Focus | Bottling An insight into Murau, based in Austria and its comprehensive bottling expansion project

BRILLIANCE IN BOTTLING

FOR AUSTRIA’S MURAU, ITS RECENT MODERNISATION PROGRAMME HAS INVOLVED UPGRADING ALL ASPECTS OF BREWERY LIFE. A NEAR €80M SPEND ENABLED THE BUSINESS TO IMPROVE ITS TECHNOLOGY, VEHICLE FLEET AND MARKETING. PART OF THIS PROJECT WAS THE INVESTMENT IN A NEW BOTTLE FILLING LINE, SO TO GET THE JOB DONE, THEY RETURNED TO TRUSTED PARTNER KRONES.

Ensuring they have the best equipment, and most effective processes, is nothing new for Austria’s Murau Brewery. Following the investment in its brewhouse and the fermentation and storage cellar, they have also recent installed a new bottling line for glass containers – and proactively minimised the time required for installation and commissioning.

Rewind back to 2014, which was a milestone year. The brewing cooperative changed over its entire production process to district heat supply – rendering itself completely independent of fossil fuels. Since then, the heat has come solely from the newly built biomass cogeneration plant of the municipal utilities here, which is powered exclusively by wood from the surrounding region. And in order to reduce energy consumption at the energy-intensive brewhouse, in particular, Murau integrated Steinecker’s EquiTherm system, where all the energy required for mashing and heating the wort is obtained from the wort cooling process.

With this major upgrade in the beer production process, Murau brewery became one of the first in Europe to opt 100 per cent for renewable energy. The next task was to do the same for the bottling operation as well.

“Our existing glass line consisted of machines from different manufacturers that in some cases had been operating for more than 30 years,” explains managing director Josef Rieberer. “Due to its age, the line needed a lot of repairs. This led to poor spare parts availability and numerous downtimes – and we often had to improvise. The water and energy consumption levels, too, were no longer up to contemporary standards, and no longer in line with our corporate philosophy.

Originally, the new bottling line was not scheduled in the long-term budget until 2021 – but for a variety of reasons the Murau brewery brought the project forward. For implementation, they returned to Krones on board. “Firstly, you see, we had already gained gratifying experience in the brewhouse. And secondly we were impressed by the professionalism that Krones displayed while preparing the project,” said Rieberer. “Both all the people, and guided tours of the plants in Neutraubling and Rosenheim, further reinforced this impression: we knew that with Krones we would have a dependable, competent, sophisticated partner at our side.”

During the concept phase, it emerged that the Murau brewery’s requirements are ideal for integrating the new Krones Modulfill HES into the line, including the ability to increase its filling capacity from 22,000 to 36,000 fills per hour In terms of hygiene, particularly, but also of operator-friendliness and space savings, the glass filler scores highly with numerous improvements and new technological features (see box). It incorporates both a crowner and an integrated capping unit for aluminium roll-on closures.

“To be honest, at first I didn’t realise that Krones had already included so many

prototypes in the new glass filler. I was almost a bit sceptical initially, but looking back I can say: everything is working perfectly, as if they’d all been running for ever – just as you would expect from Krones,” he explains. “We’re rather proud that we’re the first brewers in Central Europe to use this ultra-modern filling technology from Krones.”

And during the further course of the production flow, too, there are numerous new systems at Murau: downstream of the Solomatic, which dresses the containers in neck and body labels, and provides laser date-coding, a Checkmat EM inspects the glass bottles in a 360-degree monitoring routine. In the dry end, the latest generation of the Krones Connected HMI machine visualisation system is used at the Smartpac packer and unpacker plus the Modulpal Pro 3A palletiser. As far as the hardware is concerned, it scores highly in terms of elegant styling and an almost screwless housing, while a full-HD multi-touch screen with an intuitive navigational structure ensures simple

operator control. And on the software side, the Connected HMI networks the machines with each other and interfaces them with higher-order IT systems – all this in compliance with the most stringent of IT security standards.

To analyse the production data from all the machines in the line, the Murau brewery uses SitePilot Line Diagnostics from Syskron. This software records all data relevant to quality, costs and output, and summarises the results in easy-read dashboards and reports. “We’re using Line Diagnostics for the first time, and I’m really impressed by it. What’s particularly great about it is that it motivates my people in the bottling hall to get the most effective results out of the very latest technology,” says Rieberer.

