KHS technology across the generations

Wolfgang Augel*

Top-quality beer from the Ruhr region for the Ruhr region is what private brewery Moritz Fiege in Bochum, Germany, undertakes to produce. Says Hugo Fiege, who now owns the brewery in its fourth generation together with his brother Jürgen Fiege, "Private brewery Moritz Fiege sees itself as a home-brew company equipped with outstanding plant technology." This statement is underlined by the brewery's latest investment in a new KHS filling system for glass bottles – the innovative Innofill Glass DRS-ZMS filler series which has been hygienically designed throughout. This generation of machines stands for enhanced filling quality and increased line availability through short cleaning times and reduced costs for maintenance, power, water and cleaning agents. Mark Zinkler, first master brewer at Privatbrauerei Moritz Fiege, to give the brewery its full German title, smiles. "KHS has us convinced with their filling concept – also because our beer is bottled in the same high quality as we make it thanks to extremely low oxygen pickup during the filling process." Hugo Fiege adds, "We're extremely satisfied with KHS technology which has also been employed in our packing and palletizing area and to rack kegs for many decades now. As far as filling and packaging technology is concerned, our motto has always been to only invest in the best quality. We owe this to our consumers who pay a good price for top-quality beer." 

Fiege. From Bochum with love.

The Moritz Fiege private brewery has been passionate about beer for generations, as its slogan "Fiege. Von Herzen und von hier" ("Fiege. From the heart and from here") illustrates. The fourth generation is also agreed that Fiege beers must keep their individual character to give consumers that very special taste. "As a rule our beers are among the most expensive on the market and yet they are still very well established," says Hugo Fiege. "We see this as a clear endorsement of our policies."

Early competence in pilsner

The origins of Privatbrauerei Moritz Fiege go back to 1736 when the present owners' forefathers opened a public house in the middle of Bochum.

* Sales Germany, KHS GmbH. Phone: +49 231 569 1635.

A brewery tavern was later added. The inn's home brew proved extremely popular with the locals; demand grew and the brewery decided to expand its activities. In 1878 the Fiege brewery set up shop on its present company premises and in 1926 Moritz Fiege, owner of the brewery in its second generation, boldly decided to start brewing pilsner. With the brewing industry then largely given over to the production of export-style beer, this was something of a revolution which helped to secure the further success of the brewery in the long term. 

Even now pilsner is still Fiege's most popular product, making up about 70% of its total beer sales. Zinkler describes its taste as follows: "This is a hoppy, dry pilsner which is extremely harmonious. Its excellent taste is partly thanks to the top-quality ingredients we use. For example, we use around 80% of aromatic hops for our pilsner and aren't mean with the original gravity either."

Sales volume of about 135,000 hectoliters

Besides pilsner the brewery also makes Gründer (an export), Bernstein, dark Schwarzbier, Altbier, wheat beer, the light beer Leichter Moritz, Frei (without alcohol), a shandy with and without alcohol and a Schwarzbier and cola mix. After pilsner Radler or shandy is the next bestseller at 10%, closely followed by Gründer and Bernstein, each of which account for 5% of total sales. All told, Moritz Fiege has an annual sales volume of about 135,000 hectoliters.

Exploring new avenues with special-edition beer

A small portion of the annual output is attributable to special-edition beers which are another unusual feature of this particular brewery. The first special-edition beer was issued at the end of 2012, when a specially styled, light Bockbier was filled into 3,500 0.75-liter bottles and sold to the public at €14.95 a go. The limited edition was sold out more or less immediately despite it being marketed through wine traders and delicatessens, thus opening up a totally new sales avenue for the brewery. 

The brewery with character

Hugo Fiege tells us more. "We adopted this idea of producing a limited-edition beer from the craft breweries which keep on making new beers as an example of their brewing prowess. With our annual special edition – which will be a dark, top-fermented bock at the end of 2013 – we aim to again strengthen our image as a brewery with character." This is already expressed in the product name which is – and what else would you expect with a corporate philosophy like Fiege's – Charakter.

