Bottling beer allows craft brewers to significantly expand their sales market. However, the bottling technologies used in large breweries are not only unaffordable for craft brewers, but also do not preserve all the properties and richness of the taste of the craft product. A brand new bottling solution for small craft breweries that do not have sufficient space to accommodate a standard line and whose sales volume requires automatic equipment was presented by FERRERO.
The HEXA filling line ("hexa" means six in Greek) has a hexagonal shape (hexagon). The original shape allowed FERRERO designers to fit labelling, internal bottle rinsing, isobaric filling and capping devices into a small area. Each function has been perfected by engineers and includes unique developments.
The labelling station is designed for applying one or two water-repellent self-adhesive labels to cylindrical glass bottles. The internal rinsing of the bottles is carried out by means of a 6-piece linear unit. The 6-valve isobaric filling unit is equipped with the already popular double air re-evacuation technology.
The described process allows to achieve the optimal result of less than 50 ppm of oxygen in the bottle. Even if the conditions in the brewery are not ideal, FERRERO equipment guarantees a maximum of 100 ppm of oxygen in the bottle.
The closure group has one closure head for crown caps. Under the basic conditions (product temperature not exceeding 2°C, 330 ml bottle, filter lager as beer type) the HEXA machine can produce up to 750 bottles per hour with a CO2 content of approx. 5.5 g/liter.
Thanks to the use of DPS electropneumatic filling valves on the machine control panel, the operator programs all parameters of the vacuum and inert gas injection phases during filling based on the characteristics of different types of craft beer.
The door made of tempered, partially satin-finished glass and the metal drip-coating using firing give the machine a beautiful appearance. Finally, a huge advantage of the new equipment is that it can be operated by a single operator. Without leaving his seat, he puts the empty bottles on the line from the rotating inlet table and at the end picks up the finished product on the outlet table, which is also a rotating type.
Various options are available for the machine, which are discussed with the customer, to make it even more efficient. For example, a rinse fluid recirculation system with a two-phase filter, a thermal printer for printing the date and batch number on the label, a magnetic feeder for feeding crown caps into the capping group hopper, a water heating device for fobbing, an analogue probe and a modulating valve for the filling unit.
Remaining at the forefront of companies that pay increased attention to beer bottling technologies, FERRERO hopes that Ukrainian craft brewers will be interested in its new development.