At the brewery near Seville, Spain, Krones has six filling machines for the production capacity of 500,000 liters, which are used to recycle glass bottles, disposable glass bottles and cans.
Two sets of 50,000 bottles (disposable glass bottles) are filled with 0.25-liter and 0.33-liter bottles in parallel installation. In addition, there is a collection of refill bottles with a capacity of 80,000 bottles per hour. In order to achieve such high capacity, some machines are dual-configured.
The basic configuration of the glass bottle filling line is the two-channel bottle washer Variojet, with water and air rinsing, and the filling machine Sensometic VPVI. In order to simplify the management and maintenance of spare parts, in principle the same machine is used. The electronic filling machine Sensometic VPVI was chosen because of the large number of different types of beer, and the electronic filling machine can be quickly and easily converted to new varieties and bottles.
The Sensometic VPVI is a liquid level filling system with probe control. After the filling is started by the electronic device, the product flows into the bottle until the liquid level reaches the control point of the probe. The filling valve outlet cyclone is used to ensure smooth product flow and high precision without foam formation. Through the two pre-vacuum steps in the filling process, the beer is not exposed to oxygen during the filling process.
Heineken produces four basic varieties in this giant brewery, namely Heineken, Cruzcampo, Amstel and low alcohol beer (Buckler and Kaliber) with an alcohol content of less than one percent. This resulted in nine types of beer with different raw wort concentrations and carbon dioxide levels.