Free Sample
The Complete Handbook of Steam Table Pan Covers
A practical reference for foodservice operators, caterers, and serious kitchen users on selecting, using, and maintaining steam table pan covers.
by Alumigogo Books
Chapter 1: Understanding Steam Table Pan Covers
Walk into any buffet line, hotel breakfast service, or high-volume catering kitchen, and you will see them: the stainless steel or plastic lids sitting on top of the chafing dishes and steam table wells. They are easy to overlook, treated as simple accessories purchased out of a catalog when an old one gets dented. But a steam table pan cover is a functional component in a carefully balanced heat-management system. Choosing the wrong cover, or using a good cover incorrectly, can mean the difference between a perfectly held soup, service line.
At its most basic, a steam table pan cover is a lid designed to fit on top of a standard food pan, typically constructed to fit into a steam table or a hot food well. They are most commonly manufactured to fit the Gastronorm (GN) standard, a specification for food pan dimensions used internationally in commercial kitchens. In this system, a full-size pan measures approximately 12 inches by 20 inches (GN 1/1), and a half-size pan measures 10 inches by 12 inches (GN 1/2). The cover is built to follow this footprint, forming a sealed or semi-sealed enclosure over the food inside.
The physics of the steam table itself is central to understanding why the cover matters so much. A steam table well, or hot well, is a heated reservoir that holds water. The heat can be applied in one of two ways: a "wet" operation, which uses an immersion heater element