Page 19 - Beverage Master February March 2020

Craft Beverage

Krones technology became more accessible to the
Brad Branco is the Packaging Manager at O’Fallon Columbia Boiler
craft beer industry.

Brewery, a regional craft brewery in Maryland
Heights, Missouri. They’ve used a Krones Kosme The Artisan’s Choice in
bottling line for about five years, including a depal-
letizer, a pressure-sensitive labeling system, a
rotary filler head and rinser. It was in place when over 1500 Craft Breweries
Branco joined the company, and definitely allows
room for growth. and Distilleries

“Honestly, it’s oversized for us right now, but it’s Compatible with All Brewing Systems
a very good machine, and I’ll always take faster
processes over slower,” said Branco. “We use a 28
head rotary filler with a max speed of 9000 bottles
per hour, which equates to about 150 bottles per
minute or about 25 barrels per hour if speaking in
volume. We can empty a 100-gallon brite tank in
four to five hours.”

The Kosme system is windows based and can be
manipulated remotely, but Branco tells Beverage
Master Magazine that at their facility, there is
always an operator on-site, negating any need for
remote operation.

“The Kosme bottling and packaging system is
Italian made, which brings with it a learning curve,”
said Branco. “Initially it was a bit of a language
struggle with the tech support being all Italian
speaking. It was a challenge if you needed a propri-
etary part or something non-standard. We’re good
now, and there’s a parts distributor in Wisconsin
that carries the most common parts. But Google
translate was our best friend for quite some time.
You can still have an issue and have to wait for
something, but through technical support and
speaking with other breweries that have the same
equipment, we’ve learned the best replacement
parts to keep on hand. It’s all about planning. All
in all, this is a great filler that doesn’t lend itself to
failure. It’s all metric, with blocks and modules that
are easily and fully accessible. In that sense, it’s
what I consider a simple machine.”

COLUMBIA BOILER COMPANY

PROUDLY MADE IN THE USA
Phone (610) 323-2700

www.columbiaboiler.com

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