After relocating to a new production site, the Bavarian brewery Eder & Heylands fills its „Schlappeseppel“ beer brand on two new bottling lines from KHS.
The success story of the long-established company is closely linked to the name KHS. When it came to purchasing new machines, the Dortmund-based specialist for filling technology was once again the first choice. The regional and economically independent family business invested in two bottling lines from KHS - including the Innofill Glass DPG and DRS-ZMS glass fillers.
The family-owned company is now also relying on KHS filling technology for bottle washing with the Innoclean SE bottle washer - a special task for the systems supplier, since the „Schlappeseppel“ beer is filled in bottles with swing tops becomes.
„We were already bottling on a KHS system at the old site in the city centre. It ran reliably for more than 25 years. Maximilian Weber, Project Manager Filling Centre.
Due to a lack of expansion options at the site in the town centre of Großostheim near Aschaffenburg and the desire to modernise the machinery, the decision was made to relocate the filling site during the planning phase in 2015 and 2016.
When selecting the new investment, one of the factors was A high degree of automation is crucialFor example, the programme or recipe selection, the automatic night-time heating of the cleaning machines and the corresponding head part disinfection. The machine manufacturer also impressed with its technological values and low media consumption for all units.
Efficient and resource-saving cleaning of swing-top bottles
The Bavarian brewery ultimately opted for two Innoclean SE bottle washers and two modern glass fillers. With the Innofill Glass DRS-ZMS Eder & Heylands Up to 36,000 standardised pool bottles, longneck (0.33 litre) and NRW (0.5 litre) bottles per hour, and up to 15,000 swing-top bottles per hour on the Innofill Glass DPG.
Cleaning swing-top bottles often presents breweries with challenges
„After the cleaning process in the caustic solution, the swing stopper must not come in front of the bottle opening, as otherwise any residual caustic solution that may still be present cannot be emptied and rinsed out. In this case, the downstream inspection unit would discharge bottles with residual caustic accordingly.“ Stefan Knappmann, Area Sales Manager at KHS
To prevent this from happening, the plant manufacturer has a bottle bottom sprayer installed. The bottle is pressed deeper into the respective cell of the bottle washer by a water jet so that the swing stopper cannot slide in front of the neck finish. The bottle washer is also suitable for processing bottles without swing tops.
KHS realises individual wishes for empties feeding
KHS also realised the brewery's wishes for the empties feed. „The challenge was to harmonise the empties to be filled with the quantity of beer still to be bottled so that at the end of production neither a surplus of bottles nor crates remains in the system or, conversely, a shortfall,“ says Knappmann. This is because the logistics of bottling are highly demanding due to the new building. The brewhouse is still located at the old site in the city centre, and after brewing and storage, the beer is transported to the new halls by tankers from a logistics company specialising in foodstuffs, where it is either pushed into pressurised tanks or bottled directly.
Filling technology with low consumption values
The Bavarian beer producer was also impressed by the low consumption values of the systems, including the low use of water for bottle washing and CO2 during filling. Thanks to the filling process developed by KHS Depending on the processing programme, the filling systems consume only 240 grams of CO2 per hectolitre of beer. „The KHS machine technology is perfectly adapted to our needs as a medium-sized brewery. We benefit from the proven technology,“ says Weber. „Our production processes have also been considerably simplified and are now much more efficient.“
Source: KHS