At home in the Ruhr

Like all of its other brand beers Charakter is almost exclusively distributed throughout the Ruhr region. "We're definitely the brewery from the region for the region," states Hugo Fiege.  "This is demonstrated by us staging many publicity campaigns here on our patch, among other things."  For example, whenever there's something major happening in the Ruhr, quality Fiege beers are in on the act!  This could be the Ruhr tent festival, the Bochum kulinarisch food event or ExtraSchicht, the region's 'long night' of industrial culture ... The list is endless. The local populace also love the brewery's own events, including Fiege's open-air movies, which had approximately 6,000 viewers in 2013, and their tours of the brewery, which attract around 10,000 participants per annum.  Hugo Fiege explains. "All of these measures enormously help consumers to identify with our brewery and, vice versa, us to strengthen our bond with the region."

Only the best technology 

For Privatbrauerei Moritz Fiege with its very strong ties to 'its' Ruhr region there was no doubt that when recently investing in a new filling system the technology had to be of the best quality. Says Zinkler, "For outputs of around 25,000 bph lots of companies supply a downscaled secondary brand. With its Innofill Glass DRS-ZMS KHS offered us the same filler that's utilized in the high performance range. This was a crucial point for us." 

Clip-lock bottle a hot favorite

At the Moritz Fiege private brewery 80% of the beer is filled into bottles and 20% is racked in kegs. One point of note is that 98% of the bottle throughput at the brewery consists of 0.33 and 0.5-liter clip-lock bottles. This wasn't always the case. The change came in 2002, when almost all of the brewery's classic crown cork bottles were replaced by clip-lock bottles in the space of just 14 days. This is to ensure that in the future consumers differentiate between beers not just by the product alone but also by the bottle. Hugo Fiege explains further. "This decision has helped us to uphold our extremely stable pricing policy right up to the present day."

Innofill Glass DRS-ZMS generates more competitive advantages 

Private brewery Moritz Fiege is one of the first breweries to opt for the innovative, KHS Innofill Glass DRS-ZMS generation of fillers, thus securing itself a further competitive advantage. Says Zinkler, "One of the things we like about this glass bottle filler series is its consistent use of hygienic design. We're also very pleased that the former filling principle of the Innofill DRS-ZMS has basically been retained and in some areas even improved upon."

The Innofill Glass DRS-ZMS operates with fill level probes. The pressurizing process with inert gas is preceded by triple pre-evacuation and double CO2 purging. After pressurization, the liquid valve opens and conducts the product over a swirler to the inner walls of the bottle. High outputs are achieved during the fast filling phase in the uncritical, cylindrical part of the bottle. A slow filling phase takes place in the narrow bottle neck for exact fill level measurement, which is initiated by a probe signal. A pulse from the probe closes the liquid valve at the precise fill level. This is followed by pre-snifting and final snifting. Pressure-controlled snifting takes place with little foam. The filling process is carried out independently of speed. The filling phase setpoints and thus the fill levels for all valves can be changed centrally even during the filling process.  

On the Innofill Glass DRS-ZMS the swirler that forms a film on the bottle wall has been aerodynamically optimized through modification of the number and shape of its blades.  This enables exceptionally low-turbulence filling and therefore ensures very low oxygen pickup in the product. These modifications also give bottlers very a precise fill level and the filling speed in the fast filling phase is more precisely adapted to the specifications of the scheduled product. 

On the Innofill Glass DRS-ZMS product, gas and CIP media are fed in through hygienic pipe fittings with gapless, aseptic sealing systems which do not allow any deposits to accumulate. This enables fast intermediate rinsing and sanitizing processes during product changeovers.

Another outstanding advantage is that all functions within one filling station are contained in a single unit which can be completely removed or attached by simply loosening or tightening two cap nuts. In doing so, all media and pneumatic connections are automatically severed or restored, meaning that there are also no pneumatic supply hoses, cables or electrical elements laid along the front of the filling system. The pilot valves that control the filling process are arranged in a protected area which is completely encapsulated in its own housing and thus deliberately separate from the actual filling area. The central control unit is protected by a stainless steel housing positioned in the center of the filler. Another important factor is that with their weight now reduced, all format parts are very easy to change – without the need for any tools, as they all have quick-action locks. 

Consistent hygienic design 

The KHS Innofill Glass platform system has been consistently developed according to the rules of hygienic design. Compared to the standard system, on the Innofill Glass DRS-ZMS surfaces have been reduced and corners and crevices eliminated.  This means there is a low contamination potential and any broken glass is simply allowed to slide onto the floor. An external cladding made of glass gives operators a direct view of the filler/capper area and thus enables them to permanently monitor the hygiene situation. 

