All-American Canners’ 225/F.
Two exhibitors at this year’s Pack Expo Las Vegas featured beer equipment geared toward the smallest possible packaging circumstance: the single container. The most familiar single-container, or “1-up,” machine in a brewery is probably the automatic growler filler. The machines at Pack Expo go even smaller to the single-serving package, i.e., a bottle or can.
The most obvious applications are for homebrewers who want more control over their bottles — or a way to can their beer. However, these machines could be put into use in brewpubs and tap rooms if you are reluctant or unable to sell limited release or high ABV beers in growlers.
When supply is limited and you want to serve as many people as possible, it’s a lot easier to send someone home with a 12 oz. or even 22 oz. portion than a 64 oz. one.
Wells Can Co. and its All-American 225 Personal Beer Can Sealer 225/F takes their can seaming technology and mounts it on a manual, table-top base. You simply turn the handle while the seamer goes to work creating the same double seam as from an automatic machine.
The device can manage 12 oz. and 16 oz. cans, and it is available with a very steampunk-looking flywheel. It retails for around $700.
Right Stuff Equipment showed off its CP1 Filler/Crowner, a 1-up machine for all standard glass bottle sizes up to 750 ml. This is a more automated machine than the seamer, with controls for air evacuation, CO2 pressurization, flow rate, and counter-pressure filling. You fill and crown at the same station to reduce dissolved oxygen (DO) problems.
The CP1 has a reasonably small footprint and sells for around $3,000.
