Chafing Dish Fuel & Accessories
Looking for quality chafing dish fuel for your restaurant, food-service establishment, or catering business? Here at Rapids Wholesale, we give you a selection of chafing dish fuel gel and chafing fuel cans that are guaranteed to produce dependable and safe heat.
Chafing Dish Fuel
Chafer fuel is mostly made of easy heat, which is a cheap and very safe way to heat chafer dishes. Chafing dish fuel tends to be odorless and reusable; the fact that you don’t need to burn all of the fuel in one use can save you money and add to the profits of your restaurant or food-service establishment.
Chafing dish fuel is a generic term for different types of fuel that are used for heating food, especially in chafer dishes. Chafing fuel can include the following: diethylene glycol, ethanol, methanol, and similar substances. These types of chemicals are the most common chafer fuel because they may be burned safely indoors. In fact, these types of chemicals are considered extremely safe heat. Not limited for use in chafing dish warmers or chafing dish burners, different types of chafing fuel are also ideal for use in outdoor cooking, coffee urns, fondue, and emergency heating.
Types of Chafing Fuel
The most common types of chafer fuel come in canned form. In fact, canned chafing fuel is one of the most in-demand products for restaurants, food-service establishments, and hotels that specialize in buffet and banquet dinners as well as for caterers.
Both ethanol and methanol are excellent sources of chafing dish fuel. Both come in the form of chafing dish fuel gel and have similarities with regard to consistency; however, the viscosity can change from brand to brand. Product design as well as operating procedures can also vary depending on the brand of chafing gel fuel used.
When compared side by side in terms of energy production, ethanol gives off more energy. It gives off 1300kJ/mol heat of combustion compared to methanol, which gives off 720kJ/mol of combustion. The common methanol or ethanol chafing fuel gel comes in chafing fuel cans made of steel. Cans come with a resealable plug lid in sizes that are based on burn times. For instance, two, four, and six-hour burn times are the most common sizes of methanol and ethanol chafing fuels.
The third type of chafing dish fuel, diethylene glycol, differs from the other two types in the sense that the “fuel” itself is not actually flammable. The container containing the diethylene glycol has a wick included, which allows the chemical to combust. Diethylene glycol chafer fuel is actually considered a lot safer than ethanol or methanol because spilled diethylene glycol fuel is not combustible. The fuel is actually in liquid form and thus the canister in which it is contained usually features a more leak-resistant screw cap rather than a plug. Diethylene glycol chafing fuel actually has a higher heat of combustion then ethanol or methanol gel, at 2155 kJ/mol.
Chafer Fuel for Use as Camping Fuel
Chafing dish fuel can also be effectively used as camping fuel. However, there are several pros and cons in using canned chafing fuel for camping purposes. The lightweight size and the burn time per gram of fuel weight received from this method are very high. Chafer fuel also produces clean burning, is quiet, is relatively safer, and is more readily available than most other portable heat sources. However, one of the main disadvantages of chafing fuel is that it produces a relatively lower heat output when compared to other popular heating-fuel alternatives such as white gas and kerosene, which tends to result in shorter cooking times.
Where to Buy Chafing Fuel? Here at Rapids Wholesale
Here at Rapids Wholesale, we have a selection of canned chafing fuel available in different ranges of burning times.
Check out our Power Heat chafing fuel gel (with a two-hour burn time) that produces more heat output than wick types, or perhaps you might prefer a longer-burn wick chafing fuel (with a six-hour burn time) that includes a resealable screw cap.
Replacement fuel holders and chafer storage boxes are also available here at Rapids.
