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Decoration: Heraeus Infrared heating system at Brewdog
� The image shown using Britvic bottles is a representative of a similar system to that used at Brewdog.
Infra-Red heating system ensures labels stick on beer bottles
Heraeus Nobelight has developed an infrared heating system to reduce bottle labels from being removed due to condensation.
An infra-red heating system from Heraeus Noblelight is ensuring there is no condensation on bottles after they are moved from an outside storage area to a warmer inside labelling and filling line at BrewDog’s Ellon, Scotland brewery .
As a result, labels remain securely stuck on bottles and the filling line can be operated at optimum speed.
BrewDog was founded by two young craft ale enthusiasts, James Watt and Martin Dickie, in Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, in 2007 and in only its second year became Scotland’s largest independent brewery.
In 2009, they launched Equity for Punks, a crowd-funding scheme to help support their expansion plans and in 2012 they moved to the brewery in Ellon.
Today, it has brewing facilities in the US and Germany and operates more than 100 bars worldwide, offering in excess of 100 beers.
The Ellon brewery is still its flagship installation and here it produces keg, canned and bottled beers.
However, the company had experienced problems with label adhesion to bottles and these were further highlighted when it installed a second bottling line at Ellon.
Essentially, the problems were caused by condensation on cold bottles as they were labelled in the warmer atmosphere inside the brewery.
Various methods were tried to solve the problem including the extensive use of hot air blowers and an air knife. Unfortunately these achieved only limited success and it proved necessary to reduce the speed of the bottling line to achieve the required label adhesion.
BrewDog had previously investigated the use of infra-red to prevent condensation on an earlier line and it decided to ask Heraeus Noblelight to carry out further tests on the latest line. These proved so successful that a 90kW carbon medium wave system was retrofitted to the line, before the labelling section.
This consists of two 45kW modules, which are PID controlled. The temperature on the bottle surfaces is monitored and the IR power is then automatically regulated at between 50-70% of the installed load to maintain a pre-set temperature.
The infra-red system has now solved the label adhesion problem.
Alain Atmouni, Production Projects Manager at the Ellon site, said: “Apart from solving our labelling problem, the new system now allows us run the bottling line at optimum speed.”
Heraeus, with its headquarters in Hanau, Germany specialises in the production and application of energy sources covering the electro-magnetic spectrum from ultraviolet to infra-red.
It has more than 40 years’ experience in infra-red technology and offers the expertise, products and systems to provide efficient and effective solutions to drying, heating and curing problems throughout industry. �
