doors. For storage rooms or utility rooms, large freezer cabinets with ordinary doors are best suited.

Being interested in freezers, you should focus on the energy-saving class. Thus, models that consume less electric energy will cost more than freezers with a low energy supply class, but their work will not be accompanied by kilometer-long electricity bills, which will significantly save money subsequently.

When purchasing a professional freezer, it is also necessary to take into account such characteristics as material, color of industrial equipment. So the most high-quality material for the freezer is stainless steel. A little cheaper in price, but not worse in quality, will be a cabinet made of zinc-treated steel with a special protective coating applied on top. The first option is widely applicable in food production, the second is often used for installation in trading floors. In the latter case, a glass door is often installed for a better view and a similar freezer can be decorated with wooden materials.

When purchasing such equipment, it is necessary to ensure that all the necessary technical documentation is included in the package: a warranty card, a document on the indicators of freezing equipment, and a user manual. It is also important to solve the issue of equipment maintenance after its acquisition, since it requires systematic cleaning of accumulated dirt and dust, regular due diligence to extend the operability of the device.