Commercial Salad Spinners

Work from how much leaf gets washed in one go, not how much gets used in a day. A 4.5 litre bowl handles herbs, garnish and enough leaf for a few salads, which suits a cafe or a bar doing food. A 10 litre suits a small restaurant washing leaf once or twice a day. A 20 litre is the kitchen size, for a venue running salads through every service, a function room or a caterer.

Buying one size up is rarely wasted, because a big spinner can be run half full and a small one can't be run over full. Going up in size does mean more bench space and a heavier lift when it's loaded, so check where it will sit and where it will be stored.

A crank model costs less, needs no power point and has very little to go wrong. Somebody has to stand there and turn it, so it's fine for a couple of batches in the morning and tiring by the fifth.

An electric model is loaded, set on a timer and left, which frees the prep hand for something else and gives the same spin every time. It needs a power point where it will sit, it's heavier, and there is a motor and a timer that can eventually fail. A kitchen washing leaf all morning gets the money back on an electric one, and a cafe doing two batches a day generally won't.

Yes. Water left sitting on washed leaf breaks the cell walls down and starts the rot, and the leaf at the bottom of the container goes first because that's where the water collects. Spun leaf packs into a container dry and comes out of the cool room the next day still crisp, where unspun leaf is usually binned within a day or two.

It also cuts what goes down the drain at service. Wet leaf drips through a plated salad and wets the rest of the plate, and it waters the dressing down to nothing.

Less than the number suggests, because the basket has to have room for the leaf to move. Fill it loosely to about two thirds and it will spin dry in one cycle. Pack it to the rim and the leaf in the middle stays wet, the basket goes out of balance and the whole machine shakes on the bench.

Two smaller batches take less time overall than one overloaded one that has to be done twice. Shake the basket out between batches and drain the water from the outer bowl, because a bowl full of water slows the basket down and puts the water straight back onto the leaf.

A hand-cranked spinner will walk if the bench is wet or the load is uneven, and that's the most common complaint about them. Dry the bench, load the basket evenly, and hold the lid handle while cranking. Dynamic offers the AC019 stabilising base for the E20, E20SC and EM98, which is the proper fix if it keeps happening.

The sealed cover on the E20SC also keeps the water in the bowl instead of over the bench and the operator, which matters if the spinner sits anywhere near a plating area. The Yasaki electric comes on castors, so it can be wheeled to the sink to be emptied instead of being carried full.

The bowl, basket and lid come apart, and they need to be washed after every session rather than rinsed. Leaf fragments lodge in the basket holes and in the gear housing on the lid, and they go off quickly in a warm kitchen.

Check what the maker says about machine washing before anything goes through a dishwasher, because the gear mechanism in a crank lid is not made for it and heat will distort a large polycarbonate bowl. Wash the lid mechanism by hand either way. Let everything dry fully before it's stored, and store the bowl and basket apart so air gets through them.

Yes. Parsley, coriander, basil and other soft herbs come out of a spinner far better than they come off a cloth, and they keep much longer once they're dry. Cut herbs bruise easily, so run a short cycle and don't pack the basket.

Washed spinach, rocket, kale, bean sprouts and shredded cabbage all spin well. Berries and anything soft enough to crush do not. Some kitchens also use a spinner to drain blanched vegetables before they're chilled, which stops water sitting in the container and diluting whatever they're dressed with later.

Because the leaf is wet. Oil and water don't mix, so a film of water on the leaf keeps the dressing off it, and the dressing runs to the bottom of the bowl within a minute of tossing. The salad then looks dry on the plate while the last serve out of the bowl is swimming.

Spin the leaf properly, dress at the last moment, and use less dressing than you think you need. A dry leaf takes far less dressing to look and taste dressed, which brings the cost per salad down at the same time.

A sink or a large tub for washing, containers for the dry leaf, and a good knife for the prep. Chef knives covers the cooks knives and the vegetable and tomato knives that do the cutting, and commercial kitchen utensils covers the colanders, tongs, scoops and squeeze bottles for the dressing.

A kitchen doing salad in real volume usually pairs a spinner with a machine that does the slicing and shredding. Veg prep machines covers those, and the two together turn a whole morning of salad prep into an hour.