Any business in the brewing industry will know that cleaning equipment is an onerous but essential task. It is inevitable that dirt and bacteria will accumulate on the inside of containers and other equipment, and if not treated properly, it can have a significant impact on the quality of products.
Maintaining kegs and casks is not only important for hygiene reasons but can also significantly reduce amounts of wastage. Research has suggested that pubs in the UK throw away 40 million pints of beer per year due to inefficient sterilisation. Clean containers can also provide better quality beer as the taste will not be tainted by impurities.
Gary Phillips, Director of Close Brothers Brewery Rentals, said: “One of the most important things for the breweries is the integrity of the product that they’re actually putting into these kegs and casks. To maintain that integrity, the keg or the cask needs to be clean.”
Close Brothers Brewery Rentals offer a complete brewery supply chain solution and are responsible for the maintenance and repair of over 3.5 million containers per year across the UK. Our cleaning services include internal hot chemical washing, external high pressure washing, polishing and label and glue removal.
We also use UHP (ultra-high pressure) water jetting for internal cleaning and are the first in the world to apply this technique to cleaning and sanitising kegs and casks. This means we use less acid and bleach in our processes, reducing our environmental impact. UHP has allowed us to more than double the number of units we process per day, giving us a quick turnaround time, improved hygiene and a more efficient process.
Container cleaning can be a time-consuming process and, due to the speed of some operations in a brewery, many do not have the capacity or contact time capability to wash casks and kegs to the same high standards themselves. Our service allows you to focus on the day-to-day running of your business, while we make sure clean containers are returned to you. With support from Close Brothers Brewery Rentals’ container services, you can carry on trading the highest quality products.
