Types of Liquid Filtration Systems Used by Restaurants

Water quality is essential to the function of a restaurant. From ice makers to soda fountains and espresso machines, your restaurant likely requires clean, fresh water for a variety of applications. Fortunately, there are a wide range of liquid filtration systems to meet your restaurants needs. Reverse osmosis, carbon block filters, sediment filters, and Ultraviolet filtration, either alone or in conjunction with one another, all offer filtration solutions for your restaurant.

How Filtration Is Typically Leveraged in A Restaurant Setting

Water serves many different important functions at a restaurant, and ensuring the water is clear of contaminants should be essential for your restaurant or commercial kitchen. Whether you want to keep equipment free of scale or you want to brew the perfect pot of coffee every time, a filtration system is key to your restaurant’s success.

Water filtration systems will remove many different contaminants from the water supply, including minerals, sediment, chemicals, and even organic matter. This not only improves the taste of food and beverages, it also helps keep equipment running and results in fewer breakdowns.

A primary concern for restaurant owners is the taste of foods and drinks they serve to customers. Hard water, or water with unwanted sediment or minerals, will likely have an effect on how a menu item tastes. With the right filtration system, ice will be clearer, soda more appetizing, and coffee fresher. In addition to taste, however, hard water could also cause damage to equipment. Scale buildup in coffee makers could affect performance, as well.

Types of Filtration Systems and Filters Used for Restaurant Applications

There are a number of filtration options available for restaurant owners and managers to choose from. Below we’ve detailed these filtration systems to aid in your selection of water filters.

Reverse Osmosis

One effective filtration system is reverse osmosis. In a reverse osmosis, or RO, system, pressure is used to push water through a semipermeable membrane. The membrane acts as an ultra-fine filter, blocking a wide number of contaminants, including sulfates, heavy metals, dissolved solids, and even chloride, which can add a salty taste to the water.

A reverse osmosis system is the ideal filtration system for applications that require high quality water. An ice maker, for instance, would greatly benefit from RO filtration. Because taste and clarity are important to the quality of ice, reverse osmosis systems are essential. They will remove very fine sediment and minerals, allowing for crystal clear ice every time. In addition, as the ice melts in iced coffee and glasses of water, soda, tea, or even cocktails, the taste will not be affected.

View Commercial Filtration Supply’s selection of reverse osmosis solutions here.

Carbon Block Filters

Customers often want to drink purified water without the purified taste. Carbon block filtration removes unwanted or potentially harmful chemicals from water, restoring its fresh taste. These filters effectively remove chorine, chloramines, and even some types of bacteria from water before it makes its way into a customer’s food or drink.

While carbon filters can also filter out sediment, dirt can quickly clog the filter, resulting in lower pressure. For this reason, a sediment pre-filter is often added to a carbon block filter system, to remove the sediment before it passes through the carbon filter.

Soda fountains require the perfect ratio of syrup to water to make delicious and refreshing drinks every time. Having clear, fresh, filtered water, then, is an important part of the equation. Water containing chlorine, sediment, and unwanted minerals could lead to flat, boring soda. Water filtered through a carbon block filtration system, on the other hand, will blend with the syrup and carbonation for the right amount of fizz and sweetness every time.

View Commercial Filtration Supply’s carbon block filter cartridges for water filtration here.

Sediment Filtration

Sediment filtration effectively removes the things we can see in our water. Typically, this would include dirt and debris, but also the turbidity, or cloudiness, in the water, caused by an abundance of suspended solids. However, sediment filtration does not remove smaller, unseen particles or contaminants like chemicals, heavy metals, bacteria, or dissolved solids. Consider these filters as a first line of defense for an overall water filtration system, used in conjunction with RO or carbon filters. This way, the sediment filter will trap the larger particles, keeping the other filters unclogged and functioning at peak performance downstream.

Coffee shops benefit greatly from sediment filtration. Some dissolved minerals can still make their way into the water, which is known to enhance the flavor of certain caffeinated beverages, including espresso. However, heavier particles will not be permitted. This keeps coffee and espresso equipment free from scaly buildup, which can affect not only taste, but performance as well.

Dishwashers will also function better with filtered water. When glasses are cleaned with water free of sediment, the result it a crystal-clear finish every time.

View Commercial Filtration Supply’s sediment filter cartridges for water filtration here.

Also available are bag filters for use in Food & Beverage applications, found here.

Don’t know if you should use filter bags or cartridges? Read the difference between the two in our blog post.

Ultraviolet Light

In areas where water quality is lower, an ultraviolet light filter may be needed. These UV filters disinfect water by killing microorganisms and neutralizing harmful bacteria and parasites. However, UV filters are less effective when the turbidity of the water may be higher. For this reason, a sediment pre-filter is usually installed to remove the cloudiness in the water before it passes through the UV filter. This way, the water will be free of both sediment and harmful bacteria or organic matter.

The Benefits

Because of water’s importance to the everyday functions of the food industry, ensuring that your water is clean is essential. First and foremost, clean, filtered water improves taste. Being able to offer your customers the best cup of coffee or clear, fresh tasting soda is a little detail with big impact. They may not even notice when you serve them fresh filtered water, but they’ll certainly notice if the water, ice, coffee, and tea you serve is less than fresh.

In addition to improving taste, an effective water filtration system could also increase the lifespan and overall productivity of your kitchen equipment. A coffee maker without scaly buildup will brew better cups of coffee, and a dishwasher using clean water will produce crystal clear glasses every time. It’s even estimated that equipment maintenance costs are cut by as much as 75% when effective water filtration measures are put in place. When the restaurant doesn’t need to shut down for maintenance, this has a big impact on the bottom line.

Commercial Filtration for Food and Beverage Applications

When it comes to water filtration for your restaurant, you have many options to choose from. RO systems filter fine particles from water, while carbon block filters remove chlorine and heavy metals. You may also want to consider using a sediment filter in conjunction with your other water filtration equipment, to ensure the water used in your kitchen is clear, fresh, and free of dangerous chemicals or bacteria. These measures will not only improve the taste of your food and drinks, but they’ll improve the functionality of your valuable kitchen equipment as well. Contact us to learn more about the right filtration system for your restaurant, coffee shop, or commercial kitchen.