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  • Shrink sleeve system

    Hi!

    We want to acquire a shrink sleeve system for our future canning line. I got a lot of quotes and they are pretty much all too expensive and overkill for our brewery. Our speed will be between 20 and 40 cans per minute. What are you guys using for in house shrink sleeving? Steam tunnel? Electric tunnel? Pre-fill ? Post-Fill ? One company told us we could manually apply the sleeves on the can on the conveyor before entering a heat tunnel, that would be less expensive but we would ne an extra person and it would limit our speed. We don't have the space to have pre printed cans and even pre sleeved cans.

    Thanks!

  • #2
    Electric tunnel.....

    We bought a great electric unit that has adjustable speed conveyor track, and adjustable heat. We bought it overseas for an overseas brewery--don't ask me the brand--and we paid something like $4k. I'm sure you can find something similar for sale in US. The rods that make up the conveyor track rotate as they progress. This turns the cans as they go through the tunnel and secure the label perfectly. If everything works right, the labels cannot be distinguished from printed cans without close inspection. I cannot imagine steam in such an operation--electric is so much lighter, controlled, and portable. Likely cheaper, too. We label cans before filling--Cannot imagine how this would work with full cans. We label enough cans for one day's production, so storage really isn't an issue. It does take more time than pre-printed cans obviously. You can't have everything, and nothing is free. This is the best compromise I've found.
    Phillip Kelm--Palau Brewing Company Manager--

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    • #3
      Thanks for the info, why do you think it would not work with full cans?

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      • #4
        Can sweat.

        Give it a try. Where we are, it would be impossible due to can sweat under the label. And why would I heat a just-filled can? It's all I can do to keep our product cold. I do know of others that label post-fill with adhesive-backed labels. I guess the question would be: why would you want to label post-fill?
        Phillip Kelm--Palau Brewing Company Manager--

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        • #5
          Beacause I want to apply the sleeves in line, I think pre-heating the empty cans could lead to over foaming. Anyone with issues with this?

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          • #6
            Do you have an inline rinser? If after the shrink sleever, I would imagine the rinsing would remove any potential heat issues (if they are even an issue to begin with since the cans have so little thermal mass).

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            • #7
              That's not going to happen....

              The cans come out of our shrink tunnel cool to the touch. Seconds after having labels shrunk. The label gets the bulk of the heat--not the can. No way you would get foaming from a minuscule amount of heat content--orders of magnitude less heat content than the liquid inside. So that will not be your problem.
              Phillip Kelm--Palau Brewing Company Manager--

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              • #8
                It's a future project so I'm just questioning, some heat tunnels companies told me it would be good to label post fill too. I don't think the tunnel would heat the full can that much either. I'm still curious to hear about others setup, anybody else hand apply the sleeves in-line in the process?

                Thanks

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                • #9
                  Pressure sensitive labels

                  We are using pressure sensitive labels applied after filling. Cans are still wet. Lots of small breweries do this. I can send you contacts for our label supplier in St. Louis if you need one. We paid about $1,000 for the label applicator machine. Price goes up from there.
                  Scott Swygert
                  Founder - Honky Tonk Brewing Co.

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