Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Butter pump warming ideas?

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Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 09-11-2015, 02:34 AM:

I use of these for butter for the popcorn:

In the summer it's fine, but as the days get colder the spout tends to get plugged up if the machine sits for a while. The heat source is inside of the tank but there's nothing to keep the spout warm; the butter that's in the spout can get rock hard if it sits for 30 minutes or so. This is highly annoying when someone comes out in the middle of the show to purchase popcorn and I have to force the hardened butter out of the spout before I can put butter on the popcorn.

Do any of you have any ideas or suggestions for what I could do to prevent this from happening? Outside of the nuisance factor, this can waste a fair amount of butter since I just force the hard stuff out of the spout and into a cup that I throw away at the end of the night.

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 09-11-2015, 05:28 AM:

Sell more buttered popcorn. Or grant yourself a sniff every 2 minutes or so.

Seriously, I guess I would start with an isolating coat for the spout, similar to what you get to isolate water or heating pipes. Foam-tunnels, etc. Maybe that is just enough to keep it warm through the heat transfer from the tank. If that is not enough, I guess the easiest way to actively heat it may be a warm air blower of any kind. There are also heat wires available for certain markets, you could coil them around the spout, but there may be regulations against such a bricolage around food dispensers. Maybe the manufacturer of the unit has a solution?

- Carsten

Posted by Connor Kirkwood (Member # 5371) on 09-11-2015, 05:45 AM:

1) Soak a bar rag in hot water and wrap it around the outside of the nozzle.

2) Take the cap off of the nozzle and use a coffee stirrer (or something similar) to poke a few holes in the solidified mass, then pump some of the hot butter through, slowly.

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 09-11-2015, 08:03 AM:

Heating tape for pipes?

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 09-11-2015, 09:26 AM:

Seems this is available in low-voltage as well:

http://www.oemheaters.com/c-981-freezstop-low-voltage-heat-cable.aspx

One could actually simply wire a large cement power-resistor to an isolated USB-wall-supply.

5V/1A should be more than enough to keep the pipe warm.

- Carsten

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 09-11-2015, 01:23 PM:

Is there that much variation to lobby temperature, from what you A/C down to in summer vs. what you heat up to in winter?

Posted by Mike Spaeth (Member # 524) on 09-11-2015, 02:43 PM:

https://www.katom.com/003-86910.html?zmam=29342707&zmas=1&zmac=32&zmap=003-86910&utm_source=google&utm_medium=adwords&utm_campaign=CSE&gclid=Cj0KEQjw98mvBRD-_ciSovKhq7gBEiQAEvsBZwb914-qRc677ee1KQehj504lpKT4iUx3AqZjqoJlpAaAqHR8P8HAQ

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 09-11-2015, 03:13 PM:

Perhaps turn up the heat on the butter pump. Since it's all metal, I would think the heat from the butter would transfer through the parts to keep the nozzle warm enough to not solidify.

Posted by Connor Kirkwood (Member # 5371) on 09-11-2015, 07:13 PM:

Be careful about turning the heat up too high. Most of those machines are warmed by water that sits between the butter bucket and the heating element. If the heat is up too high, the water will cook off, and if there's no water, pressure will build until the top pops off and butter will fly everywhere.

I never set it above 100 degrees, but sometimes it will get jostled up to 150, which is "butter rocket" territory.

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 09-11-2015, 07:21 PM:

If the heat is turned up too high the butter starts to burn. I can smell it, and it takes me 20 minutes with an SOS pad to clean the pot after the night is over.

There is a magic temperature setting where the butter is hot enough to pump but not so hot that it burns.

Note that this is BUTTER, not any kind of vegetable oil or margarine. Perhaps other stuff behaves differently than butter under excessive heat; butter just burns.

And yes, there is a great deal of temperature variation between summer and winter in the lobby. In the summer I wear a short-sleeved shirt to work behind the counter, and every time someone opens the doors all of the "cool" escapes. In the winter I wear a sweater and a light jacket and every time someone opens the door the heater has to work overtime to replace what's lost. It's worse when people stand in the doorway holding it open and talking, of course.

But yes, there's a big temperature variation and there's not much that I can do about it unless I install some sort of an enclosed porch and there's really no place to put something like that. The auditorium stays at a relatively constant temperature but it's not exposed to the outdoors like the lobby is.

Posted by Stephan Shelley (Member # 8587) on 09-11-2015, 07:53 PM:

Server products that make the machine pictured make a model with a heated spout. The spout rests on a heated block.

http://server-products.com/Catalog/Food-Warmers/Topping-Warmers-Merchandisers/86540.htm

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 09-11-2015, 11:19 PM:

I'll have to look at that one when I next need a new butter pump. (I'm on my second one now; just purchased this one a couple of years ago to replace the one that I purchased when I first opened my theatre.)

Dunno, though.... that spout looks pretty short in the picture. I wonder if it would reach out far enough to be able to butter the center of a popcorn container. When the time comes I'll see if I can find a more detailed picture or perhaps see one in person somewhere. Won't be for a while, though.

I guess I've lived with this problem every winter for twenty years so I'll probably have to continue to live with it. Oh well.

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 09-12-2015, 05:41 AM:

I would first try an insulating coating like a foam tunnel or something like that. There is certainly some heat transfer from the unit to the spout, and maybe only a few degrees more are needed to keep it warm. You could simply try to wrap a few turns of cloth around it next winter and see what happens.
Or have someone knit a nice retro-style franger for it ;-)

- Carsten