Peristaltic Must Pumps

I’ve never used one - and I’m re-imagining a new design for crush operations. Would anyone here have experience and what the pros / cons are compared to a PD?

John:

I’ve not used one yet but will have one in place for the 2021 vintage (new winery construction). I haven’t used a PD pump in the past for must, most of the wineries where I’ve worked have dumped fruit post sorting line directly into tanks utilizing a bin, so I can’t directly compare.

A few benefits that I believe to be true with a peristaltic must pump (at least this is what I’m telling myself prior to actually using). Again, these are not so much a comparison to a PD must pump as they are some of the reasons we’re going with a peristaltic must pump:

  1. Pump is incredibly gentle on the fruit. We should see very few berries crushed by the pump. I believe that this will also translate to a lower likelihood of seeds being cracked/crushed. The latter being the biggest reason wineries that I have been at have stayed away from PD must pumps.

  2. Internals of the pump are fairly simple, so fewer internal parts to break? Internals also never touch the must, which makes me feel like it’s more hygienic and easier to sanitize. I’m not sure if the latter is really true.

  3. Pump can be run dry and you do not need to prime.

  4. We have a fairly wide range of processing speeds available to us. The manufacturer rates it at 2.5 TPH up to 24 TPH.

If you have additional questions or want to check ours out in action once we’re up and using it this harvest let me know. Happy to have you by the winery if you can pull yourself away during crush.

Cheers,

Michael

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I agree with everything Michael says. We use one for must and it replaced a PD. It’s great – moves dry must much better, seems very gentle, and can run dry. Very powerful, though not as strong as a mono and the suction side could be more. But I highly recommend.

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