In May the VLB Technical Facility took delivery of a long awaited new addition; a can filler. The single organ pilot filler was supplied to the VLB by long time VLB member Krones AG. The can filler has already been employed not only in project work but also in the training and education practical work in the VLB Certified Brewmaster Course.

„We have been very fortunate to have the support of Krones and we’re very excited to have this new addition.“, said Kurt Marshall, Brewmaster and Head of "Wilfried Rinke Pilot Brewery". „The can as a beverage container has wide acceptance worldwide and we‘re very happy to be able to not only demostrate can-filling in our training courses but also to be able to fill cans with industrial acceptable values for our project partners. The fact that this filler is manufactured by an industry leader like Krones is really the best we could hope for.“

The cans are closed with an external seamer which presented certain challenges for the VLB team. „The can filler is excellent.“, said brewmaster Paul Koennecke.  „The weak link in the chain for filling in this pilot scale is the human being doing the lid closing which is why we built an additional under-lid gassing utilizing nitrogen to give us extra safety in preventing the ingress of oxygen during the closing and seaming process.“

The can filler was built and tested at the Krones  headquarter in Neutraubling and is fitted with the newest Krones  Modulfill VFS-C filling valve. The valve is pneumatically lowered onto the can for pressing-on. Thanks to a differential pressure chamber, the cans are centered and pressed onto the valve with particular care. Thanks to the proven inductive flow meter, very high filling accuracies are achieved. The filling jet is spread to the inner wall of the can and thus enables foam-free and gentle filling.

The pilot filler is equipped with the same filling valve control as all consumer fillers. This includes the type management and enables the VLB to save many different filling recipes and maintain the required flexibility during the filling runs.

The test cans were provided by Ball Beverage Packaging.

Proudly presenting the newly arrived can filler from Krones: Kurt Marshall (l.), head of the "Wilfried Rinke Pilot Brewery" at VLB, and brewmaster in the making Paul Böck

The new KRONES can filler (m) with operator console (l) and can sealer (r)