Wash and disinfection of the Trunk says of brewery

The brewery keg is a refillable primary packaging whose main characteristic is its ability to withstand high internal pressures. Before being made of stainless steel, they were first made of wood, then of metal with a protective coating and the barrel's characteristic biconical profile.

Today, the brewery keg has opted for a stainless steel cylindrical shape, which has facilitated the mechanization of handling operations (transfers to packaging machines, palletization). The widespread use of stainless steel in the manufacture of the keg has opened up other uses outside the brewery, whether with flat liquids such as wine, or carbonated liquids such as lemonades and soft drinks.

In practice, at the same time as the cylindrical shape, brewery kegs have come into general use with the incorporated plunger permanently placed on the container and through which all the various packaging operations are carried out:

• wash ;

• sterilization ;

• filling ;

• debit at the cafetier.

This type of keg was introduced to breweries in France in the early 1960s, having originated in England. For the French brewer, it offered the hope of putting an end once and for all to the quarrel over the quality of the draught beer that had always existed between the brewer and the cafetier who draughted his beer.

In fact, with kegs with built-in plunger, the beer returns to the brewery under carbon dioxide pressure and in a hermetically sealed vessel, which should enable the brewer to verify the validity of the claim. It soon became apparent that this apparent advantage was not a real one, given the increasing number of kegs being returned when this packaging was first introduced, as the very structure of the keg made perfect cleaning impossible. However, as the packaging also offered other advantages, especially in terms of handling, palletization and machine processing, the brewer persevered, and today uses a cleaning technique that may be imperfect, but which is made effective by thermal blasting.

However, major improvements have been made both to the construction, by reducing the number of welds, a source of dirt trapping on the inner wall, and to washing techniques and detergent selection. Today, two types of diver are used:

• with tray ;

• with bowls.

In order to be used by the coffee maker, they require easy-to-use components (flow heads) specific to each type and manufacturer. The various functions involved in the filling and packaging of plunger-incorporated...