Counter pressure vs. atmospheric and carousel vs. inline canning lines. 

Beverages canning lines have been around for decades, in all shapes and sizes. Most industrial size beverage producers have been using big carousel style canning lines, with some machines being capable of filling 100.000 cans per hour and more.

This style of canning line is known for its big footprint, high level of automation and consisting of built layouts that can go as big as half a football field.

Also, almost all these big carousel style canning lines have been built with counter pressure filing technology, also known as isobaric filling.

This filling style brings the beverage into the can whilst the filling head is closing the top of the can, ensuring the beverage enters the can under a certain counter pressure, higher than the equilibrium pressure of the beverage itself.

New kid in town

The big carousel canning lines were (and are) often not the type of canning line a smaller scale beverage producer, like a craft brewery, is looking for.

And therefore, inline canning lines, (like our Micro Can canning lines) have found their way into the market and have been a great solution for many smaller beverage producers around the world.

Atmospheric filling

With the large-scale introduction of the inline canning lines, we have also seen the rise of atmospheric filling technology in the beverage industry. This open top filling style brings the beverage to atmosphere when entering the can, on the filling station.

We often see that atmospheric canning lines requires less material on their filling stations and can therefor also show a different, lower price than similar size counter pressure canning lines.

Practical differences between counter pressure & atmospheric canning lines

• Counter pressure technology fills the beverage into the can with the top of the can being closed/covered and the can is kept under pressure until the fill head seal is released from the can.
• Atmospheric technology fills the beverage directly into the atmosphere and the can is just placed in “open air” when this filling process is active.
• Counter pressure technology allows you to maintain pressure in the can during filling, this allows you to fill a higher carbonated beverage with relatively lower dissolved Co2 loss and the temperature of the beverage can be in the range of 3 to 6 degrees Celsius (based on our Micro Can field experiences).
• Atmospheric technology limits you in the amount dissolved Co2 for your beverage and you need to fill as cold as possible in order to maintain the dissolved Co2 in your beverage. Example for beer, we often see breweries filling between 0 and 2 degrees Celsius for beers with 2.5VOL or roughly 5 grams/liter. If the temperatures are higher, the operator can experience more foam in the can with more beer loss as a result.

Micro Can canning lines

Our Micro Can canning lines portfolio consists of both counter pressure and atmospheric filling technology. 

The IMP2, CL5V3e and the ML10 (2023 launch) are atmospheric canning lines, used by breweries worldwide. You can find more info on these canning lines on our ‘machines’ page.

The CP10 is our 10-head canning line with counter pressure technology and often supplied to soft drinks, kombucha and contract filling sites.

For more information on the benefits we can offer to your company, please leave your contact details here.