Alternative Dosing Pumps

[starbro]

Okay, I've had enough of trying to get my Italian piston dosing pump to behave

I've read a few suggestions on the forum here about hooking up more reliable alternatives (Beer Ace, peristaltic, etc).

Would be interested in getting some feedback from others who have ditched the original piston pump for something better.

My possible plan: Keep the original dosing pump strictly as a tank agitator and hook up a peristaltic to the existing dose pump inlet and outlet valves. My usual working pressure is somewhat high at 2 - 3 bar and occasionally gets up to 4 bar, so I would need something that can push against all that pressure. We're using a Spodoni DCBL 100 4m2 filter.

Any thoughts?

[dick murton]

Use a persitaltic for dosing - as per proposal, but ideally, don't use a centrifugal for mixing if you can help it as the high impeller speed smashes the KG / Celite up. However, if you are only running for a few hours at a time, with a fresh mix each time, you will probably get away with it. A low speed paddle in the mixing tank with an external drive is better than a pump. Speed needs to be as low as possible to prevent vortexing, with a fairly small paddle, offset from the centre, and with a vortex breaker on the (central low point) outlet is a common setup

[Rob Creighton]

These folks have a solid lineup of peristaltic pumps:
www.verderflex.com used in many breweries

[Chris Garrett]

If your dosing pump is like mine, it has a ceramic coated piston. I recently replaced the seals and the worn piston... It works like new...

[starbro]

Hi Chris,

I think our piston is rubber coated, but I replaced the original about 1 1/2 years ago along with the packing and it still leaked. Not really bad at first, but it went slowly downhill. Replaced the packing again last Spring, and the same thing (piston showed no signs of wear). Replaced it again 2 weeks ago, and it immediately had bad leakage. It was a tight fit, so much so that the piston would sometimes stick in the head and not retract, but it still leaked! I'm thinking maybe the pump head is deformed somehow? Not sure how much those are, but everything else is $$$, so we might just cut our losses now.