Been looking at different can lines for my 15bbl brewery being planned. Anyone have any suggestions? Ive worked with a Wild Goose system and would VERY much like to stay away from them at all cost for sake of sanity. Cheers
Welcome to the BA site, beerguyvia. I hope that you can stick around and provide forum input from a brewery perspective because there aren't many brewers who spend time here. And that's going to be part of the problem with you getting much feedback to your question... a lack of BA members who have direct experience to answer your question. There are some BA members who might catch your post and reply, but I'm having a brain freeze right now in order to bring them into this thread. @honkey is one who might have some comments. Have you also asked your question at probrewer.com?
We use a Microcanner to packaged 15bbl tanks. It has 6 fill heads and can fill 12oz or 16oz cans. It fills at 24 cans per minute which is a reasonable pace for 2 people handling the finished cans. It's nothing fancy though, it doesn't apply 6 pack holders or labels. microcanner.com
Just out of curiosity, what's your issue with the WG machines? We have one at my work (4 head, puts out 2 cases of 12oz cans a minute. We have a 17bbl system, and package anywhere from 1-4 batch tanks depending), and aside from the basic headaches any machine is gonna give you, we have had no problems in the 3+ years we've had it. We use 3 people on the line; an operator, 1 to put the holders on, and one to stack and move finished pallets, and support the other 2.
Interesting... Not to be a dick, but if you're having trouble with Wild Goose line operation, you're going to have trouble with any line. I use an Alpha Brew Ops line and I like it. We run 16 oz cans at 32 cpm. Shaken DO readings always below the mid-30's ppb. Normally in a run of 125 cases we have less than 4 low fills and the only time it misses lids is if you don't have it set up properly. Things get out of alignment and they need to be adjusted, but you typically have plenty of warning it's going to happen. If I have a bad seam or a missed lid in a run of 125 cases, I just make minor adjustments rather than waiting for problems. Packaging lines are not set and forget pieces of equipment and Wild Goose is a really great option as long as the operator is keeping up with it. That's going to be the case for any canning line you buy and there's a learning curve for all of them. Expect waste when you start and expect to get it ironed out unless you're complacent. Too often, brewers are quick to blame the machine.
Also, if you're a brewery in planning, the Facebook group for "Breweries in Planning" is a better resource these days than ProBrewer is. If you're already operating a brewery, "Milk the Forklift" is the group for you. BeerAdvocate is a great site, but it's really more for consumers. Not much activity from commercial brewers on here.
