Spiroflow Conveyor Gives More Grist to the mill!

An Aero-Mechanical Conveyor we manufactured for T & R Theakston Ltd, brewers since 1827, has proved its worth. It was their malt supplier's switch from 50 kg to 25 kg sacks that brought matters to a head for the family owned brewery. Theakstons brew a range of quality beers of which their 'Old Peculier' is legendary! Although committed to upholding their traditional brewing methods, in a brewery building which is 136 years old: to meet ever increasing demand, Theaksons recognised that operational improvements would have to be made to those areas, such as materials handling, which would have no effect whatsoever on the quality of their beers. Until early 2000, malt was delivered direct to the brew house door in 50 kg sacks. Every week 280 sacks were manually unloaded one at time and transported in a wheeled barrow to a storage area around a hoist. The manual hoist, which took two men to operate, was used to transfer enough of the sacks to a third floor in the roof space where they were stored ready to be opened and discharged into the grist mill - the start of the brewing process. During 2001 the malt supplier switched all deliveries to 25 kg sacks meaning that each week 560 had to be manually hoisted in to the roof space! Given the time it took to unload each sack, barrow it to the hoist area and to hoist it up ready for use, the operation was effectively taking a full man week in its own right to meet the requirements of three brews a day on each of three days a week. In addition, the unloading process tied the delivery truck up for a whole morning! Today, 25kg sacks of malt are delivered on one tonne pallets, unloaded by fork lift truck in less than half an hour and stored in a new warehouse area across the yard from the brew house. They are taken to what was the hoist area by electric pallet truck as required prior to each brewing. The 'Spiroflow' Aero-Mechanical Conveyor, with its integral sack tip hopper, has replaced the hoist. Now sacks can be emptied at ground floor level at a rate commensurate with the performance of the grist mill. A high level alarm in the buffer hopper above the mill warns the operator if he is emptying sacks more quickly than the mill can accommodate. As head brewer, Bill Wilson, comments, "We prefer to use sacks as, that way, it is easy to control the weight of ingredients for each brew. One of the many things we like about the 'Spiroflow' Aero-Mechanical Conveyor is that what's put in at the bottom, comes out at the top. There is no loss in the conveyor - essential to ensure each brew has the correct amount of each ingredient". The Aero-Mechanical Conveyor was installed by Theakstons' own engineers in September 2001. This was no mean feat given the limited space available, the number of floors involved and the grist mill drive through which the conveyor had to pass! The completed installation was commissioned with the assistance of an engineer from Spiroflow. The malt required for each of the nine weekly brews is now taken to the top floor and charged in to the grist mill buffer hopper in around an hour a time. Bill Wilson reports that the only maintenance on the Aero-Mechanical Conveyor has been an annual check on the rope tension. Other than that he confirms that the conveyor and the service provided by Spiroflow are, "As good as it gets".

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