Dryer eliminates rusty crown corks at brewery

A complete stand-alone dryer unit - integrated into an existing line with minimal disruption - solved a rusty crown cork problem for a Russian brewery.

The Kaluga Brewing Company (KBC), based in the Kaluga Oblast region of Central Russia, represents a $100 million investment by South African Breweries (SAB), and is typical of the multi-nationals' foresight in identifying existing operations that through upgrade or reconstruction of original plant offers increased productivity, increased market share and increased profitability.

Now capable of producing 2.1M hectolitres of beer per annum, the takeover of the idle Soviet beer and soft-drinks manufacturing plant has seen a technological overhaul with the removal of the soft-drink production machinery and 75% of its original brewing facilities.

Replaced with modern equipment, the brewery's main hall, with its seven copper-clad vats, is now operated by three Technicians who manage the brewing process from PCs instead of ladles and pitchers.

SABs operations in Europe are conducted through SABI Europe and the company have recently launched the Zolataya Boschka (Golden Barrel) label from the Kaluga site principally for the home market but also brews under licence, Holsten, Miller and the Czech Staropramen beer In fact, the Kaluga Brewery was the first Eastern European brewery to bottle cold-filtered Miller.

However, new processes can impact on the technology employed as Nikolay Zlatev, Maintenance Manager for KBC discovered.

"We developed a rusty crown cork problem on our Miller Beer filling lines.

The compressed air nozzle system was unable to eliminate the rusting." stated Zlatev.

Unfamiliar with airknife technology, Zlatev investigated the alternative procedures and after reading about the success of such systems on ACIs website was convinced that ACI Airknives could be the solution to Kaluga's drying problems.

The ACI In-Line Dryer is a complete stand-alone unit that is designed to be integrated into existing lines with minimal disruption - units simply straddle the line without any modifications to the production line.

Predominantly used in the bottling and canning industries, there are several variations of In-Line Dryer available depending on the size of the vessel being dried and the speed of the production line itself.

The system is manufactured in Stainless Steel 316 with Obottling standard' black polyamide fittings, the ACI EP10 blower is fully enclosed with a two-stage filter arrangement with a differential pressure gauge to indicate when filters require cleaning.

Initially ordering a single system, the 'overnight' success in drying the sides, caps, and neck areas of Miller bottles, has resulted in two further systems being installed.

With production 60% up on previous years and with Russian beer drinkers reportedly consuming 30 litres of beer per head a year, a completed third production line will boost productivity at Kaluga Brewing by a further 200 million bottles 'dried' annually.

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