February 2006
SPECIAL REPORT:
On The Warm Front
 

Join us for a look at the ins and outs of spec’ing non-humidified two-drawer warmers, and a look at seven leading models.

By Mike Sherer

Think drawer warmers and the words “utilitarian” and “no-frills” come to mind. It’s true that few would call the humble drawer warmer a sexy piece of equipment, but then again, few could get by without them. Nearly all segments use them.

If the drawer warmer’s on your list of new or replacement purchases this year, read on. You’ll find info on the leading suppliers of two-drawer, non-humidified warmers—Alto-Shaam Inc., APW Wyott Foodservice Equipment, Hatco Corp., Star Mfg. Int’l., Toastmaster/Middleby, Wells Mfg. and Wittco Foodservice Equipment—plus details on actively humidified options in our sidebar below. You can find a full list of all drawer warmer suppliers at our Web site, <i>www.fermag.com<i>, by doing a search of drawer warmers in our Buyers Guide.

But first we’ll walk you through what to look for when spec’ing. Depending on the model and options you choose, non-humidified two-drawer warmers will run you anywhere from $1,400 to $2,000 apiece. When considering cost and construction, review how your ops will use their warmers. Stadium concessions, for example, where warmers have been big sellers in recent years, only use them a few times a year, so they don’t have to be as durable or strong as those in daily use.

Preheat And Go

First up: a look at heating. Most two-drawer units can reach a max temp of 200°F, but they generally operate in the range of 140°F to 165°F, depending on what you’re holding.

Warmers aren’t intended for rethermalizing, so they don’t require a lot of power. A typical warmer puts out about 450 watts per drawer. The keys to performance are pre-heat time, maximum temperature and recovery time, and these are as influenced by design and construction as much as by power. 

Pre-heat times can vary from as little as 15 minutes to half an hour or more. Where managers and employees turn on equipment at the beginning of a shift, pre-heat time probably won’t be an issue. If it is, be sure to ask about pre-heat with the unit that interests you.

Recovery time needs attention, too. Say you have a two-drawer unit you use just for hamburger buns. If you sell five hundred burgers in a day, each drawer will be opened 250 times. One manufacturer says one of its chain customers opens drawers every eight seconds during a rush. A warmer with a high maximum temperature is likely to recover faster than one with less range, but check the specs.

Insulation has a big effect on both heat retention and energy efficiency. Most major manufacturers add about an inch of insulation in the top and sides of their units. Better still are those with insulation wrapped around each drawer cavity. You should be able to touch a well-insulated unit without much discomfort. The warmer should be putting heat into the food, not your kitchen. And good insulation means you won’t pay more for HVAC.

It’s All About Control

Temperature controls also affect performance and efficiency. A lot of equipment makers give you the option of two drawers in a single cavity with a single control, or two individual drawer cavities with separate controls. The latter adds cost to the unit, but gives you the ability to hold foods at different temperatures or even turn one drawer off.

Simple low-medium-high settings may simplify operation for your staff, but leave you with little control over product temperature, recovery times or energy efficiency. Infinite controls may allow you to fine-tune product temps, but may be easier for employees to interfere with. Better, but more costly, are digital controls that let you set a specific holding temperature.

Venting gives you some control over both humidity and temperature. The vast majority of warmers in use are dry, vented drawers. On most, the vents are adjustable, letting you control how much moisture is retained in the drawer.

On some units, the vent is either open or closed. A few makers offer warmers without vents that are primarily used for warming tortilla chips or other products that have little or no moisture content. Gaining a little steam in the marketplace (so to speak) are humidified drawers, much like hot holding steam cabinets in drawer form (see sidebar).

A final note on performance: One or two units on the market have a fan, which makes them convection warmers. The advantage is more even heat and more rapid recovery than a typical radiant heat model.

Taking Abuse In The Kitchen

When we say drawer warmers have been used for just about everything, we’re not kidding. While two-drawer models can be configured as countertop units or put on casters, a large number are built in under countertops. And that means you’re likely to see employees using drawers as footstools when they need to reach something high on overshelves.

Drawer slides tend to take the most abuse, not only because of the weight they have to bear, but because they’re in almost constant use. Manufacturers tend to use 20-gauge stainless for the exterior cabinet of the warmer, and inside you can find slides made of 14-, 12- or even 11-gauge steel. The heavier the gauge, the longer they’ll last.

Tumbleweed Southwest Grill General Manager Kevin Ahrenholtz agrees. “The only trouble I’ve seen with drawer warmers [in other restaurants I’ve worked at] are with the tracks,” he says. “They’ll start to come loose with all the repeated openings, closings and being kicked shut.”

