Can Drying System Installed at Scottish and Newcastle Breweries

Scottish and Newcastle breweries have recently installed six of Secomak's can drying systems at its Royal Brewery in Manchester, with five more planned for Berkshire in the spring.

The installation, part of a significant additional investment on the site brought about by management concerns for the environment and the safety of employees, also ensures the company is fully in line with the BCME Code of practice, as well as Health and Safety Executive noise regulations and guidance concerning Legionnaires disease.

Can Processing Brewery Systems

The BCME code gives strict guidelines for can processing to ensure that tabs do not suffer stress corrosion, or worse, burst cans. Secomak has tackled this problem with a patented three stage system.

First the cans are washed, ensuring nothing other than fresh water is present on the can top, then the bulk water is removed before being fine dried using a can top dryer. Traditional methods of can drying included the use of airknives, which could often exceed legal noise limits.

Secomak's system uses a combination of strong suction and can-top drying technology to ensure the resulting equipment is as quiet as possible. Air knife kits are also known to atomise water, discharging an aerosol into the atmosphere.

With recent L8 Government guidance identifying atomised air as a potential risk for spreading bacterial infections such as Legionella, Secomak and Scottish and Newcastle have worked together to create a patented high suction system in combination with can-top drying. It has proven that suction can play a major part in reducing the risk of discharging aerosols into the atmosphere.

Paul Galvin, Project Manager at Scottish and Newcastle UK's Royal Brewery site, remarked, 'The installations are successfully attaining packaging targets for can hygiene and dryness. Secomak's ‘can dry’ systems are well manufactured and engineered and extremely easy to set-up and operate on all can sizes. The machines are living up to our expectations.’