Issues With Mobile Canning Lines?

I don't know about those breweries but in my experiences have been big inconsistencies in the quality of canned beers from mobile canning lines.

I think that a lot of the problems underlying may be that the canning lines probably don't have actual feedback and pressure to improve the quality and consistency of their processes.

As a customer if I buy a six-pack of cans and they don't taste very good I automatically think the brewery did something wrong. That may mean that I won't buy the beers from the brewery anymore... Even if I know they are very skilled brewers and the beers on draught taste delicious I am very hesitant to buy their canned beers because I never know what it will be like.

If the brewery is controlling their own canning line and they get complaints or identify quality issues they can put controls in place to fix the problems.

If there are quality issues on a mobile canning line they are less likely to be held accountable. They should be the experts in their equipment and process but they either don't care as much to implement the proper controls due to a lack of accountability or there are issues because they have to work with a wide variety of incoming materials to use.

 

It comes down to the quality of the canning line (regardless of mobile vs. non-mobile).

Some mobile canning service companies buy cheap, manual canning lines which result in high TPO (Total Package Oxygen) values in the canned beers. Those canned beers need to be consumed quickly so that the effects of oxidation are not too evident (e.g., hop fade, stale flavors, etc.).

I would think that a mobile canning service could purchase quality canning lines but needless to say that costs more money.

Another aspect is maintenance. Any canning line will require continuous inspection and maintenance. A high quality canning line that is not properly maintained will produce sub-optimum results.

Cheers!

P.S. FWIW, I have personally stopped buying beer that was packaged using a mobile canning service since I have had too many bad experiences in this regard.

 

Other Half uses a mobile canning line, cranks out hundreds to more than a 1000 cans a week for a couple of years now with some of the highest quality beer around.

 

And yet, there's a brewer one borough away (you know who) that releases inconsistent cans via mobile canning... at least according to the threads here.

 

I don't go the the OH line-ups but I like reading the morning of threads for fun. Often enough people complain about busted/leaking cans on the way home. So it seems like another possible issue with mobile canning systems.

 

In the grand scheme of how many cans they have put out, a handful of rogue cans is nothing. Perception of OP about mobile canning is extreme, no brewery would stay in business if their cans had a shelf life of days.

 

There is nothing inherently wrong with mobile canning. The canners that I have seen have been quality fillers from Wild Goose. However, I have seen a tendency for breweries to have bad cans simply because they are new to packaging and giving it a shot with a mobile line before purchasing their own. Often, you have to book these guys weeks in advance to come package your product. If the beer is cloudy, under carbonated, not cold enough for packaging, etc. many breweries still opt to package product even though it isn't ready.

 

Doesn't Grimm contract brew at a facility with its own canning line?

 

I have previously speculated that premature packaging due to scheduling demands could be a source of many qc issues, so it's good to hear that it's a genuine possibility.

 

A good brewer won't let it happen. Side note, I've made some comments like this recently and it has pissed some brewers off. My response is always "If you're doing your job, than this doesn't apply to you and there's nothing to be upset about. If it angers you, perhaps you should figure out why you're angry about the truth."

 

Not too impressive given that commercial high speed canning lines can fill more than a thousand cans in a minute.

 

Profit margin is huge for direct can sales. I sometimes feel the bigger players wish they were in the shoes of the hyped breweries.

30 employees. Everyones happy/ Why even have the need for the larger breweries in the larger scope?

 

Below is a link to an article about We Can based out of Danville, PA. You can see a photograph where the beer is filled via a manual canning operation: an operator fills a couple of cans and then they are seemed manually (if you ever had a crowler filled you know what is going on here). What do you think the TPO values are with this canning system?

Cheers!

http://www.beerscenemag.com/2013/08/we-can/

 

From what I've seen, this type of set up is more common: http://www.toucanmobilecanning.com/

 

Weedy,

That is a nice automated canning system in that specific video.

As I posted previously in this thread: "I would think that a mobile canning service could purchase quality canning lines but needless to say that costs more money."

I wish the small breweries in my area could contract out to Toucan Mobile Canning. I have had too many cans of beer that were canned by mobile canning services that suffered from oxidation issues despite the fact the cans were not too old.

I hope that you are permitted to purchase a high quality canning line for Tombstone Brewing Company. IMO investing in a high quality automated canning line is worth it.

Cheers!

Jack

 

Yeah, I've been working with the guys at Alpha Brew Ops to acquire a canning line with less than 10 ppb dissolved oxygen. We will be doing mostly 16 oz. 4-packs and will be able to fill about 40 CPM with just 1 full time operator and one other helper intermittently jumping in to help. I'm in a great situation with the owners here prioritizing quality above all else. That was the biggest determining factor in my decision to move and I feel like I'm living the brewer's dream.

The Toucan guy's are really popular in the Southeast. I think they have 3 lines now. The mobile lines I've seen out here have been a similar model, but slightly slower output. I think Toucan was running about 40 CPM and the ones I've seen out here run at 25 CPM.

 

Oh and to your point about a high quality packaging line, I definitely agree. I don't think automation is completely necessary, but it definitely removes some variables. I remember John Mallet saying that the one piece of equipment he would never buy used is a canning or bottling line.

 

Canning is a step in a manufacturing process. If you take a canning procedure and make it mobile on top of what it already does, that is adding a huge element of variability to it. This adds more potential for error and issues than a fixed canning process.

A good mobile canning company will make sure that its inherently less-controlled process is sufficiently controlled to be the same or better than a fixed-location canning process. A bad one will not account for sources of variability and will cause the kind of issues that many of us have seen in canned beer.