World first

11 April was a very special day, both for Krones and for the Bischofshof Brewery, which was not only celebrating its 370^th anniversary, but also commissioning the fastest beer filler on the market: the Krones Dynafill.

Really the fastest? Yes! Because the Krones Dynafill needs just an unbeatable five seconds for filling and closing a beer bottle. This means the filler not only breaks every record in terms of speed, but also a seemingly inviolable law of filling technology. Why? Let’s take a quick look at how it was born:

Practice is better than theory

“Nothing’s impossible if you’re prepared to try.” This quote from Alexander the Great has rarely been so apposite because in the received wisdom of filling technology, filling into a vacuum had so far been regarded as an absolute no-go. Everyone thought it was downright impossible to fill an underpressurised container with beer without thereby damaging the product. Until a project team at Krones simply experimented, and thanks to a goodly portion of ingenuity finally found the solution in the shape of the Dynafill: through the interaction of vacuum and overpressure, and the combination of filling and closing in a single unit, what was initially regarded as impossible turned out to work after all. So Krones has made every brewer’s long-cherished dream come true: no fobbing, minimised oxygen values, more microbiological safety.

It is Rupert Meinzinger to whom Krones owes the breakthrough concept. Although he no longer works for Krones, he was, of course, invited to Bischofshof’s inauguration ceremony. He tells us the story involved, and explains what’s revolutionary about the idea:

“The paramount goal back then was to render the filling process faster. But that would not work when air has to be extracted from the container and liquid filled into it simultaneously; for this, the bottle’s neck is quite simply too narrow. So what was downright revolutionary was the idea of performing these two steps no longer in parallel but one after the other: first the air comes out, and then the beer goes into the bottle. That this basic idea is now being manufactured as a mature technology in the shape of the Dynafill is an indescribably wonderful feeling.”

 Green light at the Bischofshof Brewery

After Krones had premiered the Dynafill the drinktec 2017, the filler was immediately sent to Bischofshof for field-testing, where it had since been exhaustively trialled under realistic conditons. On 11 April, the brewery officially commissioned the new Krones Dynafill beer filler, thus marking a technological milestone in modern-day bottling. A view shared, by the way, by two of Krones’ clients, who saw the Dynafill live at Bischofshof:

“The filling time is incredibly short, the oxygen content is small, and the microbiological safety is wonderful. For us brewers, this is a superlative solution! I want to put a filler like this in my own brewery.” Diego Gomes da Silva, Director Industrial Grupo Petropolis

“This is wonderful kit because the microbiological risk between filling and closing can now in fact be ruled out entirely. What’s more, I observed that the fill level accuracy was consistently the same.” Andreas Dorn, Braumeister Brauerei Wiethaler

More than enough reason to celebrate: with the official commissioning of the Dynafill, Bischofshof, together with Krones and numerous invited guests, inaugurated a three-day brewery festival. Here, we’ve recorded some impressions for you, plus of course the day’s most exciting moment: