Issues With Mobile Canning Lines?

Just like breweries themselves, I'd assume there are some good, and some not as good mobile canners. Pretty broad that these people dump on all mobile canners.
It's anecdotal but there is a mobile canner in our area that services several places and at this point I've probably had a hundred cans from them successfully.

 

We do some hand-canning where we actually have a brite tank and a gun type filler. We batch carbonate our product and learned how to from our friends at Harpoon. IF we are extremely careful we can get to between 10 - 12 ppb oxygen in a can of carbonated juice. That is CO2 purging the can prior to filling and a bit of CO2 spritz on the top. We can do about 3 - 4 cans per minute by hand. The key point is "extremely careful"...and we are just making samples for immediate tasting and formula evaluation, so far from the chaos of a production floor.

I don't believe that mobile canning is inherently not capable, but my experience with equipment is that it does not "like" to be moved. Even when we relocate equipment, it sometimes gives us no end of grief re-establishing control over the process. Some things you can wheel in and out with no problems whatsoever, other equipment not so much. I would think it would take some effort to get a mobile canning line set up and operating properly to give those low residual oxygen levels. I also suspect that the maintenance is higher on equipment that gets hauled about, set up, torn down, etc. So of that may reflect on the overall capability (or commitment level) of the company providing the service - they have to set up/maintain the equipment.

My personal expectation would be to produce products meeting ALL of my quality parameters (including meeting GMP's, clean swabs, sanitary conditions, etc). My experience with co-packers is you have to be extremely specific about expectations and meeting quality standards. What's the business relationship where it is basically a mobile co-packer? Are responsibilities clearly established? Who owns what in terms of checking, monitoring, etc.

So could it be a contractual thing in some cases where the desired specifications are possibly unknown (or not clearly understood) or not communicated and upheld in a written contract? In my imagination I can see a wide range of "demands" from the simple "hey we got a bunch of beer let's call the canning guys" to places that are sticklers for the details (ie, specify everything up front, then do the measurements to make sure things are meeting spec). I can also imagine a range of mobile canning operations from the "bang 'em out" to the highly scrupulous. When things aren't aligned there is potential for mayhem, so I would think that is a big part of the equation.

 

Most of the local beer I drink is either canned from brewery owned equipment or were canned by Iron Heart. I have had beers that hold up really well from both mobile and owned equipment and vice versa. Based on my experience, the quality and ability to last have more to do with the brewer than the packager.

 

The problem is it's very hard for the consumer to know which mobile canning service is good or bad until it's too late. I've had enough bad experiences with mobile canning that I just avoid them now. (Typically, the shrink-wrap plastic labels or stick-on labels are the give-away for mobile canning, but not always).

There is are many many factors that can contribute to quality problems in packaged beer that it can be hard enough for brewers to put out a consistent product without the added challenges of mobile canning. @JackHorzempa discussed TPO and manual canning systems, @honkey pointed out problems with scheduling the canner before the beer is ready for packaging, @LeRose mentioned that automated machinery is very sensitive to being moved and contractual issues related to quality assurance. I'd rather not take on those risks with my beer purchase and support brewers who have invested in their own canning/bottling systems.

Also, there is just a lot of beer crowding the shelves these days and IMHO adding mobile cans of questionable quality to that shelf is not helping the industry overall. The majority of consumers erroneously assume any can on the shelf is equal to another, which means brewers who invest in quality are forced to compete evenly against those who do not. If low-quality beer is allowed to flourish then there is less incentive overall for any brewer to improve their quality.Therefore, I choose to buy from brewers who have their own equipment and invested in their quality control.

 

Larry, those are two very important considerations.

I suspect you are correct that some aspects of a canning line could be sensitive the to shock and vibrations of being relocated on a regular (daily?) basis.

And there is no doubt in my mind that the regular relocations of the equipment would require regular and vigorous inspections and maintenance.

Cheers!

 

Maybe Mobile Canning Lines and their potential implications on beer quality might be a good topic for the consideration of:

Neil Witte: https://www.beeradvocate.com/commun...control-after-beer-leaves-the-brewery.487461/

Mary Pellettieri: https://www.beeradvocate.com/commun...instructor-at-the-brewers-association.483373/

Cheers!

@Todd @Jason

 

I worked with a mobile canning company last week at one of my local breweries. They had a top notch set-up, they gave us a mandatory safety briefing, operated their equipment very well, and were a pleasure to work worth. It was a 4 head filler; each can got a full CO2 purge, filled, then was hit with more CO2 before the lid was placed on. I would put the quality of those cans against any produced by a similar-sized, in-place system. On a nerd note, these company had built their own depalletizer that they brought with. Their whole system fit into the back of a 14ft box truck, and puts out about 100 cases of 12oz sixpacks per hour.

 

What were the measured TPO values for those canned beers?

Cheers!

 

Don't know, wasn't my end of the elephant. I was just the non-automated palletizer. Will ask when they come back in a couple weeks.

EDIT: the system they had was very similar to the one in the Toucan video. I didn't see the second CO2 on top of the beer (just before the lids were placed), and their depalletizer was different (being custom built), but pretty much the same set-up. Our guys used the old school ring-type holders instead of the new snap-on type though.

 

I will be interested in hearing what they say about this. Just a word of 'caution', if they did not measure the TDO (Total Dissolved Oxygen) at the time of the canning operation whatever value they state (claim) is simply hearsay.

I appreciate that you viewed this whole packaging operation as being a 'quality' operation but without accurate measurements confirming what has occurred there really is no way of knowing for sure.

Cheers!

 

A lot of the mobile canning is providing services to those who either self-distribute their beers or have people picking up the beer directly upon canning. If these beers were going into chain stores or even a corner bodega, you would know pretty quickly if there was shelf stability issues or problems with dissolved oxygen, because the beer would not be consumed instantly.

As with many packaged food items, the longer it sits, the more likely any issues during packaging will compound and create an unstable product.

Its sort of a circular argument though - because if you were packaging beer to satisfy chain store authorizations, you wouldn't be using a mobile canning device ;-)

 

Shane, a number of local smaller breweries do exactly that. They do not have the resources: money and/or space to to install a canning line and thereby contract out to a mobile canning service. When I see cans on my local beer stores shelves with shrink-wrapped labels that is an indicator to me. I have had more than one bad experience buying these sorts of beers at my local beer stores so I stopped buying them.

Cheers!

@Ranbot

 

I assume they are not pasteurized either...

 

Fwiw, Shane, I do see those kind of beers in NYC - mostly at Whole Foods or craft oriented stores. My luck hasn't been so good with them, though, so I've decided not to take that chance any more.

 

wow, I wonder how many people like you are having their first introduction to craft beer like this...reminds me if the mid 90s all over again....

 

It's starting to feel that way. My attitude now is similar to the way it was then - as long as the beer is fresh, I'll go with what's reliable.

 

Probably. But the beers canned at craft breweries with canning lines at their facilities are mostly not pasteurized either.

Do you pasteurize your beers at the Memphis brewery?

Cheers!

 

Is there a list somewhere of brewers using mobile canning lines

 

Crisp, Bengali, Sweet Action as well as the lower ABV rotating beers are. Resin and other higher ABV beers are not.

 

Well, the company I refer to is busy 5 days a week in the Puget Sound region, so the list would be long. And include some of our bigger local/regional breweries.