The Full Beer Package – High accuracy flexible can filling line for Williams Bros.
About Williams Bros.
The Williams Bros. Brewery located in Alloa, Scotland has developed to accommodate an ever growing dynamic brew team and portfolio of excellent Craft Beers.
Producing an eclectic range of Craft Beers for the international market, the Brotherhood ‘Brew House’ is steeped in Scottish tradition. Heather Ale, a flag ship product is said to date back to 2000 BC and became the template for what is now Williams Bros. definitive ‘Fraoch’ Heather Ale. Other historic Scottish brews include ‘Alba – Scots Pine Ale’ a Viking recipe introduced to Scotland, ‘Grozet – Gooseberry Wheat Ale’ a 16th century monk recipe, ‘Kelpie – Seaweed Ale’ an early West Coast brew & ‘Ebulum – Elderberry Black Ale’ recipe introduced to Scottish Highlanders by Welsh Druids
Now firmly established as one of Scotland’s largest independent breweries, Williams Bros act as a central hub for the bottling, canning and packing of many of the country’s best craft beers.
Building on this legacy Williams Bros. saw the need to offer a high quality canning facility. The decision was made to partner with Enterprise Tondelli to develop the layout, integrate into an existing capacity and supply of the canning line equipment.
Technical Detail
As this is an investment for the future traditional mechanical filling valve technology was rejected due to the higher maintenance, reduced flexibility, less accurate fill volumes and less control experienced on these machines.
A can filler / seamer manufactured in Italy by Matrix srl of Parma was selected. Enterprise have supplied a number of these machines worldwide to some blue chip companies due to their innovative nature and after sales support. This machine uses electro-pneumatically controlled valves for control of the CO2 purging, snifting etc all of which can be controlled and preset from the operator panel and for the differing fill characteristics of the various beer types. Additionally each filling valve has a flow meter so that beer volumes are measured and the vent tube no longer touches the product reducing fobbing. The cans are static with no lift cylinders and the movement of the valve is only minimal with very few moving parts due to flow meters being used. A central filling bowl with a CIP spray ball and the automatic multiple step CIP ensures better hygiene and also lower product wastage at the end of production. Low TIPO was also important.
Part of the project was to increase automation so that personnel can be better utilised therefore a high level combined bottle and can depalletiser from Enterprise installed. This design allows both bottles and cans to be automatically depalletised and sent to the can filler or existing glass filler via a pad type lowerator from Eurosistemi Srl.
To rationalise water consumption ionised air cleaning of the cans is used with a twin lane gravity can rinser suitable for both 330 ml, 440ml and 500 ml cans too. To complete the product integrity checks an X Ray level inspector rejecter was fitted by Enterprise. The complete conveyor circuit and controls was designed and supplied by Enterprise with the facility to add additional phased modules to increase the throughput and also to add further process and packaging plant as the demand continues to increase for canned product.
Comments
Mr. Scott Williams, Co-Founding Brother at Williams Bros. said “it has taken us some time to add this new facility to our plant as we decided to dramatically upgrade the line environment by adding a completely new building to house the line. This new building makes for a fantastic area for the line with purpose built drains, specialist flooring, wall finishes and lighting. This is the fourth project we have worked with Enterprise and we are very pleased with the final result. We have really appreciated the support given by Enterprise in the planning and execution of the plant.”
Craig Wilson, Managing Director at Enterprise Tondelli UK commented “it has been a real pleasure working with Williams Bros. and compliment them on the building provided. We look forwards to continued collaboration.”
What we can do for you!
Enterprise Tondelli from single machine to complete bottling and canning line. Canning and bottling lines from 1,500 containers per hour to 80,000 cph! They also supply keg filling lines along with brew houses ….. Further details and case studies of other canning lines, bottling, kegging and brewery installations can be found at www.enterprisetondelli.co.uk/case or call 0044 1525 718288.
Williams Bros. call the end result “The Full Beer Package”.
Visit their on-line shop at https://shop.williamsbrosbrew.com/ where they have such iconic beers as Fraoch heather Ale, Midnight Sun, March of the Penguins, Ceaser Augustus, Joker, Williams Bros. Craft Lager and more…………