coolers for holding hot food?

[banqueteer]

Well I only have a couple of cambros for a huge job this weekend and they only have 1 oven to keep things warm. How would a cooler do in holding mashed potatoes for a couple of hours? Today I'm going to fill it with hot water and see how long it holds. I'm sure the cooler will be wasted after a few times but it's worth it till I get a few more cambros. Any other suggestions?

[chefteldanielle]

Try and see..
Be very careful not to scortch the cooler with very hot pans..
Danielle

[RitaFajita]

My experience is that coolers work okay for whatever type of holding- depending on the quality of the cooler and length of time. That certainly varies, and I think it is smart for you to run an experiment.

Just be careful if you have people helping you out (cleaning up, etc) who may be used to coolers being used for a different purpose. Make sure they are aware...

Once, when I worked for this one caterer, we had so much hot stuff that needed to be stored that we used some of the coolers that were normally used for other purposes, mainly chilling beverages (MY BOSS' decision, not mine). We did the job, things came back, got put away, etc. A few days later, something started to smell really bad in the back room where the coolers were stored. The smell ended up being a cooler full of left over meat rather than bevearges. It was pretty nasty. So, my advise would be, if you do it, LABEL it- and don't use coolers your employees are used to seeing in different applications - they will assume EVERYtime that it is being used the same way they saw it used last ( particularly at the end of the night when they just want to get the heck out of there).

If it is a smaller job and/or you have more control over it than my example and/or you want to use the cooler again, just remember, bleach is your friend I have seen coolers (a misnomer in my opinion- they are "temperature holders", really) work fine. Good luck with your job!
RF

[kuan]

Can't you borrow some cambros?

Kuan

[marmalady]

I've wrapped hot stuff in bubble wrap (get it from a Mailboxes, Etc. type place), then putting it in the cooler.

[foodnfoto]

Most rental companies that service the catering industry will also rent Cambro containers of various sizes. Considering food safety liability, I'd spring for the renting or buying some more Cambros than risking improper use of coolers. These devices are guaranteed to loose (hot foods)/gain (cold foods) no more than 2 degrees per hour of use.
Better safe than sorry.

[m brown]

cambro is gods gift to us all when transporting from point a to b!
i have used the cambro for hot and cold and it works well! careful with the fresh from the oven pans, best to transfer to fresh clean cool pans and the heat from the foods will do the trick!

one time i used the hot air intake (we were in a tent) to keep my banana upsidedown cakes warm! they were triple wrapped but it kept them at the right temp for flipping!

[chefteldanielle]

What is your location?? If you are local you could gladly borrow mine.
Daniele