At the Tumbleweed in Green Bay, Wis.—our cover subject and also part of the 57-unit, Louisville, Ky., chain—kitchen staff rely on a pair of two-drawer warmers: one for baked potatoes and sweet potatoes, the other for broiled chicken or ribs. The drawers, located on each of the kitchen’s twin expo lines, are switched on in the morning and hum along steadily until closing. At peak serving times, up to 40 potatoes and an equivalent amount of chicken breasts go in and out of the drawers. As Ahrenholtz points out, that’s a lot of opens and closes.

You’ll want heavy-duty rollers and bearings, too. A few makers use nylon rollers. They’re inexpensive to replace, but if you’re loading heavy pans of baked potatoes in your drawers, a unit with stainless rollers and bearings may serve you better.

Handles, too, should be heavy duty. Metal, not plastic, though some are vinyl insulated. There seem to be as many styles of handles out there as drawer warmers. Some are an integral part of the door facing. Others are bolted or welded on. If you’re considering a model with the latter, at a minimum look for a handle that’s attached to the door frame, not just the face plate.

Next consideration: tubular elements, which most makers mount either directly beneath the drawer or around the perimeter of drawer cavity’s base. Tubular elements are the workhorse of resistance heating elements, both efficient and reliable. Make sure however, that the element in the model you choose is sheathed so it won’t get damaged. Some makers use an aluminum baffle to protect the heating element, which also serves to disperse heat better.

Smart Design, Longer Life

It’s one thing to build a piece of equipment with the right materials. It’s another to build it with you and your work environment in mind. Intelligent design isn’t controversial when it comes to warmers.

Let’s start with drawer design. A great feature on many units is “positive close.” Give the drawer a push and it slides closed the rest of the way by itself. Another feature you should look for is a drawer that opens fully. Employees should be able to lift pans straight in and out of the drawer. If they have to tip the pan to get it into the drawer, contents may spill.

Check to see that the drawer door has a good seal; no sense losing heat when the drawer is closed. Some units have drawers that latch when closed, so you know they’re sealed tightly. Latches also prevent drawers from accidentally popping open when someone bumps into the unit, saving bruised shins. Some chefs, however, don’t want to be bothered with a latch. They want to just grab a handle and pull.

And speaking of handles again, it may seem silly to choose a warmer on the basis of its handle, but if you have a lot of traffic, especially carts, passing in front of your warmer, look for handles that won’t get banged up or knocked off. Some units have tapered handles. Others integrate the handle into the door facing.

Control knobs, like handles, tend to get knocked off if they protrude too far into busy aisles. Look for models with recessed controls, which are less likely to be damaged by food spills, too. Control panels, though, should allow you easy access in case repairs are ever needed.

If you don’t want employees adjusting temperature settings on your warmers, get a unit that has separate on-off switches and temperature setting knobs. Units should have an on-off indicator light, too. And it helps if there’s a temperature gauge or thermometer for each drawer; some makers offer them as an option if they aren’t standard.

Designs To Suit Your Needs

While there’s nothing fancy about drawer warmers, there are always bells and whistles. A few offer digital electronic controls, making it easier for you to select and monitor a specific holding temperature.

For those of you with tight space in the kitchen, several makers offer a slim line of drawer warmers. These are designed so that pans are inserted with the long side front-to-back instead of side-to-side. Note that with the added length, drawer slides have to be extra strong for heavy loads.

Other options that give you more flexible capacity are an adaptable drawer assembly and a split drawer unit. The former allows you to adjust the drawer so it accepts a larger pan (15” x  20” x  5”) or half-size pans. The latter is a standard drawer-size unit with two drawers in it instead of one, both accommodating a shallower 2” hotel pan.

Some manufacturers offer a “de-featured” model as an option, to save costs. Also, find out if the model you want comes with hotel pans or not. Some makers offer pans standard with the unit. Models that come without pans may be less expensive.

Tumbleweed’s Ahrenholtz has nothing but praise for his pair of drawer warmers. The restaurant, which opened on Dec. 13, has had more than a few challenges with other pieces of brand new equipment malfunctioning or otherwise misbehaving. “But the drawer warmers have worked perfectly,” he notes.

Outlook: Hot And Humid

If there’s a drawback to vented drawer warmers, it’s that products held in them tend to dry out quickly. The vent helps control moisture to a degree. But as operators find more uses for drawer warmers, demand for humidified units has grown.

Adding moisture to the heated drawer means that moisture is less likely to be pulled out of the product. That means you can hold moist products—burgers, steaks, chicken breasts, vegetables—for longer periods without compromising quality.

