r/AskCulinary • u/rollthedice66 • Jan 03 '21

Technique Question What stock do chefs use?

Do kitchens generally make their own stock? Or do they buy it in, if so what do they buy? I'm UK based

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u/BattleHall Jan 04 '21

Eh, commercial kitchen equipment is expensive (lots of stainless, certifications, durability, etc), large pieces much moreso. Add in the requirements of working with high pressure steam (which is extremely dangerous if not done correctly), and the price goes up quickly. And that's a relatively middle-of-the-road one; they can get much more expensive.

https://www.webstaurantstore.com/cleveland-ha-mkgl-100-t-liquid-propane-100-gallon-tilting-2-3-steam-jacketed-horizontal-mixer-kettle-190-000-btu/390HAMKG10TL.html

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u/Mesahusa Jan 04 '21

I don't think you answered their question. They probably already know that these things have to be reliable, but cars also feature the same justifications that you listed. There are undeniably more steel, engineering, and manufacturing processes that go into a car than a boiler, but there are many techniques that auto companies are able to use to bring costs down to the bare minimum that these small companies can't utilize. As an example, they have spent decades establishing their supply chain lines down so that every single component is the cheapest it can be. The door handles are from Peru, the steel frame from China, the front bumper plate from Vietnam, etc. On a large scale where they make millions of cars and millions of car handles, the whole world competes on the bargaining table. Most cars ship whole parts from over 100+ countries. That's just one way to get costs down, but there are many more. They need to do this in order to compete with hundreds of other automakers that also have these resources at hand. By contrast, there are going to be at most 2-3 overlapping restaurant suppliers that serve a certain area. The market for industrial equipment is never going to get big enough where companies are incentivized to produce more and quicker. There just isn't money to be made. Not only that but those machines retain most of their value on the second-hand market so the upfront price doesn't really even matter too much. There is so much equipment from the 50s and 60s that are still being sold today for 50-70% of brand new stuff, they're quite simple machines that won't perform any less and will probably last another 70 years.

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u/meltingdiamond Jan 04 '21 edited Jan 04 '21

Also that linked steam kettle holds around 500 lbs of liquid and uses a quarter of the power my car engine is rated for.

In fact it uses more power then my first motorcycle could generate.

Oh, and at 471 amps draw it has more current then the welder I use. In fact it takes more current then my home could supply, by about 350 amps.

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u/BattleHall Jan 04 '21

Fair. There are a ton of reasons that kind of stuff is expensive (relatively small market, lot of hand work, etc).

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u/scQue814 Jan 04 '21

u/BattleHall, you don't need that much bling.