From historic town centre to fields of green, Bavarian brewery Eder & Heylands has moved its bottling shop from the centre of Großostheim near Aschaffenburg to the outskirts of the little market town. When it came to procuring new machines, Eder & Heylands relied on KHS, and invested in two bottling lines that include the Innofill Glass DPG and DRS-ZMS glass bottle fillers. In the future, the family business will also rely on the Dortmund manufacturer’s bottle washing technology in the form of an Innoclean SE, with the systems supplier rising to the task of catering for the brewery’s Schlappeseppel swing-top beer bottles.
German alcoholic beverage manufacturer Eder & Heylands has been bottling its beer and many other products on a KHS system at its old brewery in the centre of town for the last 25 years. When planning for expansion, Eder & Heylands decided to relocate as the possibilities for expansion at the site in the town centre was limited, and the machine park was also up for modernisation.
When choosing the new equipment, among other criteria a high degree of automation was a priority, such as for programme or recipe selection, automatic overnight heat-up of the bottle washers, and adequate head section disinfection. The Dortmund engineering company’s technological values and low media consumption on all units met Eder & Heylands’ demand.
Efficient, resource-saving swing-top bottle washing
The Bavarian brewery ultimately opted for two Innoclean SE bottle washing machines and two modern glass fillers. With the Innofill Glass DRS-ZMS, Eder & Heylands is able to wash and fill up to 36,000 standardised pool bottles per hour, what are known as longneck and Nord-Rhein Westfalen (NRW) bottles, and on the Innofill Glass DPG up to 15,000 swing-top bottles every 60 minutes.
Washing swing-top bottles often poses a challenge to breweries. Stefan Knappmann, area sales manager at KHS, who was responsible for the project, explained: “After washing bottles with caustic, the swing top mustn’t fall onto the bottle neck as otherwise any caustic that might still be in the bottle can’t be emptied and rinsed out. If this were the case, the downstream inspection unit would then channel out any bottles containing residual caustic.
“If this happens too frequently, these bottles are no longer available for further production. If the detection unit doesn’t work properly, in the worst case, bottles containing caustic residue may be filled. This must be avoided at all costs so as to avoid any possible health risks to the consumer.”
KHS thus installed a bottle base spray for Eder & Heylands to circumvent this issue. Here, a jet of water pushes the bottle deeper into the individual bottle washer pocket so that the swing top cannot slip in front of the neck. Furthermore, the bottle washer on the swing-top line can also process bottles without a swing top.
One of the features that enables Eder & Heylands to save on media involves warm water being taken from the bottle washers for use by other operators such as crate washers. In addition, KHS installed a fresh water control unit and electricity-saving function for the sprays.
The full article is published in the latest edition of Food & Beverage Asia Feb/Mar 2021 issue. To continue reading, click here.
