Commercial Bratt Pans

What a bratt pan does, and what it replaces

A bratt pan is a large, shallow rectangular pan with a heated base, a hinged lid and a tilting mechanism. Heat comes from underneath across the whole floor, and the pan tips forward so you empty it without lifting.

Shallow-fry onions and mince across the base. Add stock, drop the lid, and it braises. Fill it with water and it boils pasta or vegetables. Turn it down and it holds at temperature.

One footprint doing the work of a boiling pan, a large frying surface and most of a braising oven. A bratt pan takes real floor space and earns it by clearing three other claims on it.

Bratt pan, boiling pan or braising pan?

The trade uses all three loosely, and this page stocks two of the three machines.

A bratt pan (sometimes written brat pan) is shallow and wide, heated from below, and it tilts. The wide surface is the point: you can sear and fry properly.

A boiling pan is deep and jacketed, built for liquid: stocks, soups, big batches of pasta. The jacket heats the sides as well as the base, so it boils better — but you cannot fry in one.

“Braising pan” is rarely a third machine — in most catalogues it is another name for a bratt pan.

The rule: if the dish starts by browning something, you want a bratt pan. If it starts with liquid and stays there, a boiling pan is more efficient.

Gas and electric bratt pans

Both fuels do the same job. The difference is how the pan behaves and what your site can supply.

Gas responds fast. Turn a gas bratt pan down and the heat drops immediately, which matters when 80 litres of sauce is close to catching. In a kitchen already on gas it avoids new cabling. The Firex EASYBRATT models and Falcon Chieftain and F900 pans cover 37 to 90 litres.

An electric bratt pan heats the base more evenly, the elements sitting across it rather than under a burner. Worth having if you cook milk-based sauces or anything that scorches.

Manual tilting, automatic tilting and duplex pans

Manual tilting means a handwheel: you turn it, the pan tips, and you control the rate by feel. Every Firex EASYBRATT above works this way, as do most of the Falcon pans.

Automatic tilting uses a motor: press and hold, the pan tips at a controlled rate and returns level. The case is not laziness: a full pan of hot liquid, a team member who is not six feet tall, and the same task twenty times a week.

Duplex models are two independent pans in one appliance, each with its own controls and tilt: the Falcon G3800DX in gas, the E3800DX in electric. One side braises while the other boils.

Capacity: 37, 60, 80 and 90 litres

Start with your largest single batch, not your daily total. A bratt pan is a batch machine: what matters is the biggest quantity finished at one moment. Work that out in litres, then leave headroom: you cannot pour a brim-full pan safely, or fry in one.

Then count the batches your service window allows. A pan 20 litres short is no disaster if there is time to run it twice. At the peak of a school lunch it is a real problem.

Broadly, 37 litres suits a single restaurant or small care home, 60 litres a busy staff restaurant or mid-sized school, and 80 or 90 litres a production kitchen. Measure the space, including the arc the pan sweeps as it tilts.

The kitchens a bratt pan suits best

School and education catering is close to the ideal case: volume, a short window, a hard duty on food safety. One pan producing a whole sitting beats three ranges doing it in stages. See our education catering range.

Hospitals and care catering want the same volume with tighter control; a bratt pan cooks and holds in one vessel. Staff restaurants and contract catering run batch cooking to a fixed menu and cost. Banqueting and large production kitchens take 80 and 90 litre pans, often in pairs. A pub doing volume food gets the most from 37 or 60 litres, and bakeries use them for fillings and custards.

Our bakery equipment and food and beverage pages cover those kitchens, and the wider commercial cooking equipment range sits behind them. If the gap is baking or roasting, see commercial ovens.

What a Rental+ plan covers

Every plan includes service and maintenance at no extra cost: call-outs, services, parts and Planned Preventive Maintenance (PPM). If a machine cannot be fixed, we replace it.

Multi-year rental, paid by weekly direct debit, with no upfront capex. Getting started runs soft credit check, then security deposit and direct debit, then delivery. Our engineers cover the whole country, one plan can hold several sites, and forty-six years of equipping British kitchens sits behind it.

See our inclusive service & maintenance page, build an indicative figure in the basket with no payment taken, or request a quote.