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Kitchen extraction - filters by cooking
Two kitchens open the same hours can grease up their canopy filters at completely different rates, because they cook differently. A wok, a grill and a fryer each throw grease into the air in their own way and their own quantity - so the right filter cleaning frequency follows the cooking style, not a one-size schedule.
The short answer
Baffle filters load with grease at a rate set by cooking style, not just hours. High-heat, grease-heavy cooking - a wok's intense aerosolised grease, a grill's heavy fat and smoke, a fryer's oil mist - loads filters far faster than lighter cooking, so a kitchen doing a lot of it needs its filters cleaned more often. The right frequency follows how grease-heavy the cooking actually is: match the filter cleaning to the cooking style, cleaning more often where the style throws more grease, rather than applying one fixed schedule to every kitchen.
Cooking style, not just hours
Baffle filters catch the grease rising off the cookline, so how fast they load with grease depends on how much grease the cooking produces - which is a matter of cooking style as much as cooking hours. Two kitchens open the same hours can grease up their filters at very different rates if one does high-heat, grease-heavy cooking and the other does light cooking, because the amount of grease thrown into the air differs enormously between styles. So filter cleaning frequency cannot sensibly be a single fixed schedule for all kitchens - it has to follow the cooking style.
This is an important refinement on the general point that filters need frequent cleaning. Yes, filters foul fast and need cleaning often - but how often depends on the specific cooking. A kitchen doing intense, greasy cooking will load its filters much faster than one doing gentle cooking, even for the same hours, so it needs cleaning more frequently. Matching the filter cleaning to the cooking style - more often for grease-heavy styles - is how a kitchen keeps its filters genuinely working, rather than applying an interval that is too slack for heavy cooking or unnecessarily tight for light.
Wok, grill, fryer
The grease-heavy cooking styles load filters fastest, each in its own way. Wok cooking is intense and high-heat, tossing food in oil over a fierce flame, which aerosolises a lot of grease into the air very quickly - a busy wok station throws grease at the filters at a high rate. Grilling, especially of fatty meats, produces heavy fat, smoke and grease as the fat renders and drips onto the heat, loading the filters with a substantial grease and particulate load. Frying generates oil mist and vapour that carries grease into the extract continuously while the fryers are in use.
These styles are among the greasiest, so kitchens built around them - a wok-heavy operation, a grill house, a fryer-heavy takeaway - load their filters far faster than a kitchen doing lighter cooking. The point is not that one is worse than another but that all three are grease-heavy and demand frequent filter cleaning, more so than gentler styles like boiling, steaming or light cooking that produce far less airborne grease. A kitchen's dominant cooking style tells you a lot about how fast its filters will foul and therefore how often they need cleaning.
Why matching matters
Matching filter frequency to cooking style matters because a filter loaded past its capacity fails at its job regardless of what the cleaning schedule says. A grease-heavy kitchen on a filter-cleaning interval set for lighter cooking will have its filters clog before the next clean - and a clogged baffle filter restricts airflow so the extract pulls less, stops catching grease so more passes into the ductwork, and becomes a fire risk directly over the flames. The consequences of an over-loaded filter are the same whether the loading came from heavy cooking or an interval that was too slack for it.
So a fixed schedule that ignores cooking style will be wrong for the grease-heavy kitchens - too slack, letting the filters clog between cleans. Matching the frequency to the style avoids that: a wok, grill or fryer-heavy kitchen cleaning its filters frequently enough for its actual grease output keeps them working, while a lighter kitchen can clean less often without the filters clogging. Getting the filter frequency right is therefore a matter of reading the cooking style and cleaning to match it, so the filters never load past the point where they fail - which a one-size schedule cannot ensure across different cooking styles.
Setting the frequency
Setting the right filter frequency means starting from the cooking style - a grease-heavy operation cleaning its filters frequently, a lighter one less often - and then, as with the system as a whole, letting the filters themselves confirm it. If the filters are heavily loaded with grease by the time they are cleaned, the interval is too long for the cooking and should be shortened; if they are only lightly loaded, the interval may be about right or could be relaxed. The filters' actual condition at each clean is the feedback that tunes the frequency to the real cooking.
In practice, for grease-heavy styles this often means very frequent cleaning - filters that see intense wok, grill or fryer use may need cleaning daily or close to it, because they load so fast. This is usually an in-house task built into the kitchen's routine, and matching how often it is done to how grease-heavy the cooking is keeps the filters working. So the principle is simple: read the cooking style to set a starting frequency, clean more often for grease-heavy styles, and let the filters' condition at each clean confirm or adjust it. That matches the filter cleaning to what the cooking actually produces.
The takeaway
Baffle filters load with grease at a rate set by cooking style, not just hours - so two kitchens open the same time can foul their filters at very different rates depending on how they cook. Grease-heavy styles load them fastest: a wok's intense aerosolised grease, a grill's rendered fat and smoke, a fryer's continuous oil mist all throw far more grease at the filters than lighter cooking. So the right filter frequency follows the cooking style.
Matching matters because a filter loaded past its capacity fails - clogging airflow, letting grease through, and becoming a fire risk over the flames - regardless of the schedule, so a fixed interval that ignores cooking style will be too slack for the grease-heavy kitchens. Read your dominant cooking style to set the frequency, clean more often for grease-heavy styles, and let the filters' condition at each clean confirm it. Match the filter cleaning to how you actually cook, and the filters keep working.
Questions
Because baffle filters catch the grease rising off the cookline, and how much grease the cooking produces depends on the style, not just the hours. Grease-heavy styles throw far more grease at the filters, so they load faster and need cleaning more often.
Grease-heavy, high-heat styles - wok cooking (intense, aerosolised grease), grilling of fatty meats (rendered fat, smoke and grease), and frying (continuous oil mist and vapour). These load filters far faster than lighter styles like boiling or steaming.
Yes - if one does grease-heavy cooking and the other light cooking, they grease up their filters at very different rates for the same hours. That is exactly why filter frequency should follow cooking style rather than a single fixed schedule.
A filter loaded past its capacity fails regardless of the schedule - it restricts airflow so the extract pulls less, stops catching grease so more passes into the ductwork, and becomes a fire risk directly over the flames. A fixed interval too slack for the cooking lets this happen.
Often very frequently - filters seeing intense wok, grill or fryer use may need cleaning daily or close to it, because they load so fast. It is usually an in-house task, and how often it is done should match how grease-heavy the cooking is.
Start from the cooking style - grease-heavy operations cleaning frequently, lighter ones less - then let the filters' condition at each clean confirm it. Heavily loaded filters mean the interval is too long; lightly loaded ones mean it may be about right or could relax.
We clean the extract system behind your filters on a cycle matched to your cooking, and can advise how often your filters need doing for your style - so the whole system keeps working.
