Meheen Merlin magic in Mudgee
Over the Australia Day weekend I went to Mudgee because the Mudgee Brewing Company have just recently received their new 6 head Meheen bottle filler. I was able to catch up with Andrew Larsen, see the Meheen filler in action, and get some experience working on a bottling line.
The Meheen Merlin is an impressive piece of machinery. Mechanically it is fairly simple, even crude. However the ideas behind the mechanical design, and the sophistication of its touch screen controls make it stand out. One limitation of the machine is that bottle sizes cannot really be changed. There are six transverse filling tubes mounted in line on a block which is lifted and lowered with compressed air. Although the height can be adjusted with shims, bottle diameter is pretty well fixed. A difference of 2 mm diameter will mean that the last bottle in line will be 12 mm out of line – crunch goes the filling tube.
The six head Meheen can do 2,400 small bottles per hour, 40 bottles per minute. We had it running at that for about 10 minutes but had to change bins for the full bottles. It was quite easy running at 30 bottles per minute. The running speed is controlled by how fast the evacuation and counter pressure carbon dioxide is released from the bottles. A 1,500 bottles per hour rotary filler is four to five times the price with no reduction in labour to run it.
A neat accessory for the Meheen is the tank manager. Again a touch screen and PLCs to control the temperature, carbonation pressure, and supply of carbon dioxide in the fermenter or bright beer tank from which the beer is being bottled.
All very nifty.
Hello Pat,
It must be fun and a good feeling to be actually seeing in action and using the same equipment that you have purchsed.
Regards
Graeme Parker
It was an invaluable day Graeme. Labour costs for packaging will be a major expense, getting some experience of it is a big help with planning the overall operation of the bottling line.
pat
Hi Pat,
Looks like it is really getting exciting now! So how many people will you need to help put all those bottles in the packaging … or is that done automatically too?
Brad.
Brad,
It will probably take four people to run the bottling line. Packing of filled and labelled bottles will all be done manually.
Pat