Supplied of a 200KE3 Series Cask and Keg washer to the team at Brewlab.

Brewlab are a leading provider of training and analysis services for the international brewing industry and are based in purpose built premises, in Sunderland on the banks of the river Wear. They have been providing high quality training to the industry for over 15 years. Brewlab’s courses are focused on providing the optimum blend of up to date practical and theoretical skills with sections of training taking place in regional craft breweries where students gain real hands on experience. They also have their own modern 3.5 barrel brewery with a 100 litre trial kit and their own kegging and bottling facilities.

The 200K Electric model will clean up to 28 casks per hour and is electrically heated. Power is supplied though a 16amp 3 phase supply although the steam version can be powered by a single 13amp supply. As well as washing casks the K-Series washes kegs without the need to remove the spears and we believe it to be the only machine on the market to effectively wash both casks and kegs.

The cleaning process is simple and clients have seen massive savings in manual labour and time taken to thoroughly clean returned casks. The machines also provide other financial benefit. They save water, as the recycled water from the cleaning process is cleverly reused minimizing usage costs and the environmental impact. It also eradicates the expensive issue of contaminated casks potentially spoiling batches. This improves the customer experience knowing that every cask dispatched is going to arrive with the client in first class condition. Another benefit has been the ability to reduce “Bottlenecks” in the brewery as it quickly restores the supply of clean casks and kegs back into circulation.

“We are always looking at products that are state of the art and improve the efficiency within the brewery. The Caskforce machine ticks all of our boxes. The quality of the automated PLC wash program allows the user to “Fire and Forget” meaning other tasks can be undertaken whilst the washer is completing the cleaning cycle.”

Arthur Bryant from Brewlab

Brewlab are a very well respected organisation and the opportunity to have one of our models in their training facility underlines our current status in the market. Having designed the first machine over 10 years ago from a conversation with a local brewer we have made enormous gains with around 15% of market penetration in the UK alone.

Many of our clients have graduated with Brewlab over the years and this aqusition will give a large number of new recruits the opportunity to see for themselves the savings made over more traditional cleaning methods.