# Suitable pump for making honey straws/sticks



## Chef Isaac (Jul 26, 2004)

you have to heat the honey to make it work. i do not think.... I know..... it wont work with honey at room temp. 

All of the machine out there are not good. There is someone working on one now that is almost done but it will cust only $5000

We have fill ours and do about 4,000 plus a week.


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## Swobee (May 18, 2007)

Contact the manufacturer for their specs on what centistokes or viscosity rating the pump will handle. This unit will probably work fine, I think if I had to do it again, I'd use a two roller peristaltic pump similar to the unit your link takes us to. The honey will need to be heated as Chef stated. Finding a proper heater was more of a challange than a pump when I did my prototype.


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## magnet-man (Jul 10, 2004)

What you want is a gear pump. They will work with high viscosity or low viscosity fluids.


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## Swobee (May 18, 2007)

magnet-man said:


> What you want is a gear pump. They will work with high viscosity or low viscosity fluids.


I know a guy who uses a small gear pump with a hand crank - he can turn out a lot of straws in a short time. He turns the crank with the right hand and all other motion like inserting straws onto a hose barb fitting, etc. with the left.

A peristaltic pump like the link shows are variable speed, DC motors that work with fairly high viscosity liquids. They are compact, affordable and smooth in operation. Mine works fairly well, but the bugs aren't worked out enough to share with others yet. A really small food-grade variable speed motorized gear pump for a decent price that I felt would work in small volumes for straw filling is something I haven't found in any of my research. I suppose a guy could rig up a small variable speed DC motor to drive a gear pump, connect it to a foot switch for keeping your hands free to work straws.


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## kbfarms (Jan 28, 2010)

Does anyone have plans for one of these they could post or point to? I looked at sending my honey out to fill in straws and it was very expensive. thanks


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## Chef Isaac (Jul 26, 2004)

place honey in squirt bottle, heat up, hold straw in one hand and squeeze bottle in another. Fill, seal, cut and wash. 

Done. We do about 4,000 a week.


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## Swobee (May 18, 2007)

kbfarms said:


> Does anyone have plans for one of these they could post or point to? I looked at sending my honey out to fill in straws and it was very expensive. thanks


Maybe somebody will, but I'm looking to perfect mine, then sell them. There is at least one machine on the market with mixed reviews, mostly poor reviews that is, from people who own one. Once I get mine working flawlessly... it works well, but there are some minor things that could make it 'much, more better' as a fraternity brother used to say.


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## kbfarms (Jan 28, 2010)

Chef Isaac said:


> place honey in squirt bottle, heat up, hold straw in one hand and squeeze bottle in another. Fill, seal, cut and wash.
> 
> Done. We do about 4,000 a week.


What kind of sealer do you use? I have a vaccum packer commerical grade. Could I use the sealer on that?


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## Chef Isaac (Jul 26, 2004)

impulse sealer. we blow through those like candy. Replace the heating strip every 2 months.


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## Robbo (May 11, 2008)

I have often thought I woul dlike to make these honey straws.

What kind of plastic straws do you start off with?

Do you seal the bottom off first, then fill, then seal the top?

Got any close up piccys of the finished product anyone?

Sorry for thread hijack.


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## Chef Isaac (Jul 26, 2004)

the honey stick will look like the mass produced ones. Cant tell the difference really. 

We use a jumbo straw, unwrapped. Cant seal the bottom first. It will not work. Gotta fill them, seal them, cut them and wash them. 

If you are not at least getting .50 cents for them, it is not worth it. We did it because we wanted complete control and the fact that we use our honey. Like I said, we make about 4,000 a week.


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## Robbo (May 11, 2008)

Cool, yea I did a search after making my post and had several pages of links for honey straws - read them all over a few spare hours.

Some interesting machines available by the looks at the high end. Some shoddy stuff at the low end.

I'll have a bash at something in the next few months. I work in automation and have a few ideas after yesterdays research. I threw out a sun tan lotion tube filling machine about 10 years ago - would have been perfect to adapt.


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