Brewer upgrades its filler and CIP system

From traditional Bavarian wheat beer brewed as per the same recipe since 1872 to the Nelson Sauvin beer that has been brewed with the eponymous hop variety from New Zealand — Schneider Weisse is not your typical Bavarian brewery.

However, no matter how distinctively original the beers are, they’ve got one thing in common: they do not undergo fermentation in tanks but in open vats. This ensures that the yeast gets enough oxygen, thus enabling the wide variety of aromas to be created.

In addition, after primary fermentation, most of the beers are filled into bottles or casks together with some fresh wort, where they are then left to mature into the products that delight beer aficionados across the globe.

There is probably nobody who knows better than Hans-Peter Drexler just what influence the combination of open-vat fermentation and bottle conditioning has on a beer’s taste. The brewmaster has been working for the company for 38 years and today heads the Technology and Logistics Divisions as managing director.

“I personally think our main beer type, the Original Schneider Weisse, is an ingenious beer — precisely because we owe the open fermentation process to this beer,” he explained. “Ensuring that this great process is retained has always been a matter of crucial importance to me.”

This is also why he doesn’t mind the more elaborate procedures that the traditional method inevitably entails, demanding as it does perfect hygiene conditions and not forgiving even the tiniest of mistakes. This standard likewise applies to the new filler (including CIP system) that Schneider Weisse commissioned in 2019.

The brewer opted for a Krones Modulfill HES, featuring 120 valves and filling up to 40,000 half-litre bottles an hour. The brewery uses sterile air as pressurising gas for those beer types that undergo in-bottle fermentation after filling — in contrast to most other breweries that use CO₂. Drexler said: “That’s why we wanted to have an option for switching off pre-evacuation when we’re filling our main products. It saves on compressed air, which makes quite a difference in terms of numbers.”

The Modulfill HES handles the brewery’s complete beer portfolio. So as to remove any living yeasts that may be left in the machine after a bottle has broken, an automatic hot-water cleaning routine is run every two hours. This requires perfect interaction between the filler and the CIP system, in order to meet the brewery’s meticulous specifications. “We don’t want to put disinfectant in the filler for an interim cleaning routine,” Drexler explained. “So it was important to us that the water invariably has the same temperature, of 80°C, right from the first litre.”

There were also some customer-specific requirements to meet the CIP system design requirements. As the brewer doesn’t pasteurise its products, it had specific valve technology requirements which were integrated by Krones into the valve rack.

Schneider Weisse also took a step forward in regard to digitalisation with the implementation of Krones Share2Act Assistance. The system is used to cover its entire maintenance operation, of both the brewery and the bottling hall.