How Bakeries Rely on Caster Wheels for Operation

The bigger your bakery demands are, the more you will rely on food service equipment to smoothly complete tasks. With a long list of baked goods to prepare, cook and arrange for display, anything you can do to keep the process moving will help your business succeed.

Bakery caster wheels are specially engineered with metal housings and load-bearing wheels that hold important types of heavy duty cooking equipment. Common bakery items using caster wheels include refrigerators, ovens, cooling racks, and display cases. These casters and wheels may be made with stainless steel plates, rubber tread, nylon wheels and other materials.

Casters wheels keep bakeries up and running as they are used for moving, storing, baking, cooling and cleaning items. The materials are made to protect floors, turn smoothly, roll heavy items, and stay securely attached to equipment.  Some wheels offer as much as 700 pound capacity. Many caster wheels can withstand extreme temperatures, ranging from 400 to 750 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on the wheel. These can stand up to grease and handle caustic cleaning agents. Some wheels are made with brakes to keep equipment stagnant or be mobile, depending on restaurant needs. These wheels can steadily transport shelves, fridges, ovens and more from place to place.

 

Shop for bakery caster wheels, general food service casters and other applications at AccessCasters.com. 

Maintaining Food Service Equipment

Running a restaurant is a demanding job with a long list of responsibilities. One of the many tasks you must oversee is maintaining food service equipment. Proper maintenance helps protect the quality of food, ensure customer and employee safety, and meet food safety standards.  When you focus on the bigger picture of managing a business, it can be easy to overlook some of the minor equipment parts that require maintenance.

Here are 3 common types of food service equipment that require routine maintenance to help your business run smoothly.

Food and Beverage Pumps – If you have sauces, dressings or other types of food dispensed through condiment pumps, these require upkeep. It is essential to keep all parts of the pump clean and monitor calibration. Also, supervisors should ensure all pieces of the pumps are properly put together after cleaning.  

Caster Wheels – Food service casters play an important role in keeping back-of-house equipment stable.  Many of the heavy items that store, cook, and cool food items rest on caster wheels. For example, pizza ovens, refrigerators and freezers, shelves and fryers often use caster wheels. These must be replaced periodically to make sure equipment can continue to hold a large amount of weight and handle moving if necessary.

Soda Fountain Parts- Remembering to clean the outside of the soda fountain and rinse out the drain is often the first step in keeping this station sanitary. But, you also need to take the time to clean out the nozzles at the end of the day, and periodically check the syrup boxes and CO2 levels.

Overlooking minor tasks related to equipment maintenance can put people and products at risk. By routinely scheduling cleaning tasks, you can help provide the best restaurant experience for your business and clientele. 

Manufacturer Spotlight: Albion Casters

Access Casters sells stainless steel casters for a variety of light-duty applications. The stainless steel material makes these casters resistant to rust, steam, caustic solutions, and other corrosive agents. Albion Casters, founded in 1947, manufactures some of the high-quality stainless steel casters sold on AccessCasters.com.

Albion Inc. is a part of Colson Group USA, a caster company overseeing mobility brands worldwide. Colson Group has extended its reach to 15 countries with 25 facilities and 192,000 casters shipped daily. As a leader in caster innovation, Colson’s prestigious list of brands includes Shepherd, MedCaster, Rhombus, Jarvis, Imsa, Revvo, PEMCO, Faultless, and Bassick.

Albion also makes a variety of wheels, including metal, pneumatic, semi-pneumatic, nylon, propylene, and rubber tread. These caster experts also make parts and accessories that can meet custom requirements. This includes caster breaks, swivel locks, quick-release caster pages, leveling jacks, and more.

The Albion brand focuses on heavy-duty and material handling casters. It features a full line of industrial casters, including products holding more than 30,000 pounds per caster. It is the largest caster and wheel manufacturer in North America and creates unique and custom casters. Explore the Albion catalogue to view light, medium, and heavy duty casters. Shop now to find shock-absorbing casters, kingpinless casters, 310 and 410 Series casters, and pneumatic casters at AccessCasters.com.

Choosing Your Home Brewing Equipment

Brewing your own in-home craft beverages is becoming a major trend for hobbyists and beer drinkers alike. Once you’ve mastered the basics, you can expand your brewing venture by adding to your set of home brewing equipment which will allow you to make larger quantities of beer.

Consider these equipment add-ons which are perfect for the burgeoning brewer to invest in:

• Get a rig. Take your brewing to the next level with a beer brewing stand that can maximize space and has the perfect amount of tiers to hold all your equipment. You may choose one with a locking caster wheel that keep the brew stand firmly in place. With the right locking mechanism, the wheel and swivel section will both be secure. 

•  Graduate to a 5 or 6 gallon plastic carboy. Instead of carrying heavy glass carboys back and forth, this lightweight alternative can improve your processes.

