Filling sparkling wine – fast and gently

With two significant improvements to the Mecafill VKPV-CF, Krones has further upgraded its bottling capabilities for still and sparkling wines. Firstly, an entirely redesigned filling valve makes the filling function faster and more stable. Secondly, an automatic fill level adjustment renders manual vent tube replacement superfluous. Machine technology compensates for the variety of sparkling wine bottle types – sizes 0.2l, 0.375l, 0.75 l or 1.5 l, for example. This unique combination (reduced filling time and tube adjustment) enables the machine to handle the same output with fewer filling valves.
An entirely redesigned filling valve, featuring a swirl insert instead of a spreader, permits a significantly more stable product flow with almost no foaming at all. The valve features compact overall dimensions and a clear structure. The crucial new components are the servomotorised actuator for vent tube adjustment and the magnetic coupling, which provides sterile separation between the product compartment and its surroundings. Since the vent tube can be adjusted during actual filling, the machine is able to operate with a smaller vertical bottle movement, which in turn means the centring bell rodding and the bell lifting cam can be dispensed with. Reducing these components to a compactly dimensioned centring bell has perceptibly improved accessibility and ease of cleaning in the bottle area. Direct mounting of the snifting, vacuum, correction, dry-pressurisation and return-air valves means the “one-piece” valve assembly can be swiftly replaced. For bottling still wines, the snifting and dry-pressurisation valves are not required. The use of dry pressurisation when bottling sparkling wine, compared to pressurisation via the vent tube, has produced a significantly improved filling pattern.