I’ve watched the cans get filled from 2 different local breweries when i was trying to decide on cans or bottles. The cheaper canning lines (ones in reach of small craft breweries) float down a conveyor. They do get purged before the get filled, but this is without the lid on. Then they go to the next station and get the lid. There’s a second at least between each station. That is an awfully large amount of surface area just open to the air for what I felt like was a cringe worthy amount of time.
On my Meheen bottler I’m able to completely purge the bottle and because the neck is narrower I feel that the purge is better and more o2 is kept in the bottle. Then, the capping station is almost instantaneous, and it caps on foam.
Maybe there are canning lines out there that work better than the one’s I have seen (Cask, is what I believe I have seen) but from my estimation seemed like the Meheen was a better solution for keeping out o2. Sure, perhaps the ingress is a problem on the caps but we aim to have most of our product consumed within 2-3 months if at all possible anyway.
I don’t think either is a perfect package, draft is far better - and even it has its problems with dirty lines and poor co2 serving pressure - so nothing is perfect. But I really think that all things considered it is probably a wash for short term package. That said, I have some 10% ABV 22 oz bombers I bottled at YH that taste great 2 years later.
And i know some of you snobby twerps will turn your prim little noses up but I still like to knock one back out of a cold long neck every now and then and I do not enjoy drinking out of a can.
On a Bell’s tour I saw the canning line they put in, a big KHS with a 30 head filler IRRC. They said that was selected due to low TPO and line rate, but it was expensive.
Cans are lighter and are easy to reheat and pour new ones. The bottles are one way these days, and we homebrewers are the ones that refill them with beer. The bottles are crushed and the glass can be reheated and pour again.
Hey, I do too now and then ! And I definitely don’t drink out of cans though. Honestly fresh bottles or cans is what it’s really about anyway, if you can’t get the fresh draft. I think when the beer gets a little older is when it seems to me that cans are better. My wife bought me a 12 of Boston Lager and Sierra Pale in cans a while back and I thought the hop character was noticeably better in both, compared to botlles of that age.
If you’re filling the cans correctly the lids will “cap on foam” just like with a bottle. For small-scale machines like the Merlins, I really don’t think there’s much difference.
The really big rotary canners put the heads inside a partially evacuated CO2 hood. In our water testing, we weren’t able to get consistently measurable DO levels in those cans.