• Spring for the wort chiller. Wort chillers expedite the process of cooling down wort to the perfect yeast-pitching temperature. This can lower the risk of contamination and preserve a better taste while maintaining lower levels of Dimethyl Sulfide. 

• Purchase a kegging system. As you are making larger batches of beer and getting into the habit of brewing more frequently, a kegging system can help you better manage the carbonation and storage of beer. It also saves you lots of time that might be spent cleaning bottles.

The home-brewing adventure will include some trial and error, as you figure out what methods, ingredients, and flavors work best for you. Remember to have fun even when the finished product turns out far more sour than you ever expected.

Hospital Caster Wheel Essentials

Mobility is an important feature for many types of hospital equipment. Hospital tasks depend on casters wheels in order to safely move items on a daily basis. 

Beds, laboratory equipment, MRIs, IV poles, case carts and pharmaceutical equipment all utilize caster wheels designed for reliable transportation. When it comes time to replace the medical caster wheels, consider the environment equipment will be in and the tasks necessary.

Outfit your medical equipment using wheels engineered to exhibit the following qualities: smooth rollability, capacity for varying temperatures, capacity for heavy weight and non-corrosive parts.

Smooth Movement – Whether you are transporting patients, lab equipment or imaging machines, you will want to be able to smoothly maneuver through halls, and in and out of elevators. Swivel casters can be useful for bulky shapes and tight turns.

Temperature Capacity – Medical casters made be used in places where items must stay refrigerated or are exposed to extreme heat. Autoclave casters are sold by Access Casters and designed to withstand high temperatures.

Weight Capacity: Medical, laboratory and electronic equipment is often heavy and fragile. Choose wheels that can securely hold items without quickly wearing down wheels or jostling items.

Non-Corrosive Parts: Medical equipment may be kept in areas that are washed down and exposed to corrosive chemicals. Stainless steel and other materials can be used to make wheel casters that will not rust or weaken from being subject to chemicals.

Finding a caster wheel that is safe and suitable to meet medical needs is possible when you shop the large selection available at AccessCasters.com. Start browsing caster wheels for hospital equipment today.

Duralast Polyurethane Wheel Casters

Hamilton Casters manufactures Duralast polyurethane wheel casters that are made to wear like steel. Each wheel is created to provide tread adherence, floor protection and versatility.  

Hamilton Casters offers guarantees against tread separation. You can have confidence that you will be able to use these industrial wheels for years to come. The material on these wheels is chemically and mechanically designed to keep the tread bonded. This allows you to put extreme wear on wheels without needing to quickly replace them. One example of these wheels is the W-420-D-3/4 Duralast Polyutherane Wheel, made with green polyurethane bonded to a heavy-duty cast iron center.

The special green tread is composed of high-grade liquid cast polyurethane. The durable material has a hardness of 90-95 Durometers (Shore A) and a tensile strength of 7,000 to 7,4000 PSI. The non-conductive tread has a high chemical resistance to many substances. The wheels are designed not to mark floors and provide 5 to 10 times as much abrasion resistance as many other brands.

Duralast wheels are a versatile option with many applications. These are made with or without bearings. Choose from options such as those with precision ball bearings or precision tapered bearings. Duralast wheels can be used in a variety of environments, withstanding exposure to many chemicals and temperatures. These are made for intermittent temperatures ranging from 50 to 200 degrees Fahrenheit, and continuous temperatures ranging from 0 to 180 degrees Fahrenheit.  Order long lasting caster wheels, engineered for the ultimate performance at AccessCaster.com.

Potential Shopping Cart Problems

Maintaining shopping cart casters is an important part of owning a business. Whether it’s a grocery store, hardware store, electronics store, department store or other business, shopping carts are a key element for providing a positive and safe shopping experience. Using quality shopping cart casters can result in less frequent wheel replacements, fewer accidents, and most importantly, a safer environment for shoppers and employees.

Broken or damaged shopping cart casters increase the risk of the following hazards:

Harming Customers and Employees – Shopping carts with busted wheels are difficult to steer. Trying to guide faulty carts, especially ones that are heavy or particularly unruly, can result in accidents. Users may strain muscles when attempting to pull or push carts, or lose control of the cart and run into bystanders.

Collisions with Items – Your products and property are at risk when carts cannot be steered correctly. With breakable items, it is important to ensure boxes are protected and not jostled around. A sharp turn or collision can result in knocking over items, breaking merchandise in the cart or damaging the aisles where products are stored. When wheels lock or are dragged against the ground, these can also end up scuffing the floor.

Damaging other cars – In addition to being a liability for your business, low quality or broken shopping cart casters can also become a nuisance, causing a domino effect of problem carts. One cart with a wheel askew can collide with other carts and incapacitate more caster wheels. Also, the life on low quality casters is shorter, requiring frequent maintenance.  

Quickly replace or fix loose and damaged shopping cart caster wheels before putting people, property and parts are risk.