Meheen users unite!

[pbutlert]

We have an older (1994) model that has been modified by both Meheen and the former owners. We bottle out of tanks in a 40 degree walk-in cooler, and also jacketed brite tanks. We set brites down to 32 and bottle direct, and out of the walk in we run the beer through our glycol heat x. It does cause more foaming issues and we have to run the pressure to the machine higher than when we bottle off of brites. In a perfect world we wouldn't bottle from the walk in at all.
As they say on this forum, "YMMV"

[brewkettle]

Has anyone really set up a bottling "Line" using their Maheen?

I run a new six head and have an in line pre-labeler for PS labels. We are bottling 34F beer @ 2.5-2.6 volumes into 12 oz longnecks. 19-20 second cycles are the norm with the double pre-evac, FOB and auto-fill all running.

I would like to move toward the 60 case an hour number instead of the 45 we are now experiencing AND reduce the amount of handling/labor. Anyone out there have a video of theirs tricked out with all the bells and whistles that is getting 60+ per hour regularly?

[HinduKush]

Has anyone really set up a bottling "Line" using their Maheen?

I run a new six head and have an in line pre-labeler for PS labels. We are bottling 34F beer @ 2.5-2.6 volumes into 12 oz longnecks. 19-20 second cycles are the norm with the double pre-evac, FOB and auto-fill all running.

I would like to move toward the 60 case an hour number instead of the 45 we are now experiencing AND reduce the amount of handling/labor. Anyone out there have a video of theirs tricked out with all the bells and whistles that is getting 60+ per hour regularly?

Contact BrewinLou. They use wet glue post fill and still hand load a case at a time, but have been consistently running 70ish cases/hour on a 2006 6 head Meheen.

[GlacierBrewing]

Has anyone really set up a bottling "Line" using their Maheen?

I run a new six head and have an in line pre-labeler for PS labels. We are bottling 34F beer @ 2.5-2.6 volumes into 12 oz longnecks. 19-20 second cycles are the norm with the double pre-evac, FOB and auto-fill all running.

I would like to move toward the 60 case an hour number instead of the 45 we are now experiencing AND reduce the amount of handling/labor. Anyone out there have a video of theirs tricked out with all the bells and whistles that is getting 60+ per hour regularly?

I am also running a six-head with an inline labeler. We prelabel with self-adhesives. We set up our bottler and labeler side-by-side (with a walk-way in-between) "head to tail". That way we can run the entire set-up with only two people (one sometimes). One person loads empties onto the labeler and unloads full bottles off the bottler. The other unloads labeled empties onto a staging table to be picked up by the bottle grabber which he then uses to load bottles onto the rinser and then in-feed ramp. We have the Meheen running at consistent 12-11 second cycles. Our beers are carbonated in the 2.8-3.0 volume range and we're filling long-neck 12 oz. It has been my long experience with the Meheens that reducing the cycle time is a collaboration among several adjustments and product conditions: Fill Speed Knob (start slow), Low Pressure Setting (higher the number=shorter duration of fill head lifting after filling is complete), Fill Sensor (I set it around 25 for adequate, consistent fill levels), product temperature (colder the better, to a point), and product carbonation (too much and longer wait times for Low Pressure Setting to be achieved). Hope this helps.
Prost!
Dave

[brewkettle]

Dave,

I can achieve 13-14 second cycles by getting rid of the 2nd Pre-evac and opening the needle valve for a faster fill time. My thought is the end result would be shorter shelf life and more lost beer.

Are you running a double Pre-evac?

Thanks,

Chris

[Justin Viale]

Hey guys, hoping someone can help, trying to make some adjustments to our circa 2005 6-head Meheen to get it running a little better without the occasional bottle misfeed. The one problem we're having is with the bottle indexing, we have a bar set on two magnetic posts extending from the bottle locator. You can see it in this video at 0:18

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_u5VzpLcMs&feature=related

This bar doesn't seem to always catch the row on the bottle pusher plate like it should, the end rows are most inclined to get caught underneath it and then it pops bottles out of alignment.

We have previously just run it without this bar, but we're looking to add a pre fill CO2 purge and we need the row before the fill row to be standing up perfectly straight which they don't really do without the bar.

Does anyone have any experience for adjustments that might help? Thanks in advance.

[GlacierBrewing]

Dave,

I can achieve 13-14 second cycles by getting rid of the 2nd Pre-evac and opening the needle valve for a faster fill time. My thought is the end result would be shorter shelf life and more lost beer.

Are you running a double Pre-evac?

Thanks,

Chris

Our machine does a single, pre-fill, evac. Do you have an idea regarding how your products life cycle in the market? Perhaps you don't need the 2nd pre-evac if you are turning product over quickly enough. Just a brain-dropping.

Dave

[drewseslu]

Crown Sanitization

We have recently acquired a 1998 4 head Meheen unit, and have read this thread accordingly, but may have spaced out and missed this topic.

While we're yet to fire it up, a concern of mine has cropped up, how to sanitize the crowns.

Plan A is to have the crowns waiting in a sanitizing solution before being loaded into the hopper. Is this just a waste of time?

Thanks.

[dfalken]

Would anyone here attempt to bottle about 1.5 million 12oz bottles per year using a 6 head meheen or is that just plain craziness?

[lhall]

That's about 4500 bbls of bottling a year - certainly doable - we did that much the last year we had a Meheen - and Joel at Bluegrass Brewing in Louisville, KY is probably doing more than that right now. That's averaging about 250 cases a day.

[Laughing Dog]

We will run close to 6000 BBl through 2 different Meheens this year
when running the 22 oz machine we run about 720 Cases a day on the 12 we average 480, figure the machine runs 6 hours on a full day

Fred
Laughing Dog Brewing

[dfalken]

Thanks for the responses lhall and laughing dog, I guess the meheens are workhorses!

[kylesmi]

how many folks

Hey Fred, how many people are you using per machine?

[Laughing Dog]

We use 4 but can get by with three in a pinch do have to slow the machine down some to do that but now a whole lot.
1 person feeding bottles to the labeler
1 person rinsing and loading and running the machine
1 person putting carriers in case and filling with Bottles
1 person closing up and stacking and putting away

the person feeding bottles to the labeler can do other things as well and allot of times the close-up person is unloading freight as well
we are working on a couple rotary feed/unload tables that will take us to three people running the machine without much issue as the close-up person can then just dump bottles onto the table and it will feed the labeler and then we will unload onto a table as well so that 200-300 bottles can be on the table allowing a bit different work flow outflow side of the machine

Fred

[froptus]

Drewseslu - Don't worry about sanitizing the crowns. I've toured dozens of breweries over the years and I've never seen anyone sanitize the crowns. Just keep the bag the crowns are in closed up well.

We also have a 1998 Meheen and the manufacturer says not to get the cap rails wet or else the caps won't slide well down the rails.