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The Airport owns two barbecue-sized propane tanks and one 2-burner propane stove (maybe two). We can run several burners on one tanks using splitters or use the small bottles running one burner per bottle. I found a refill device that will allow us to refill and reuse the small bottles. I like that the best. It gives us the convenience and portability of the small bottles without the waste.
But how many burners do we need? This depends on how long it takes to cook one serving of pancake and how many servings per hour we want. Someone needs to do a test case and tell us how long it takes to cook pancakes.
Just for an estimate, let's say it takes five minutes to cook one serving. If we had 6 burners, that would be 72 servings per hour. That's not nearly enough. Let's say it takes half that time to cook one serving, which makes 144 servings per hour, which is still a little low. Ten burners at 3 minutes per serving, makes 200 servings per hour.
Sometime in the next few weeks, we need to find out how long it takes to cook pancakes.
Coffee is the other big problem. We need to make large quantities, and we may also want to call on Airport residents to help out with their stoves and coffee making equipment. We can provide plenty of grounds, but how do we process it into coffee?
Big electric percolaters take a long time and are expensive. We do have a generator to power it. Dripping through a filter takes a long time. Do we just get great big pots and dump the grounds in when the water's hot? Thermal storage for finished coffee would be great, so that the pot and burner can start heating the next batch. But maybe the coffee will go so fast, that we don't need to keep it hot.
It's $11 for a single unit burner at Harbor Freight. I'm thinking that the single units would be better, because you can't fit two large pots or two skillets on one burner anyway.
www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...item.taf
I may also get one of these nicer ones for use all week long in the Customs Office for making coffee every day for on-duty personnel.
www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...item.taf
Propane griddles are more rare. I see really nice 2x4 foot party griddles for RENT for $50-$100 per day. Coleman makes a camping propane griddle for $60, but wouldn't we need at least five to equal ten burners with skillets? Can we make our own big griddles? A big slab of steel on legs supported over the appropriate number of burners?
Here's a link for the Coleman griddle.
www.coleman.com/coleman/co.../detail.asp
Oh, oh, oh, I found a Coleman hot water on demand system while looking for the griddle. Look at this:
www.coleman.com/coleman/Co.../detail.asp
Hmmm, wonder if it *really* makes water hot enough for coffee?
But how many burners do we need? This depends on how long it takes to cook one serving of pancake and how many servings per hour we want. Someone needs to do a test case and tell us how long it takes to cook pancakes.
Just for an estimate, let's say it takes five minutes to cook one serving. If we had 6 burners, that would be 72 servings per hour. That's not nearly enough. Let's say it takes half that time to cook one serving, which makes 144 servings per hour, which is still a little low. Ten burners at 3 minutes per serving, makes 200 servings per hour.
Sometime in the next few weeks, we need to find out how long it takes to cook pancakes.
Coffee is the other big problem. We need to make large quantities, and we may also want to call on Airport residents to help out with their stoves and coffee making equipment. We can provide plenty of grounds, but how do we process it into coffee?
Big electric percolaters take a long time and are expensive. We do have a generator to power it. Dripping through a filter takes a long time. Do we just get great big pots and dump the grounds in when the water's hot? Thermal storage for finished coffee would be great, so that the pot and burner can start heating the next batch. But maybe the coffee will go so fast, that we don't need to keep it hot.
It's $11 for a single unit burner at Harbor Freight. I'm thinking that the single units would be better, because you can't fit two large pots or two skillets on one burner anyway.
www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...item.taf
I may also get one of these nicer ones for use all week long in the Customs Office for making coffee every day for on-duty personnel.
www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...item.taf
Propane griddles are more rare. I see really nice 2x4 foot party griddles for RENT for $50-$100 per day. Coleman makes a camping propane griddle for $60, but wouldn't we need at least five to equal ten burners with skillets? Can we make our own big griddles? A big slab of steel on legs supported over the appropriate number of burners?
Here's a link for the Coleman griddle.
www.coleman.com/coleman/co.../detail.asp
Oh, oh, oh, I found a Coleman hot water on demand system while looking for the griddle. Look at this:
www.coleman.com/coleman/Co.../detail.asp
Hmmm, wonder if it *really* makes water hot enough for coffee?
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SF Bay Area
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Re: Cooking equipment
Fri, July 8, 2005 - 12:36 AMI like griddles for cooking pancakes - the bigger and heavier the better.
Here's one that can fit across two burners of a 'standard' Coleman gas stove.
www.rei.com/online/store/ProductDisplay
or tinyurl.com/a4ox6
I usually start with a griddle set at 370 degrees and turn out up to 8-10 pancakes every 10 minutes or so. I'll time it next week and let you know what I get. Like you said, that will be the key to how many stations we need to have running. The deciding factor is square footage of hot surfaces. One person can keep a 5 or 6 by 2 foot griddle running without a lot of trouble. That can be a lot of pancakes.
However we do it, a rate of 200 servings an hour is going to take teamwork. You can't be watching the grill and mixing batter at the same time. Somebody else will have to be dedicated to keeping the coffee flowing. I am thinking that if we can get the supply of hot water flowing we can use a big drip setup straight into half gallon airpots. We had two problems last year, the hot water was coming too slowly and each batch of coffee was too small.
I don't know about the Coleman hot water on demand system. The electric one in my kitchen works great for tea but isn't quite hot enough for coffee.
I did find this write up about a Coleman stove top drip coffee maker:
www.landbigfish.com/articles/default.cfm
It says it can brew 10 cups in 10 minutes. If nothing else, we can get 4 of them for the price of the water heater and have change left over for a bag of beans.
I think we are on track. I'll check back in a few days.
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Re: Cooking equipment
Sun, July 17, 2005 - 9:37 PMI made a point of timing my pancakes this morning. With the griddle set at 400, each batch was ready to turn at 5 minutes and then another 2 minutes before they are done. With plating, getting ready for the next batch, my 8-10 minutes per round was a pretty good guess. With that, it looks like we need to have enough cooking surface to manage 16-17 pancakes at a time for every 100 servings.
-J
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