Long tube bottling

[oppigards]

I have a 24 long tube filler. To cap on foam I have a co2 stream of gas jetting the bottle. But I think that the foaming was not optimal. On my first run I got some foam after snifting. Could this foam make the jetting not so successful? Any help is wanted.

[Rob Creighton]

Ideally, (in the dreaded perfect world) your filler would fill and snift completely, leaving you with whats known as 'black' beer without any foam to allow for perfect fobbing creating a thick foam head rising to the top of the neck finish just as a sterile crown is perfectly placed and locked atop the bottle. Yea right.

Residual foam entraps air and disturbs fobbing which generally will raise your bottle air readings. I have no experience with CO2 fobbing so I don't know the end effects on product but with high pressure sterile water, we would definitely try to minimize foam after snifting. Luckily I had a number of different snift orifices for a Krones filler and was able to adjust to suit. We also made sure that the fill tube was scavenged (we opened and closed the fill tube quickly) to eliminate foam in the tube that would start the filling process. With a long tube machine I would assume there is a considerable amount of beer in the tube but I don't know that for sure. Hope this helps.

[jipjanneke]

There is some good information written up at the following address:

http://www.meheen-mfg.com/bottlingforthefuture.html

On one hand, you might already know all of this material; on the other hand, it might have just the tidbit you are looking for...?

[Trub-Man]

If you are not getting consistent fobbing due to premature fobulation...hehe :) . Try knocking the bottom of the bottle with a spring-loaded hammer. Usually the hammer is a small piece of metal rod on a hinge place somewhere between the filler outlet and crowner. Spring loaded so you can adjust the impact strength, which will control the strength of the fob formed. This will allow the fob that is formed from snifting to be expelled.
Good luck

[hoppyguy]

We jet the bottles with water, not gas. Never trying to accomplish FOB with gas, I don't know if this will make a difference. Our setup is just a corny keg filled with sterile water that is pushed through a micro-orifice (it's just a tiny amount that actually gets in the bottle). The FOB is controlled by the pressure going into the corny. We can get a good control of the FOB using this.

Hope this helps.