Beercans.

[BrainEater]

My garage is a more than just cars shop , so I'm posting this here.
I have mentioned this before , I help run a craft brewery.We 'stale date' our beers , they are preservative free.While we try to manage FiFo policies , we still need to 'pour-stale-beer-out'.
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I need to build a machine to empty and crush , full cans of beer.
I have 10,000 cans of beer to destroy right now.
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My first thought is something like the front end of a woodchipper , slotted rollers or something.

I'm curious what everyone thinks.

There are a couple breweries that just have 8'x8' boards full of nails , they just throw the cans on and rake em off.

:beer:

 

[lxskllr]

That's horrible. I think I might use some kind of press; like the star wars trash compactor.

 

[LTC8K6]

Take them to a yard that crushes cars. See if they will do it for you.

 

[SearchMaster]

Drop them off behind your nearest homeless shelter.

Interesting challenge though.

 

[RGN]

10,000 cans seems like a lot. Too much Shandy or something?

 

[BrainEater]

:beer:
Nope , it's a mix of our various canned brands , and like 6 months worth....but the time has come to get rid of em.
....and it's against the law for us to give them away , for anything.We gotta shred it.
It's not horrible .We care about our beer quality.I'd much rather have this problem , than have people get shitty beer.
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I might try the 'slotted roller' thang , but.....I had a friend suggest an upside down lawn mower , with a cover , and pipes that feed cans in.
Doesn't matter how the cans come out , we just gotta separate liquid from aluminum !

 

[lxskllr]

I'd happily drink quality out of date beer. We both know it tastes the same at day+1 as it did at day-1

 

[ronbo613]

Crusher. Throw the beer in the back of a truck, take it to a junkyard and tell the guy you have to see the beer being crushed. Give him a case of (fresh) beer to do it.

 

[BrainEater]

I am fabricating an 'automatic opener' / 'semi-shredder' .

I'm going to take a 4 foot piece of stainless steel tubing that a beercan fits into , and cut a 3/8" slot into it 2 inches long , on one end.
I will then mount a chain gear sprocket , attached to a variable speed motor , so that the sprocket goes into the pipe mebbie 3/4 inches.(that's the bottom) . The gear rotates 'down'.
At 3000 rpm , It' open em !

I'll post a video when I get it done.

 

[gorcorps]

Go to range and bring the shotgun

Also, if you have this much leftover beer you need to make better beer.

 

[BrainEater]

Heheh.

Our beer is awesome.We win awards.One of the ways we maintain our quality , IS BY ACTUALLY LIVING UP TO OUR STALEDATE POLICY !!!
We sell beer to hundreds of liquor stores . 10,000 beers over six months , over that many stores , is actually pretty good.
Just be glad someone like me gives a shit about what we pass on to our customers.
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Bottom line I still gotta shred cans.
As much as I like the 'shoot-at-it' idea , that would take 1000$ worth of ammo.hehe

I've had more votes for the lawnmower idea.
Dangerous and violent .....

 

[olds]

I am fabricating an 'automatic opener' / 'semi-shredder' .

I'm going to take a 4 foot piece of stainless steel tubing that a beercan fits into , and cut a 3/8" slot into it 2 inches long , on one end.
I will then mount a chain gear sprocket , attached to a variable speed motor , so that the sprocket goes into the pipe mebbie 3/4 inches.(that's the bottom) . The gear rotates 'down'.
At 3000 rpm , It' open em !

I'll post a video when I get it done.

Need Paint drawing, stat!

 

[FuzzyDunlop]

whatever you end up doing, I want video. Havent had a good cry in a while.

 

[BrainEater]

There really is no reason to cry.
This is a good thing.There are thousands of craft breweries that have to do this.It's part of the 'craft'.
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Need Paint drawing, stat!

I'll do yah one better.I'm fabbing this grinder in the next day or two , I'll post a pic or two.....
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I'm still not sure it'll be faster than 3 guys crackin cans , but we'll see !!