The new generation of fillers has been built without a front table. A pipe construction that is open on all sides provides excellent access for cleaning and disinfection. The star columns and capper housing are connected by cross pipes with no flanges, secured with hygienic sealing systems on the exterior and equipped with servo or direct drives. Direct drives directly transmit the torque to the star wheels and cappers, making gears and couplings redundant. In turn this means low maintenance costs and a lower energy consumption. 

Drive force reduced

The lightweight construction of the lift cylinder table and tubular ring bowl reduces the required driving force and torque. Further pluses of the tubular ring bowl as opposed to the classic rectangular ring bowl lie in the shorter heating and cooling times for sanitizing and sterilizing and thus a lower consumption of energy. 

Compact valve manifold saves 50% space

The Innofill Glass DRS-ZMS features a compact valve manifold which has vertically constructed fittings. This takes up about 50% less installation space than the classic valve manifold which not only saves room but also has the advantage that all fittings are much easier to access for servicing and inspection than they were to date. The compact valve manifold is positioned next door to the filler which keeps distances for media short and makes cleaning a speedy affair. 

Profit all round with the new filling system

Zinkler gives us his summary. "In retrospect we can safely say that we made just the right choice when investing in our new filler. Its optimized hygienic design considerably reduces cleaning times for us, allowing us to save energy and water. Line availability has also increased. And we're still profiting from especially low oxygen pickup in the product and can thus maintain the high quality of our beer in the bottle."

KHS Eco+ vacuum pump saves energy, water and coolant

Another highlight of the new system in operation at the Moritz Fiege private brewery is the modular KHS Eco+ vacuum pump for pre-evacuation. It has a frequency converter installed in front of it which ensures that it runs at its optimum operating point. Through exact frequency control alone the power consumption can be reduced by 45% compared with previous solutions. The KHS Eco+ vacuum pump also saves up to 99% of the amount of water previously used and functions without classic coolants having to be used. Coolants can now be completely dispensed with as the beer to be bottled flows straight past the vacuum pump in a pipe-in-pipe system (M-tube). The temperature of the water circulated in the vacuum pump is greatly reduced by the cold M-tube; this cooled water is fed to the heat exchanger where it acts as a cooling agent. Says Zinkler, "We're also saving energy and water here compared to the previous setup. What's crucial for us is that the temperature of the beer in the M-tube rises by a maximum of 1°C. This is actually beneficial to the filling process, for if beer is bottled when it's too cold, condensation can quickly form on the bottles."

KHS operator panel for outstanding ergonomics and navigation 

The filling system is controlled by the multi-award-winning Human Machine Interface or HMI machine operating system (red dot award and iF award). The KHS operator panel excellently combines ergonomics, navigation and design. The result is user-friendly machine operator prompting that makes use of buttons, colored graphics, easy-to-remember icons and interactive handling instructions, all of which are deliberately simple and self-explanatory.  The system is subdivided into several levels, thus providing access to varying degrees of viewing detail and different operating levels as the specific application requires. Smiles Zinkler, "Our operators were at first wary of changing over to the new operating concept as they'd been working on our old KHS filler for over 30 years. But now they're very enthusiastic about it and praise the system's simplicity."

Perfectly prepared for the future – with KHS technology

Back to Hugo Fiege. "To summarize, we'd like to say that KHS has also masterminded this project magnificently. This technical system is right for us on all counts and prepares us for the future. The process of swapping old for new and incorporating the new filling system and new KHS conveyors into our existing line went very well indeed and we were able to officially commission the line after a conversion period of just 18 days." 

Among other things, for Privatbrauerei Moritz Fiege investing in the new KHS filler meant taking a definite step towards the future. And this – as is tradition for the brewery – means continuing to provide consumers with the best possible quality beer. "Our top priority is to provide quality on all counts," stresses Hugo Fiege.  "After all, this is the only way we can consistently also uphold our high pricing concept in the future and provide a solid basis for the next generation." And, with his wealth of experience, Hugo Fiege is convinced that KHS technology will remain a major factor in the brewery's success.