CONVEYORS, ELEVATORS, TRANSMISSIONS & COMPONENTS
GREAT ORME BREWERY
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reat Orme Brewery is a 12.5 barrel micro-brewery and was established in November 2005 by Jonathan Hughes. Back then the brewery was situated on a hillside in the Conwy valley between Llandudno and Betws-y-Coed, with impressive views of the Conwy Estuary and the Great Orme, from which the brewery takes its name. Jonathan was a consultant for 10 years and the company he worked for was moving into an area away from his core skills. Jonathan therefore took the opportunity to leave and move back to North Wales. At the time he had limited knowledge of brewing but he knew people were very interested in understanding the origins of where their food and drink came from and the idea came from there. The business over time has expanded and they recently moved from the family farm to the building they are in now due to the growth of the business. Jonathan approached UniTrak Powderflight as the brewery was increasing its capacity by around two and a half times. With his expansion of the business the Great Orme Brewery was having to move to new premises which meant the equipment they had was not fit for purpose and needed a new solution. The challenge was to raise Malted Barley (grist) from one level to another in its simplest form without damaging the Barley, but long enough to reach from the dry raw materials room into the brewing room. Jonathan stated that “It is very important that the dry raw materials are kept away from the dampness of the brewing room itself and so we have to keep them in separate rooms, otherwise this spoils the dry materials”. He then added “The volume of materials being used at the old plant was around one third of a ton and now it’s a lot closer to two thirds of a ton. This can’t be mixed by hand so needs a mechanical way of doing it so it can be more efficient”. After a very open discussion about the challenges and the solution that the brewery needed, UniTrak Powderflight’s Phil Booth guided Jonathan through the process of what could be done as Jonathan admitted that he didn’t really know what kind of machinery was needed. He was new to this kind of technology with him not implementing anything like this before himself, but he had seen photographs of the same kind of machinery to UniTrak’s equipment at other brewers. Phil recommended that the F75 UniFlex Conveyor would be best as it is ideal to handle Malted Barley. UniTrak Powderflight do have free onsite testing facilities, but this 38
Bulk Solids Today
product had been tested a number of times before so a test was not needed. Phil was very confident that the material would convey very well with little damage to the product. The F75 UniFlex Conveyor is simple but sturdy in design. The receiving hopper which can be fabricated from mild or stainless steel, is attached to a food-grade polyethylene tube. Situated within it is the only moving part of the conveyor, the stainless steel spiral which draws the grist to the discharge chute. The F75 UniFlex also has other features which includes: • Cleaning out cap - attached at the bottom of the tubing for quick removal for fast cleaning. • Safety grille – helps keep foreign materials out of product system. • Low-level probe – this allows for automatic shut down when the hopper is nearing empty. • Heavy duty clamp and seal – provides dust control. • Flexible discharge chute – the length can be customised to suite your requirements. • Minimal maintenance - when required, is easily accomplished with minimal tools. • Simple to install, operate and clean. Jonathan goes on to comment that the brewery’s general engineer had no issues installing the F75 UniFlex Conveyor as he found it very simple and straight forward. Great Orme Brewery had the equipment delivered in January 2015 and have been using since with no mechanical issues and maintenance is rarely required, but if any spare parts are needed they can be sourced directly from UniTrak Powderflight. The F75 UniFlex Conveyor has made a difference to the production and the company as Jonathan goes on to explain “It’s eased the use of lifting the upper grist case. This has involved reducing the dangers of manual handling significantly, so has speeded up that end of the process as well.” Jonathan added “The other benefit is because we are able to raise from a small level to a high level through the new UniFlex conveyer it allows us to get a better quality mash. The other alternative was to just throw the bag of dry materials in, but that would more than likely get a fairly insufficient mash which would then reduce the overall production volumes,
by this process we can obtain better efficiency of the grain we are using”. Great Orme Brewery had approached three other companies, but found that UniTrak Powderflight was better with a quick all-rounded package, with competitiveness, no hard sell and the quality of the advice given. Jonathan said “UniTrak would be our first port of call for a similar sort of solution”. For more information contact UniTrak Powderflight on: +44 (0)1457 865038 or visit the website at www.unitrakpowderflight.com