Brewery replaces old line with new technology

The Danish Harboes Brewery’s annual production output totals six million hectolitres, with a portfolio spanning beer, malt-based beverages and products, soft drinks and energy drinks. The corporation is headquartered in Skælskør, Denmark, where Harboe Beer has been brewed since 1883. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the tradition-steeped brewery was in 1991 the first Danish enterprise to venture the bold step of setting up a company in what used to be the German Democratic Republic: the Darguner Brewery in the eponymous town of Dargun in north-eastern Germany.

New era of efficiency: Krones to replace the existing line

Harboes’ long-standing cooperative alliance with Krones began back in the 1990s. And this year, the brewery intends to replace a Krones line that has been giving reliable service in Skælskør since 2004 with a new turnkey line featuring an ErgoBloc L. This block-synchronised system combines the process steps of stretch blow-moulding, labelling, filling and closing PET bottles in an extremely efficient, space-saving layout and is rated at 36,000 bottles per hour. Harboes wants to use it for filling the same products as on the existing line: water, carbonated soft drinks, iced tea and the XRAY energy drink.

Filler with a new type of valve for optimum flow velocities

So far, all of that sounds just like a perfectly normal line replacement job. What’s special about it, though, are the ingenious details of two of the line’s machines. One of these is a latest-generation Contiform blow-moulder, which excels in terms of eco-friendliness, further improved efficiency and flexibility. The other one, a Modulfill VFS-M filler, also boasts two outstanding features. Firstly, the new PFR valves permit stepless regulation of the flow velocity, so it can be individually matched to suit every type of beverage. And secondly, the Contiflow mixer has been directly integrated into the filler, which makes for faster flow velocities and a higher dosing accuracy for CO2 and syrup.

The Modulfill VFS-M offers a number of additional advantages:

• Compared to the previous filler model, an electronic component cabinet on top of the filler carousel is no longer necessary.
• Nor is there any need for centring bell lifting cams, which creates larger treatment angles for filling.
• Another new feature is that the beverages are supplied from above. The hydrostatic pressure thus generated during filling makes for higher flow velocities.
• Compressed-air consumption has also been reduced because the flow velocity is no longer pneumatically controlled.
• Moreover, it is possible to completely empty both tank and pipes, which cuts product losses.

Cardboard replacing plastics

Changes have also been made to the packaging concept. On the new line, the beverages will be put on jumbo cardboard trays that replace the previous plastic trays. The new cardboard trays measure 60 x 40 centimetres, a size corresponding precisely to the dimensions of the pallets used so far, and hold 24 PET bottles each. The line includes two Variopac Pro packers, one for putting the bottles on jumbo trays and one for producing shrink packs without a tray. A Robobox T-GS grouping station is installed upstream of the palletiser.

New syrup room for a wide variety of recipes

Together with the new line, the brewery also ordered a syrup room. The wholly owned Krones subsidiary Milkron(opens external link in a new tab) will handle its planning, installation and commissioning.

The syrup room will be accommodated between the new line and an existing one and provide both of them with syrup. Granulated sugar or liquid sugar is supplied in lorries. Granulated sugar is then made into sugar syrup with a Brix content of about 65 degrees, and stocked. There are also two dissolving stations for a variety of powders and an IBC station for liquid concentrates. The “premix syrup” is produced in six blending tanks, after which it is passed to the mixers where each product is finished by blending and carbonating the premix syrup in accordance with the recipe concerned, and then passed to the bottling lines.

The new line and the syrup room will be put into operation at the end of this year. The Harboes team can’t wait to see them up and running because they have ordered another ErgoBloc line for the Darguner Brewery, too.