There are two types of humidified drawer warmers: passive and active. Passive units use the warmer’s existing heat source to heat water. In some units, it’s as simple as adding water to a pan in the bottom of the drawer cavity. The problem here is that food can fall into the water, making it unsanitary. In other models, you put water and a perforated grid in a drawer insert, then place your food pan in the insert, much like a steam table in a drawer. The obvious drawback is hot water sloshing around when you open and close the drawer.

Active warmers use a heating element to warm the air in the drawer and a separate element to heat a pan of water inside the cavity. Typically, active humidified warmers come with electronic controls that allow you to control both air temperature and humidity level. Some have presets that take the guesswork out, giving you a choice of textures, such as moist, soft moist, firm moist and crisp.

You have to fill most humidified warmers manually, but they have low water indicator lights to remind you when to fill up. There is a model available with a 1/4-inch water connection that can be plumbed for auto-fill.

In the active humidified drawer category, we know of several suppliers: Carter-Hoffmann/Carrier, Henny Penny Corp., Wells/Carrier and Winston Industries. Consult our Web site, www.fermag.com, for links to company sites.

Products

Alto-Shaam’s 500-2D drawer warmer surrounds foods with patented Halo Heat for better moisture retention and longer holding. Dual-wattage control gives you the option of 500 watts for products like breads and rolls or 1,000 watts for meats, potatoes and veggies. Drawers accommodate oversized 15” x 20” x  5” or standard hotel pans. A canted control panel protects thermostat knob and indicator light from damage. Options include digital electronic temperature control. Go to www.alto-shaam.com or call 800/329-8744 for more information.—MS

Digital solid-state controls on the HDX-2 warmer from APW Wyott Foodservice Equipment Co. provide tighter cycle swings, which translates to faster start-up and recovery times. The heating element is located around the perimeter of the drawer, helping eliminate hot spots and providing more even heating with less drying. Drawer fronts flip down for easy cleaning and product loading/unloading. Drawer slides are constructed of 14-gauge stainless, and a new side roller design at the back of the drawer slide helps the drawer ride easily over typical binding spots. Drawer fronts are available in designer colors. To find out more call 800/527-2100 or go to www.apwwyott.com.—MS

With individual temperature controls and adjust-able vents on each drawer, the HDW-2 from Hatco Corp. holds everything from meat to rolls. Heavy-duty 12-gauge stainless slides and nylon rollers provide reliable and durable drawer performance. Completely insulated individual drawer cavities and metal-sheath elements with aluminum baffles help in-crease energy efficiency and produce cooler ambient kitchen temperatures. Options include designer drawer front colors, oversize drawer frame and pan, splash baffle and water spillage pan for humidifying a drawer, and electronic controls. Learn more by going to www.hatcocorp.com or calling 800/558-0607.—MS

Star Mfg.’s SDW2C drawer warmer has individual electronic temperature controls with easy-to-read LED temperature display for each drawer. Drawers are heated by perimeter heating elements, and cabinets are fully insulated on all sides. Drawer slides are constructed of 14-gauge stainless track and stainless roller bearings, and a positive drawer catch ensures a tight fit. Drawers open completely so pans lift straight out without tilting. Adjustable vents on each drawer control moisture. Visit www.star-mfg.com or call 800/264-7827 to find out more.—MS

Individual thermostatic controls and full insulation on all six sides, including drawer fronts, help the Toastmaster/Middleby 3B84A hold foods at proper and safe serving temperatures while retaining the right moisture content. Drawers are equipped with a positive latch operated by the handle, and glide on third member suspension rails. Twenty stainless bearings per drawer provide smooth drawer operation. A thermometer accurately reflects temperature in the coolest part of the drawer. Controls include a thermostat control knob and indicator light. More information is available by calling 847/741-3300 or by visiting www.toastmastercorp.com.—MS

The RW-2 Series drawer warmer from Wells/Carrier individual temperature and vent controls on each drawer, so you can keep foods hot and crispy in one and warm and moist in the other. Drawers feature a spring-loaded positive-closing mechanism, with durable stainless bearings on heavy-duty stainless steel slides for smooth operation. Model RW-2HD features reinforced construction for heavier food products, and the RWT-2 includes a thermometer. Options on the RW-2 include thermometers for individual drawers, and a stainless splash rack for those times you want to add water to humidify a drawer. Call 775/345-0444 or go to www.wellsbloomfield.com.—MS

Standard features on the 200-2R-C Series warmer from Wittco Foodservice Equipment include 14-gauge stainless slides and roller bearings, self-closing drawers, adjustable vents, recessed individual drawer control panels with indicator light and thermostatic control knob for temperatures up to 190ºF, insulation in side walls and top, and oversized handles. Hotel pans come with the unit. Options include an oversized 15” x 20” x 5” stainless pan with humidity grid for products that need additional moisture. To find out more, call 800/367-8413 or visit www.wittco.com.—MS