Is anyone using a 'Hose Pump' for pumping wash and solids?

[Donutboy]

We are currently looking for the solution of pumping our wash with solids to and from vessels. I just got off the horn with Dairy Engineering in Colorado and he suggested looking at a Watson Marlow SPX25 Hose Pump. I'm doing some research but wanted to check in here to see if others might suggest something different.

Thanks!

Roy

[Panoscape]

We're using this pump for moving our wash into our still and other jobs of moving non high ABV liquids.

http://www.marchpump.com/ac-5ssb-md/

It's cheap at $560. Slap some sanitary fittings and you're set. But, we're not moving much solids... this will handle very small solids, but probably not too big. The cheapest sanitary self priming impeller pump will run right around $1,500 with a controller box. That was too spendy for us, so we just went and bought a cart to bolt this pump onto.

[Donutboy]

Thanks, Ross. We are looking at something that can handle our grain from Mash Tun to FV to the still. Lot's of solids

[jeffw]

Relatively cheap impeller pumps from St. Pats and GW Kent. I have the Euro 30 from St. Pats and it works ok. I did managed to blow the start capacitor within the first 3 months of using it. You can always look at air diaphragm pumps too. Here is one http://www.ebay.com/itm/290900200161?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649 that should certainly be able to move solids.

Cheers

[Rich Morgan]

Their actually a really big Peristaltic pump. Absolute overkill for what you want. Any good food service all S/S impeller pump is fine. Flash proof and fire-proof motors is assumed depending on your specific application. We mainly use wine pumps, as they can be easily pulled down for blockages and cleaning.

Peristaltic pumps are traditionally slow, and can be costly to maintain. They are ideally suited to metering applications, rather than general transfer.

[Panoscape]

This is the pump we where thinking about getting, it looks good for your application.

http://discussions.probrewer.com/showthread.php?30912-Free-upgrade-from-1-2-HP-to-3-4-HP-pump

[jheising]

We use peristaltic/hose pumps in our continuous still and they do work great if you want super precise flow regulation and a nearly unblockable connection. But as a transfer pump, like others are saying here, it's probably overkill. Although I will say that they are kind of nice in that you don't have to have separate shutoff valves usually— they act as a valve and a pump at the same time.