Syskron is not the only subsidiary involved in the new line. On the old line, the Murau brewery was already using adhesives and cleaning agents from KIC Krones. Since now, of course, the

conveyors were included in the delivery package, the brewery is also deploying the lubricants from the consumables specialist. This means it’s the first plant in Austria to be using three out of the five product categories in KIC Krones’ portfolio. “That was very important to me personally,” explains Rieberer. “Thanks to the efficacious interaction of machinery and chemicals, we have managed to achieve a massive reduction in expendables consumption – which in its turn, of course, fits in perfectly with our corporate strategy.”

After all, the issue of sustainability plays a key role in all of the Murau brewery’s investments. With the new line too, for instance, it was a key stipulation that energy and water consumption had to be minimised, as Rieberer relates: “As far as the water savings are concerned, the line achieves superlative figures: the biggest quantifiable and meaningful figure is the water consumption per hectolitre produced. This used to be six, but now with the new machines it’s a mere 4.33 hectolitres. That is a sensational figure, one that we had not expected after only five months.” As with the brewhouse, Murau gets the energy from the biomass cogeneration plant. Here, too, for example, the heat exchanger rating has already been substantially downsized.

The decision to opt for a single-sourced line paid off in the project’s hot phase at the latest: “Since Krones functioned as a complete-package vendor, we were able to minimise the number of interfaces. This was certainly one of the reasons, too, why we could keep the installation phase extremely short,” says Rieberer. In fact, at the place where the new line is now running, its predecessor was still operating up to the beginning of January. However, since not only the space for the bottling kit, but also the warehousing capacities were limited, this meant that in order to continuously meet the market’s demand the brewery could permit a halt in production of not more than two and a half months. “That entailed major challenges in the planning work. But thanks to a highly professional engineering job from Krones, and well-prepared, well-trained staff here in Murau, we made the impossible possible,” Rieberer adds.

However, Krones had only four weeks for installing and commissioning the entire line, since the other half of the time window was required for construction work. Another challenge was the heavy winter snowfalls. To make sure that the more than tight deadline was met, for example, Krones delivered the 35-ton bottle washer in one piece from its plant in Flensburg to its destination in the Austrian Alps. And the plan worked: almost precisely two months after the “celebration of the final bottle” the new line was producing its first sales-quality containers.

With the new line, the Murau brewery has likewise upsized its bottling capacity from 22,000 to 36,000 glass bottles per hour – and this increase has proved very timely: “In 2019, sales of our flavoured CSDs, in particular, were very high. We don’t know the reason for this, but we’re definitely proud that we’ve got something in our portfolio for our younger customers who have yet to develop a taste for beer,” says Rieberer. “So of course it was incredibly opportune that thanks to the new bottling line we can now meet this increased demand to optimum effect.” But the eight flavoured CSDs and two juice varieties from the Murelli brand are only ancillary products (though extremely popular ones). It’s the Märzen beer that accounts for most of the sales, with around 86 per cent, though the company also brews pilsner, wheat beer and various creative beers.

The new line has been up and running for almost a year now – and Josef Rieberer is full of praise for the collaboration with Krones: “The job was handled throughout in a spirit of mutual understanding, respect and responsive goodwill. “After all, a project like this involves more than just the technology: all the staff concerned from Krones understood us at the Murau brewery – and that made implementing the project a whole lot easier, leading very swiftly to successful completion.”

TAKING CONTROL OF THE MALTING PROCESS

IMPROVING THE EFFICIENCY OF PROCESS CONTROL, LOWERING COSTS AND REDUCING ENERGY USE ARE TRAITS ANY MANUFACTURING BUSINESS WOULD WANT TO ACHIEVE, WHICH IS WHY VIKING MALT IN HALMSTAD, SWEDEN INVESTED IN CONTINUOUS HUMIDITY MONITORING TO UP ITS GAME.

As one of the world’s leading suppliers of high quality malt products, Viking Malt has investigated the advantages of continuous humidity monitoring inside the malting process at its facility in Halmstad, Sweden. Vaisala’s Indigo 520 transmitter has been integrated with the plant’s control system, and after an initial trial of three months, technical Manager Tony Öblom says: “Real-time access to humidity data has enabled tighter control of the malting process – improving quality whilst saving energy and improving profitability.”

Malt is a key ingredient in the manufacture of beer, whiskey and many baking products. Viking Malt’s head office is in Finland, and the group operates 6 malthouses in Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Lithuania and two in Poland, producing a combined total of over 600,000 tonnes of malt per year.

The majority of malting grain is barley, but wheat and rye may be used, as well as rice and maize. With its malthouses in northern Europe, Viking Malt enjoys a number of advantages. For example, the barley from its contract farms is of good quality with excellent malting characteristics. In addition, cold winters kill off pests and diseases, and the crops grow quickly in the midnight sun, which means that they require less pesticide.