 

[Z15CAM]

10,000 cans - That's like $1000 in returnable empties.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

How do you reconcile craft beer and cans?

 

[BrainEater]

Easy.
a) the time of cans being inferior to bottles has long past. Cans are 100% lightproof and more airtight than bottles.
b) there are a lot of markets that won't use bottles.Like golf courses and ski hills.And basically every single sporting event anywhere.

90% of our product is in bottles , but we do use cans as well.

 

[Slacker]

My quick and dirty solution would be a PVC tube at a high angle with a razor point intruding to a depth just short of the rim of the can, drop can in, blade would slice can bottom to top nicely and drain it, some testing would be needed to tweak it.
I'm not certain that the cans momentum would carry it fully past the blade once the puncture occurs.
If concept proves, you could set up a row of tubes.
If this method proves durable it could be made mass efficient with a hopper and funnel for faster loading.
Tube length is one tweak to consider, a longer tube to build velocity might be needed, longer tube would put the mess farther from the loader as well.

 

[JCH13]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qedfz8nTHO8

That might be expensive, you could probably just hire this guy: https://youtu.be/b8UrvkPnY8s?t=156

But seriously... this seems pretty easy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WqrLAE7VZw looks like a log splitter with some extra bits attached to it. I'm sure it'd have enough force to crush full cans.

Or just drive over them with a car/piece of heavy equipment.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Easy.
a) the time of cans being inferior to bottles has long past. Cans are 100% lightproof and more airtight than bottles.
b) there are a lot of markets that won't use bottles.Like golf courses and ski hills.And basically every single sporting event anywhere.

90% of our product is in bottles , but we do use cans as well.

While can versus bottle is a personal choice , I was speaking about the barrier to entry cans represent . To can beer, the cost to begin canning is roughly five times the cost of starting a bottling line. That is why there are NO small craft breweries who can. Some large breweries do brew craft beers under contract but, do not brew craft beers themselves, regardless of what their marketing departments say. In any case, those large breweries already have processes in place to handle out of date beer.

 

[JCH13]

While can versus bottle is a personal choice , I was speaking about the barrier to entry cans represent . To can beer, the cost to begin canning is roughly five times the cost of starting a bottling line. That is why there are NO small craft breweries who can. Some large breweries do brew craft beers under contract but, do not brew craft beers themselves, regardless of what their marketing departments say. In any case, those large breweries already have processes in place to handle out of date beer.

A brewery local to me cans 'crowlers' on-demand. I'm no expert in bottling vs canning, but it's possible that cost differences are shifting...

 

[BrainEater]

You are totally correct Magnus . Canning lines are more expensive.
Wild Rose started out with a six head maheen filler for bottles.We are 20 years old now and we use a 36 head KHS now.....240 bottles a min.
We just got into canning 2 years ago , we tried it out first. There are actually mobile canning companies that will come to your place and can whatever you want.
We paid for two runs , verified the QC was up to snuff , then bought our own machine.
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Slacker , we are on the same page .
I'm just using a motorized chain gear sprocket , instead of a knife.
I have the motor,sprocket, and 5 foot stainless tube .....I chopped the slot into it today.
It's my hope to fabricate the mounts tomorrow , so I might have pics...

JCH13 , the best thing I've seen for this task is the 'feeder' mechanism for a woodchipper.You could shovel cans into that as fast as you want.

 

[BrainEater]

BooooYahh !

I'd like to introduce "The Cannibal"

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7s6ykeayj5mcwgg/cannibal1.jpg?dl=0

Here is the business end :

https://www.dropbox.com/s/nifkiuvukx8ofqa/cannibal2.jpg?dl=0
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That gear protrudes into the pipe about an inch.
It cuts open beercans as fast as you can drop em in.

I think we can call this 'case' closed !!
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Sorry for the shitty phone pics , taking my real camera and gopro to work tomorrow !

 

[Slacker]

That is awesome, keep it simple epitomized.

Need video

 

[olds]

Now you just need a mechanism to feed it cans.