Ask The Brewmasters

We are going to be starting a small barrel aging program( 1000L) in the new year. We currently do  not do any small packaging. Looking at 2 or 4 head table top bottle fillers. Seems to be quite a few manufacturers out there. Looking for manufacturers people have had good experiences with. Thank you for any recommendation or system to avoid.

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Stewart Brown
Director of Brewing Operations
Banff Hospitality Collective
Banff, Alberta
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We have a 6 spout gravity filler from  Mori-Tem and a 4 spout gravity filler from Mori.  The Mori-Tem is through GW Kent.  The Mori is through TCW. Replacement gaskets and rubber parts cost us around $300 to get a full set of spares for the Mori-Tem.  Around $100 for spares on the Mori.  Both companies were responsive when I was trying to track down information to get the right spare parts.  

We've run 22oz, 500ml, 350ml, 750ml, 1L, and 1.75L bottles through both of them.  We use both at the same time on our larger runs.  Dialing them in takes some practice.  I think both have accessories or features you can pay extra for to make adjusting for different sizes easier but we don't have them.  

We've run beer, mead, and spirits through both as well.  

I don't really have a preference. They both work fine.  I'd rather have a more automatic system but we just did a packaging run of over 7000L of vodka.

  

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David Delcourt
Denali Brewing Co
Talkeetna AK
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We have a 4 head Xpressfill.  We are moving to canning but plan on keeping it for mixed ferm beers.  It does 330ml - 750ml bottles.  We have it set for a maximum Co2 purge which slows things down but 2 people can do still do around 300 bottles/hour.  I am sure a shorter purge would up those numbers a lot.  The system is easy to run and we haven't had any issues.  The company has been responsive when we had any questions. 

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Patrick Brown
Brewer
2nd Story Ale Works
Tokushima, Japan
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