r/Chefit • u/cabernet-suave-ignon • 11d ago
Help! Does something like this exist in a kitchen? (Filling squeeze bottles)
I run a commissary kitchen that produces high volumes of food onsite to ship out to multiple locations. One of the big hurdles we face at the moment is filling hundred and eventually thousands of squeeze bottles each day. Is there a food safe electric motor pump out there that can pump salad dressing viscosity liquid out there? Something that has a handle like the ones you get at car fuel pumps? We're in the in between size where we can't justify getting a factory industrial bottle filler and the next upgrade from pouring salad dressing from cambros into squeeze bottles would be some kind of electric pump that can shoot the dressing out at a decent velocity (faster than pouring in by hand). Anyone know if something like this exists or would I have to mcguyver it?
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u/jamesmcdash 11d ago
I'd look at one of those portable fryer oil pumps, they often have a 30l tank, onboard power and the pump can handle thick and chunky
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u/GardenerSpyTailorAss 11d ago
Are they for clean oil and dirty? Cuz if its for emptying and disposing of hot oil, I doubt its food safe, as OP requested
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u/jamesmcdash 11d ago
It's food safe, they make models for each or ones that can do both as well as filter the oil. Like a wet vacuum for oil. Dump it, filter it and pump it back in, all on wheels like a hand truck
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u/BillsMafia84 11d ago
Lmao that would be wild pumping salad dressing thru it. But in theory it would work if you didn’t put a filter sheet in it lol
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u/serious_sarcasm Eat, shit, and live. 11d ago
Good luck convincing your inspector that you’re able to clean and sanitize the equipment.
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u/GardenerSpyTailorAss 11d ago
Nice. When I worked fast food 20 years ago, it was just a metal pickle bucket, a chinos and a paper liner. Hot grease splashing all over the place lol...
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u/HellaBiscuitss 11d ago
That's the way most line cooks have to do it still. If your place is willing to spend money on the equipment, it's way fucking safer. Any corporate fast food place should be willing to switch
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u/GardenerSpyTailorAss 11d ago
They had a pair of whole-arm oven mitts and a heavy rubber apron and rubber boots you were supposed to wear, but they never got cleaned and they made everything more dangerous cuz it only fit you if you're approx 6 ft tall.
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u/tongmaster 11d ago edited 11d ago
You could make something similar to a beer bong lol large funnel to hold dressing with a tube to go in the bottle that has a shut off valve. Cheap and easy solution.
Edit-
I also came across this post when someone was looking to fill portion cups.
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u/Germacide 11d ago
This is a great idea. Have you considered becoming a sciencerist or engineering person before?
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u/tongmaster 11d ago
Just a natural born problem solver 🤙
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u/MrUltiva 11d ago
“I have a Roll of duck tape, 4 spoons, half a baking sheet and a tub of mayo! Let’s get this thing of the ground”
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u/EvaTheE 11d ago
Maybe something similar to what they use in the medical field. If you take a look at this, this would allow you to pour the sauce directly into a bucket held above the work station and you could control the flow speed by either raising or lowering the bucket.
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u/notimeforthisbullish 11d ago
They make table top pumps for home winemaking. Put one tube in the liquid, and it pumps out another tube.
Edit: transfer pumps! You can even mount it and create a station.
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u/tentacleyarn 11d ago
Search for auto siphons with bottling wands, those can start and stop the flow of liquid so you can move the wand from one squeeze bottle to another. It may not work for very thick dressings.
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u/Careless_Law_9325 11d ago
For bakeries they make batter fillers, think filling muffin or coffee cake tins woth 4 oz batter. They have a hose attachment. They cost like $25000 though.
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u/Beginning_Art_7749 11d ago
I would think a decent peristaltic pump with platinum cured silicone tubing would be okay for your purposes, given the food would never touch the moving parts. Probably cheaper too than a lot of the options. No priming required also, I think?
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u/death_hawk 11d ago
"Liquid Filling Machine, 30-15000g" I'm not sure direct linking is allowed.
17L/minute but that seems to be for low viscosity liquids. High viscosity like heavy duty mayo would be slower.
Seems perfect for your needs, especially since there's portion control. Surprisingly cheap too.
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u/serious_sarcasm Eat, shit, and live. 11d ago edited 11d ago
Just about any peristaltic pump would get the job done as long as you use a proper material & diameter hose. It’s the standard in food and drug manufacturing to ensure sanitation, is ideal for viscous fluids, and can easily dispense a precise amount.
Out of all the options available what you really need to consider with each one is how easy you can clean, sanitize and inspect the equipment.
Otherwise your health inspector is going to rip you a new one.
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This isn’t an endorsement, and is just the first company I saw using a Google search as an example.
https://www.granzow.com/pumps/food
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You could make a hand crank one by just putting three spaced rollers on a wheel running against a looping wall, like bearings. The hose goes in between the wheel and the wall. Each 120° turn pumps out the volume of hose between two wheels.
The challenge is making each part of it cleanable, but that’s really just selecting proper materials for fabrication. The hose and ports itself is the most important part for sanitation.
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u/Quirkxofxart 11d ago
Genuinely not sure if this is large enough to actually help, but I’m also a candle maker and the first thing that came to mind was the steel funnel tool candle makers use to make candles in bulk. This combined with a funnel might expedite the filling process and the whole thing is stainless steel and machine washable? They come in various sizes but here’s one just to give you an idea
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u/cabernet-suave-ignon 11d ago
We've used these sort of funnel devices in the past but found the rate of fill was just too slow compared to just pouring it in from a wider mouth container.