Malting involves the initiation, management and cessation of germination. This is achieved through the careful and precise control of in-chamber moisture, temperature and sometimes carbon dioxide.

Good beer might be a matter of personal taste, but the consistency of flavour and other characteristics depend on the use of high quality malt. Öblom says: “At Viking Malt we work very hard to ensure the production of consistent, high quality malts. This is achieved through the careful selection and management of raw materials and by monitoring and controlling production as precisely as possible.”

The malting process has three main phases, which combined can vary between seven to ten days, depending on the characteristics of the raw materials and specification of the produced malt. The three phases are:

Steeping – the grains are washed and their moisture content is increased in the steep tanks to stimulate germination. Steeping normally involves a combination of wet and dry periods of different lengths.

Germination – as the seeds germinate they produce enzymes. For example, amylases convert starch in the seeds to fermentable sugars and proteases break down protein.

Kilning – in the final part of the process, the ‘green malt’ is dried and heated in a kiln to meet the requisite specification.

At the beginning of the malting process, the humidity inside the kiln is likely to be 100% at 60 to 65 DegC, whereas the final kilning is likely to be between 80 and 95 DegC with a target humidity of 4%.

As a producer of 65 different types of malt, Viking Malt monitors its feedstock and production processes very closely to ensure consistency and compliance with specifications for features such as moisture, colour, flavour, protein and enzyme content. Samples are frequently taken from production for testing in the onsite laboratory.

“The results can take around 6 hours,” Öblom explains. “For some parameters this is acceptable, but in order to optimise process control, we need real-time data, so I conducted research to discover potential solutions and learned that my colleagues in Finland were successfully trialling a Vaisala Indigo 520 transmitter.

“Continuous humidity data enables us to determine the precise moment at which the malting process is complete. Not only does this help to assure product quality by making sure that we are not under-drying or over-drying; it also helps us to save money because over-drying is a waste of energy, and increases the cost of the final product.”

According to the Viking Malt CSR Report, 2019: “Energy efficiency is a guiding principle in the planning of our plant design, investments, production, logistics and sourcing of energy product and services.” The implementation of the Indigo 520 transmitter therefore helps to fulfil this objective as well as another which seeks to “increase the speed of innovation especially in information and communication technologies.”

Continuous, reliable measurements with the Indigo 520 transmitter also provide a complete record of production, with no interruptions from calibration and maintenance activities.

The Indigo 520 transmitter collects data from a Vaisala HMP7 humidity probe, which utilizes heating technology, and is specifically designed for high-humidity applications. Combined with a TMP1 temperature probe, the system provides stable and reliable relative humidity measurements in the final kiln.

The Indigo 520 is compatible with Vaisala’s comprehensive range of Indigo compatible smart probes for humidity, temperature, dew point, carbon dioxide, vaporized hydrogen peroxide, and moisture in oil measurements. It can accommodate two detachable measurement probes simultaneously, measuring the same, or different, parameters at the same time.

The transmitter has an IP66- and NEMA

The malting process has three main phases, which combined can vary between seven to ten days

Continuous, reliable measurements with the Indigo 520 transmitter also provide a complete record of production

4 -rated robust metal enclosure, and a touchscreen display made of hardened glass. This local display provides onsite staff with quick and easy access to live data, and by connecting the transmitter to the control system, Tony and his team are able to view readings wherever they are and at any time of day or night.

In summary

With rugged cases and hardened touchscreens, the Vaisala Indigo 520 transmitters have been designed for operation in even the harshest of industrial environments. Users in a wide variety of industries can now exploit the advantages of Vaisala’s Indigo compatible smart probes for humidity, temperature, dew point, carbon dioxide, vaporized hydrogen peroxide, and moisture in oil measurements. These smart probes employ unique advanced technologies, and are renowned for their accuracy and long-term stability. As smart probes, they can be quickly and easily swapped if necessary.

The transmitter in Halmstad was connected to the company’s control system, however, other customers may wish to utilise the transmitter’s Ethernet connection to access data via a secure web interface.

The Indigo 520 transmitters trialled at Viking Malt’s facilities in Finland and Sweden demonstrated similar advantages for efficient process control. Tony therefore envisages a further rollout of the technology to the rest of the group. “At Halmstad, we plan to install twelve transmitters, each with two Vaisala probes, in the facility’s six kilns. This will significantly improve the efficiency of process control, lower costs and reduce our energy use.”

Gravity Systems was formed to meet the growing demand in the craft beer market for a single source for all brewhouse, fermentation, services generation and distribution. It is our aim to be the most complete partner in the brewery industry by building long term partnerships with our customers.