London brewpub Hackney Church Brew Co is named after the parish church across the road. Managing Director, Hamish Glenn, and Jacob Hobbs, Head Brewer, have created a welcoming space where everyone can enjoy tasty beers and food. Their mission: take locally sourced quality ingredients and create perfectly conditioned beers that are both accessible and full of flavour. The state of the art brewhouse produces a wide range of styles, with seasonal specials alongside their newly launched core beers. As part of their community focus, they also support other local breweries both large and small.
In spring 2022 the brewpub took advantage of a local council grant to expand their offering by investing in a canning line. After looking at the available equipment options, they chose the recently launched CF15 Automatic Canning Line from Innovus Engineering. The CF15 is the latest model in the CF range of machines - a compact two head canning line with a production capacity of 1000 cans per hour. Innovus designed the CF15 to fill an important gap in the beverage canning line market. Although a compact machine, it has all the expected industry leading features such as automated lid dispenser and undercover gassing, plus a pre-fill purge and post-fill gas injection for consistently low levels of dissolved oxygen. The CF15 fills and seams standard, slim and sleek cans, and changeovers between different can heights are quick and easy.
Advantages over other machines on the market include fully adjustable filling, and smooth and consistent conveyor transport of cans to minimise dissolved oxygen pick up, plus a separate motor for the air blower to prevent pressure dropping in the compressed air line to the machine.
As well as two CO2 purging tubes before the fill heads, and one at each fill head, a secondary purge of CO2 when the fill valves are lowered can be added. This is helpful if the canning line is left temporarily unattended. The built-in timer automatically purges again if the can wait time exceeds the limit set by the operator.
When designing the new CF15, Innovus also enhanced the statistical records and trends available on the HMI touch screen, and a new can per minute counter was added. If the canning run has a specific quantity of cans to fill and seam, the machine will pause and display an alarm when the target can count is reached.
Fluctuation in tank top pressure can be an issue on CO2 supply with a standard regulator. To address this and eliminate CO2 break out, the CF15 has an inbuilt adjustable pressure monitor in the control panel. A pressure sensor monitors the incoming beer pressure. As the CO2 supply is fed to the control panel, it passes through a solenoid which micro-doses CO2 to the tank top, maintaining consistent product pressure at the filler.
To increase the level of automation and allow their canning line to be operated by one person, Hackney Church Brew Co also invested in two Innovus integrated rotary tables for can infeed and collection. Other optional equipment for the CF15 includes a date coder and can labeller.
Double seam integrity is vital in canning. Innovus can seamers have mechanical seaming operation, which gives significantly more consistent performance than pneumatic operation. Machines are supplied with a comprehensive tool kit, including a seam micrometer and seam tear down tool, so that customers can carry out accurate seam checks.
Purchasing an Innovus canning line has enabled Hackney Church Brew Co to launch their new core beer range into cans and to increase their small pack presence in the market. The move to a core range meant there was a more regular canning requirement and justified the investment in equipment for in-house canning.
Innovus canning machines are built in the UK and training, service and spare parts are all available from the UK. At £32,500, the starting price of the CF15 Automatic Canning Line is a competitive price point for craft breweries that want to start canning onsite.
For more information about Innovus Engineering canning machines visit www.innovusengineering.com
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