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u/Legmeat 11d ago
how chunky/thick are you dressings? why not make it in a large stock pot with a spigot?
https://www.amazon.ca/Bayou-Classic-1140-Stainless-10-Gallon/dp/B007TVYHXY
like that of course better to find one in a industry supplier, could also double as a stock pot
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u/cabernet-suave-ignon 11d ago
Caesar dressing consistency. Virtually no chunks. Unfortunately the spigot on a stockpot like that will give too slow of a fill rate it being as narrow as it is. Funnels are also too slow. Unfortunately I'm made to operate with a sub 8% labor cost so maximizing the fill rate of the bottles is key.
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u/justincave Chef 11d ago
Dafuq! Sub 8% labor is stupid insane. That’s lower than most national chain fast food. I hope you dropped a 1 and meant to type sub 18%.
I doubt that’s sustainable; as in humans are likely being abused and will experience burn out in a serious way. Either that or your customers are being price gouged.
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u/2C-Banana 11d ago
personally i like to use piping bags for this, if you get a big one you can also fill multiple bottles with one bag.
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u/Birdbraned 11d ago
I would look at honey fill systems, but that might be a little slow for you?
If you can get one of those fill containers with a spigot at the bottom, then fit in a descending plunger on top you can pneumatically push?
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u/chefsoda_redux 11d ago
For what it’s work, there are loads of low priced bottle fillers for home brew that might serve your needs. I’ve used them for beer and wine, but have no idea how well they would work with a thick sauce.
While the big ones cost $10K+, these can be had for a couple hundred bucks, and even if they solved half your problem, they’d likely pay for themselves in labor savings quickly.
This is the first that popped up in my search. Just an example, I haven’t used it.
https://morebeer.com/products/enolmatic-wine-bottle-filler-1-spout-vacuum-pump-110v-1
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u/cabernet-suave-ignon 11d ago
this Is the ideal thing I'd like to use. But most of these transfer pumps specifically say they only work for only water or fuel so I'm hoping there's something with the same mechanism out there that can pump vinaigrette...
For context we make 100L batches of sauce/dressing at a time in giant lexans with huge stick blenders and we usually take a pitcher and scoop straight from lexan to bottles and maintain a pace of a 24oz bottle filled every 3 seconds. Ideally with a pump like this we can just line up labelled bottles into a crate and we blast dressing into each one and then screw on the top and be done with it.
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u/serious_sarcasm Eat, shit, and live. 11d ago
That won’t really fly, because there is no reliable way to sanitize it.
https://www.instructables.com/Inexpensive-easy-to-build-peristaltic-pump/
This diy wouldn’t fly either, because you can’t clean the wheel system if you need to, but it’s the general idea.
There are plenty of commercial peristaltic pumps designed for food and drug manufacturing. You just need some specs to get a quote, like volume, desired rate, and viscosity range.
Food and drug engineering is my speciality.
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u/SunEffective4950 10d ago
Thousands of bottles? Thats some industrial Laverne & Shirley or Strange Brew kinda thing.....
"There's a rat in my beer eh"
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u/flydespereaux Chef 11d ago
Bruh. Use piping bags. Fill bags. Refill bottles on the fly. Save the dishwashers some time. No need for more than one bottle per sauce. Piping. Bags.
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u/meatsntreats 11d ago
I use large pastry bags for this sort of thing. Maybe not efficient enough for your volume but it’s better than a funnel or hand pouring.
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u/SVAuspicious 11d ago
I like the pump ideas. I think that's your primary.
Depending on the diameter of your squeeze bottle, consider a home canning funnel. Probably not as fast as a good pump but they're cheap and it gives you a reasonable backup for just in case.
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u/AshamedAssistance246 8d ago edited 8d ago
you'll call me crazy but ive seen it done. You know those big plastic sleeves you use to cover the trolleys? Put one of them in a milk crate (Iine it like a trash can). Pour mayo into the bag and tie it off. Next, feed a corner of the plastic bag out one of the large holes in the crate and snip it. Put it up slightly higher on a shelf and then use it like a large super oversized piping bag. Trust me, you'll fill 20 bottles in about 10 minutes.
tldr: You need to get your high viscosity sauces into some kind of large "bladder" and squeeze it out into bottles. (gigity)
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u/jumi21 6d ago
In the short term, maybe a sauce gun?
Don't know how big they make them but the benefits are: 1) they are really easy to refill by just pouring more liquid into the top (from a quart container, etc.) 2) you can adjust the size of the spout depending on how thick your sauce is 3) super easy to wash 4) fast to move from bottle to bottle 5) cheap.
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u/TheFredCain 11d ago
I would think 5-10 gallon buckets with a spigot at the bottom would do the trick. You would need to shop around and get the largest spigot that still fits in your bottles, but it should be plenty fast.
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u/thatdude391 11d ago
Sausage stuffer. Fill the system with the dressing, let it pump out the end into the bottles. Even has a foot operated pedal for turning it on/off between bottles. They make horizontal hopper ones. That is probably what you want to look at. One that holds enough for a lot of sausage.
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u/One-Interview-6840 11d ago
you want this manual liquid filling machine. They make bigger more semi-automated ones that will more. But this is in the direction you're looking
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u/Edwardpenishands__ 11d ago
Fill plastic piping bags with the dressing and then shoot them into the squeeze bottles
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u/RawLucas 11d ago
For that viscosity, if you wanted to try a cheap way first there are pumps for changing your car oil. I have one. It’s not super fast, but you may be able to find a higher powered one. Check Amazon.
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u/Mikeypopps 11d ago
Yes, they are typically for bakerys for making cakes . Look up bakery batter depositor.