Kitchen Upgrade - Requirements

What I would like to use the kitchen for

• Social Wednesday - needs to support food prep, cooking, and serving for up to a max of 16 people.

• Generally cooking meals while at the space - For those long days at the space (Saturdays particularly) it would be lovely to be able to share simple (healthy) meals at the space, instead of resorting to fast food / Uber Eats.

• Making coffee & tea.

Facilities / Equipment

• Repair / paint wall

  • The kitchen wall has a lot of wear and tear which should be patched & painted before building out the rest of the kitchen.

• Storage

  • Closed cupboards (with doors) so kitchen stuff doesn't get covered in workshop dust.

  • Store all kitchen equipment in closed cupboards.

  • Pantry to store communal shared ingredients (salt, oil, spices, rice, flour...) and member ingredients.

• Cooking (stovetops / oven)

  • Bare minimum requirement is to be able to cook 2 things at once (e.g. a pot of pasta and a pot of sauce)

  • A full 4-burner + oven would be ideal.

  • Rangehood / extraction

• Work surfaces

  • Easily cleaned

  • Well lit

• Basic selection of kitchen equipment

  • So people don't have to bring in their own gear to each Social Wednesday, like we have been!

  • Crockery & cutlery: Enough for 16 people. Bonus points if it all matches, extra bonus points if it stacks easily in the dishwasher.

  • Basic kitchen equipment: Pots, pans, knives, measuring doodads, and so on. Pots and pans need to be induction cooktop compatible.

  • Appliances: Rice cooker, air fryer, sandwich toaster, etc. (We have a lot of these already.)

• Safety

  • Fire extinguishers / fire blankets

  • Smoke detection?

Traps

• Shared kitchens need rigorous discipline around cleanliness and hygiene.

  • Clean up & do your dishes - or else!

  • Store things in vermin-proof containers

  • Labelling foodstuffs (name & date), regular scheduled kitchen/pantry clearouts.

• Shared kitchen equipment needs to be member-proof

  • Either indestructible, or cheap and easily replaced.

• Storage space constraints

  • Storing 1 meal's worth of groceries in the the fridge vs. storing a week's worth of groceries in the fridge - communicate expectations that the kitchen is for occasional use, not as your main kitchen

  • Set clear boundaries RE kitchen storage

I would like a toaster and toasted sandwich maker.

One of those plastic lids for microwaving food.

Clamped toasted sandwich maker specifically? (I think we already have one of those panini presses)

I believe the items listed cover everything I would want.

Knife sharpening stuff (I may be able to provide this)

@Steve I have a whole bunch of knives I want to sharpen also (every knife in my house is blunt!) As a side item, we could totally run a Tool Talk about knife sharpening... (off topic for this thread, but we can discuss elsewhere.)

I'm a bit hesitant to install a full stove and oven. We don't particularly want to encourage people to live in the space (unless they are just napping in their woodchips)

It's definitely a difficult thing to balance.

Another thing with ovens and electric cooktops: they need to be hard wired and ovens in particular can draw a fair number of amps. Our distribution board is already not pretty. I'm not so concerned about people living in the space (it's pretty easy to police, after all) and generally think an oven would be a good addition for social events of all kinds.

For the cook top, given its potential use in preparation/ reheating for Wednesdays, I'd suggest going big. Running a gas cooktop on bottled gas (with the appropriate jets) would get us around the electric supply problem.

@Ben Connor hey great idea! I have an old upright oven/range in my back yard as part of my outdoor kitchen. It has been plumbed into gas (as has been my bbq). I got mine from the side of the road :-). ++ On the need for appropriate jets.

Not free, but a possibility. https://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/bayswater/ovens/chef-free-standing-gas-stove-gas-oven-60-vinsan-salvage-g1559/1324348804. (Obviously not the only or even the best option) This looks like the baby version of what I have. The file down top cover makes it bench space when I'm not using it. There no reason we couldn't make a cover like this.

After last night... That huge burner is great for wok use. The only downside is that it needs to be at bench height for ergonomic use. If we could embed it in a bench (it would double as where it gets stored when not in use for other things) we could have a removable bench top that would expose it when we want to use it. It's not something that would be frequently used, so embedding it in what we normally use as a food prep area would provide double/triple use.

just an FYI gas bottles (LPG) arent intended for indoor use. see : https://www.commerce.wa.gov.au/sites/default/files/atoms/files/the_safe_use_of_lp_gas_at_public_venues_in_wa.pdf