Cask Global Canning Solutions sent word about its new Micro-Automated Canning System (mACS) to fit its latest fill technology along with the seaming reliability of Cask’s ACS X2 in the most compact machine it could, to provide the maneuverability of Cask’s SAMS machine. It also fills cans in a wide range of sizes.
The mACS can be converted to fill and seam cans of varying heights and diameters — from 5.5 ounces (163 mL) to 19.2 ounces (568 mL) in volume — in less than 30 minutes. The mACS also has electric cam-driven seamers, three CO2 pre-purge heads, three fill heads and a post-fill rinser and dryer.
Being able to quickly shift to new can sizes for current products or jump from beer and cider and back is a nice plus.
“Since it can be equipped with an array of automated components, the mACS also enables our customers to scale up the automation of their canning process as they grow and diversify,” said Cask Founder Peter Love.
Dead Armadillo Craft Brewing digs it
Dead Armadillo Craft Brewing in Tulsa, Okla., can attest to this, as it has been using the mACS to can its beer and expand its product line.
“When you add a liquid nitrogen doser to the mACS,” said Todd Phillips, Dead Armadillo’s director of operations, “you can use it to can coffee. So after many months of R&D, we’re entering the nitro cold-brewed coffee market with some friends at a local coffee roaster. It’s a brave new world for us that wouldn’t have been possible without Cask.”
“The mACS supports a larger array of can sizes than any line we have ever seen,” Phillips added, “and we can change from can sizes, lid formats and product types with minimal effort.”
mACS Specs
- It measures just 7 by 2.5 feet and has a very small footprint of 17.5 square feet.
- The mACS conveyor belt can feeder (as found on Cask’s larger ACS machine) allows for adding such automated pre- and post-packaging components as a depalletizer, inline date coder, nitrogen doser, pressure-sensitive labeler, shrink sleever and other components.
- The machine’s CO2 pre-purge component evacuates oxygen prior to can filling, while the three-head filler’s unique technology combines fill-level sensors with proprietary foam-control valves.
- Those features combine to produce filled cans with extremely low dissolved oxygen pickup of just 5 to 20 parts per billion — better or comparable to large-scale and much more expensive canning and bottling lines.
- The mACS fills 20 plus cans per minute and 50 plus cases per hour with just one operator.
