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Counter Pressure Fillers, also known as Isobaric Fillers, are tools used by brewers, sparkling wine makers, and soft drink manufacturers to fill bottles or aluminum cans with carbonated beverages for retail sale without sacrificing carbonation. To operate one, you’ll need a pressurized or non-pressurized storage tank for carbonated drinks, a chiller, CO2 supply bottles, a carbonating unit (which can be separate or combined with the storage tank), and a few other essentials.
The filler uses a filling tube that dispenses liquid from the top of the bottle and a diffuser to distribute the liquid around the walls of the container, reducing foam. The tube has a smaller return tube inside that allows CO2 to escape the pressurized bottle and enter the filling tank, allowing more liquid to fill the bottle. An alternative, less commonly used method is bottom-up filling, similar to a beer pump, but it’s more complex and expensive for automatic fillers. All fillers have inputs for CO2 gas and the drink supply line and a vent for gas release during the filling process. Valves on the inputs and vent allow control over pressure and filling/venting speed.
How Counter Pressure Filling Works: A Breakdown
Counter Pressure Fillers maintain a consistent CO2 pressure on your beer, wine, or soft drink as the bottle is filled. To reduce foaming, the bottles and drinks are usually chilled. The process goes like this:
The Filling Process:
”Counter Pressure Fillers maintain a consistent CO2 pressure and a low oxygen pick up
Preventing Foam During Counter Pressure (Isobaric) Filling
Foaming can occur when filling carbonated products if there’s a change in pressure, causing gas expansion and bubble formation. The warmer the product, the more severe the foaming. Some drinks are more prone to foam due to their high protein content, such as beer and high-protein malt drinks. Cola drinks and high-sugar non-alcoholic beverages are also sensitive to foaming due to their high sugar content. This can be a challenge for microbrewers who often have variations in protein levels from batch to batch. To avoid foaming, it’s important to chill the product before filling.
The solution to combat foaming during filling involves two approaches:
Get Rid of Air Before Carbonating Soft Drinks or Water
Don’t mix it up with removing air from bottles before filling, de-aerating water is a critical part of carbonating water-based beverages. While CO2 is naturally present in beer, wine, and cider as a byproduct of sugar fermentation, it’s not the case for carbonated water or soft drinks. Water often contains dissolved air, which you can observe by boiling water for cooking. The bubbles you see aren’t steam but air expanding and escaping the water. Boil the same water the next day and you won’t see any bubbles; just the normal thermal movement of hot water. The air is gone forever. If you tried to carbonate water straight from the tap or spring without removing the air, the result would be lackluster. The water is already saturated with air, and adding extra CO2 would cause it to be rejected instead of dissolving. Now imagine opening a poorly carbonated bottle of water without de-aerating first. You’ll get a flash of CO2 followed by rapid flatness, not the best outcome for your marketing and customer satisfaction. To avoid this, any water intended for carbonation, either on its own or as part of a soft drink mixture, must undergo de-aeration. This process involves adding a pre-carbonation column to extract air from the water before sending it to the carbonating unit. The water is showered down through a perforated stainless-steel tube inside the column, and a vacuum pump at the top removes the air. The de-aerated water is then sucked out by a secondary pump and sent to the carbonating unit. Your water is now ready to be mixed with other ingredients, carbonated, and chilled to create your favorite soft drink.
GX CANNING is a division of Géninox.