We’re working on a craft beer start up, and have come to something of a “decision” about bottling equipment and wanted to see what others think of our logic and decision. I think our key parameters for bottling are, in order, (1) low O2 uptake, (2) reliability (I have nightmares about waiting for a part in the overnight mail while I have a bunch of beer ready for bottling), and (3) speed. We’d love to buy a new, super-fast Meheen, but of course cost looms over all of this. Listening to others, it seems that Meheen service is so good; we can pick up a used 4- head Meheen filler/capper and be fairly sure we’ll be able to get very low O2 uptake. I don’t think we’ll get 24-36bpm every minute, but I would hope we could get 50 cases an hour. We dream about someday finding this too slow, but for a while we’re pretty sure that won’t hold down our annual production. So we can spend some long days bottling and save some capital without risking the stability of our beer. At some point we have to run out of sweat to put into equity, no?
The Crown Cork and Seal Cemco machines are so fast and available so cheap it’s really tempting. But without any experience with them, I expect we’ll have high oxygen and we’ll end up dumping some beer because we need a part that has to be cast. How has A-B made such stable beer for so long with those things?
So, are we on the right track? Anybody have a better suggestion? Anybody have a reason not to go with a used Meheen or a reason to go CC&S? New vs. used?
Anything you can offer would be great.
Closing time,
John
The Crown Cork and Seal Cemco machines are so fast and available so cheap it’s really tempting. But without any experience with them, I expect we’ll have high oxygen and we’ll end up dumping some beer because we need a part that has to be cast. How has A-B made such stable beer for so long with those things?
So, are we on the right track? Anybody have a better suggestion? Anybody have a reason not to go with a used Meheen or a reason to go CC&S? New vs. used?
Anything you can offer would be great.
Closing time,
John
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