With any piece of equipment there is always a list of do’s and don’ts to keep the equipment in good working order. Do change the oil in your car every 3,000 miles, don’t press the gas and brake pedal at the same time. Do wash your blender after every use, don’t operate without the cover securely placed. Similarly for AutoFry, we have a short list, our golden rules to success, and today we’re going to share them with you. Just three easy principals that will lead to long machine life, great tasting food and less chance of machine breakdown. Of course, there are more than just three principals to managing any machine, and we highly encourage you to read through your owner’s manual before operating and refer to our AutoFry troubleshooting guide should you need additional assistance.
We’ve written about this before, filter changes are imperative to keeping ventless equipment in good working order. Consider how well a kitchen would vent if its vents were never cleaned. It wouldn’t! The vent would be caked up from grease laden vapors and would be unable to properly vent the kitchen space.
The same holds true for AutoFry. The AutoFry’s charcoal and mesh filters are the main component to the fryer that keeps it ventless – if they’re full of grease and grime because they haven’t been changed in a while, you can bet your fryer is not properly venting! Delayed filter changes are the number one cause of machine breakdown. Not changing your filter can lead to condensation buildup, bad tasting food and foul odor emissions
Because filter changes are so important we have discounted rates on full-year packs of our fryer filters as well as a filter change reminder program that will notify you each time you need to change your filters. Plus you can save an additional $10 on filter prices just for signing up for our reminder program.
It goes without saying that food is going to taste better when it’s been cooked in clean oil. But clean oil doesn’t necessarily mean new oil. You don’t have to start each frying batch with new oil, but you should be filtering oil as you go to remove any dirty particles that potentially could transfer bad taste on to your food. Frequency of filtering and changing oil will vary for each location based on the volume of frying taking place each day. High volume fryers may need to filter twice a day, while smaller volume stores can get away with filtering daily. Similarly, the frequency at which you need to change oil will vary based on the type of oil used as well as volume of frying. You can learn more about determining oil filtering and changing frequency here.
As for maintaining that clean fryer oil, you have two basic options for filtering your oil. You can do it manually with our MirOil filtering system which takes about 15 minutes to complete. Or you can also filter your oil automatically with our AutoFilter filtration unit. This quick little filtering system fits right within your oil pot and takes just a few minutes to filter your oil, removing even the smallest particles. You can learn more about AutoFry’s two filtering options here.
One of the more common technical support calls we get on a daily basis is for an AutoFry basket error. Baskets can get misaligned for various reasons. Most commonly, baskets are misaligned after users have cooked more product than is recommended for their size machine, causing the basket to weigh down or product is loaded into the machine before the basket has returned to the ready position, causing the basket to lift up. Therefore the easiest way to ensure your basket stays at the appropriate height is to make sure never to load more product than your machine can handle and to always wait for the keypad to display the ready message.
Should you ever find your basket isn’t dumping food all the way or your machine displays the basket motor error, you can easily adjust your basket height with nothing more than a large crescent wrench and a little elbow grease. Check out our blog post on adjusting your basket, or watch the easy video tutorial here.
There you have it! The three golden rules that will keep your AutoFry fryer running to the best of its ability. Should you find you’re having difficulty in another area, we have a full comprehensive list of potential machine errors, probably causes and solutions available here. We also have some of the best customer service agents in the industry who are always happy to help assist you in troubleshooting your AutoFry. Our customer service line is open 8am-8pm daily when you call 800-348-2976 or you can submit a service contact form found here for online help!