Image this: Through the weekend you’re planning on venturing out to your favourite taproom. You’ll most likely hang around for a pair hours, drink a couple of beers on draft, and seize a few tacos or slices of pizza from the rotating meals truck.
When it’s time to go house you’ll most likely wish to convey again one thing to maintain in your fridge. And when you may seize a 4- or 6-pack to go, you’re searching for the freshest beer proper from the faucets. You recognize, so you’ve got one thing readily available to drink for the week forward.
Ten years in the past, you’d have most probably been handed a giant cumbersome glass growler stuffed with 64oz of the good things. However truthfully, that’s a variety of beer. And when you crack a growler, you need to drink the beer inside. There’s actually no recapping these huge bois. So until you’re heading to a celebration, it’s a cumbersome possibility.
As we speak, occasions have actually modified.
Now, because of enterprising corporations like Oktober Can Seamers, machines exist that may seal all kinds of to-go can sizes proper on web site. In three seconds. Now, with simply the push of a button.
Oktober Can Seamers Founder Dennis Grumm, who has an unimaginable engineering pedigree, actually invented a machine from scratch for what he noticed as a severe want within the business: An inexpensive, easy-to-use, modern, compact machine to make quite a lot of to-go beer choices potential.
And this was years earlier than the phrases “pandemic” crossed anybody’s lips.
Now, while you stomach as much as the bar to seize a 32oz crowler, 16oz can, 12oz can, and even 8oz can to take house, you would possibly discover a sleek-looking, LED-lit machine becoming snugly amongst the pint glasses.
That’s Oktober Can Seamers’ automated canning machine, the most recent model of the corporate’s revolutionary can seamer.
And it’s altering the sport of to-go beer all through the business. All with only a push of a button.
Oktober Can Seamers Revolutionizes To-Go Drinks
Grand Rapids-based Oktober Can Seamers produces a line of compact, sturdy, and easy-to-use, particular person can seamer machines able to sealing cans of all sizes from 8oz as much as 32oz.
It’s an concept that got here straight from the mind of Grumm, who had beforehand designed precision equipment for the aerospace business whereas homebrewing on the facet.
Truly, you possibly can most likely say that Oktober Can Seamers started as most breweries do—with a lofty thought and a dream.
Ranging from scratch, Grumm used his engineering experience to construct and take a look at prototypes for a unit in his spare time. Utilizing 3D modeling software program and ingredient evaluation he started placing collectively a machine that used absolutely the minimal variety of elements and items, making it as easy, cheap, and person pleasant as potential.
What he constructed—now Oktober Can Seamers’ Mannequin 7 Can Seamer—revolutionized the to-go sport.
“With our machine we opened up the market to these smaller locations and newer companies to the place they’ll get their ft on the bottom with canning whether or not or not for small manufacturing to promote to craft beer shops and native companies but in addition as a way more customer-friendly to-go possibility,” says Grumm.
Again then, breweries mainly solely had the to-go possibility of glass growlers, which meant “prospects couldn’t seize an additional pint or two or 4 on the fly,” says Grumm. Plus, glass growlers have been dearer and took up extra space. “I actually wished the only potential machine that was tremendous dependable…quick, easy, and cheaper,” says Grumm.
Actually through the pandemic, the can seaming machines have been a lifesaver, actually. Grumm says, “From all accounts we heard that…breweries stored a variety of income coming in utilizing our seamers.”
However now, breweries wish to the longer term, persevering with to capitalize on a vital to-go business.
So to maintain up with this substantial new income stream, Grumm gave these highly effective can seaming machines an much more highly effective improve.
Oktober Can Seamers Now Seals With Simply the Push of a Button
Oktober Can Seamers latest machine—Mannequin 8 Can Seamer—is now absolutely computerized. To seal the can one wants solely to “push a button,” says Grumm.
The machine takes care of all the remaining.
Time is cash within the hospitality business, so these few further seconds actually add up. Earlier than, somebody needed to stand by the machine cranking a few handles to complete the seam.
“With the automated one, you place the can in there, push go, and by the point it’s finished you possibly can be getting somebody’s invoice or doing that little bit of additional work,” says Grumm. “When you watch individuals working behind a bar it’s simply go go go go. And in case you’re doing fifty cans, these little time additions add up.”
As an illustration, at Archival Brewing in Grand Rapids, MI, the place proprietor Levi Knoll says they’ve been filling thirty to forty cans every week on a beta model of the Mannequin 8 Can Seamer.
And people essential seconds saved have already began to make a distinction.
Why Archival Brewing Loves Oktober’s New Computerized Can Seamer
Opened in July 2021, Archival Brewing has twenty-two faucets and the capability to suit 300 covers throughout an indoor eating room, raised deck and beer backyard, and two bars.
Knoll knew proper from the beginning that he wished a to-go possibility for his prospects, buying considered one of Oktober Can Seamers unique Mannequin 7 Can Seamer machines from ProBrewer.
“We select to do this for the standard of the beer to keep up that to-go in addition to doing 16oz cans so individuals may get a few the identical type or totally different choices and never have to fret about consuming multi functional sitting,” says Knoll.
For that final 12 months, the guide model impressed Knoll, who says, “the machine has paid for itself a number of occasions over.”
And Knoll has been equally impressed after testing the automated model.
“It’s an important design,’ says Knoll “Usually, it’s extra person pleasant and simpler to make use of. It does every little thing seamlessly for you and sooner with their automated system.”
In accordance with Knoll, he can now seal one and half extra cans to the one can he was doing with the previous guide model.
“Each single considered one of our bartenders cherished it and couldn’t communicate extremely sufficient about it,” says Knoll. “Two of them have been virtually in tears.”
However the velocity and ease of use aren’t the one advantages.
The Three Benefits of the Mannequin 8 Can Seamer
Maybe one of the crucial neglected benefits of any of the Oktober Can Seamers is their versatility.
At solely 10in broad x 11.5in deep, the machine matches snugly into virtually any bar setup with out taking away important area for pint glasses, bottles, faucets, and different tools.
“I like their sleekness,” says Knoll. “[The machine] matches inside half an inch on both facet of the place we wanted it too; it didn’t take up a lot bar area.”
And that’s precisely what Grumm had in thoughts together with his unique design. “I wished to verify behind the bar…it took up no area as a result of it’s loopy how even a big bar is accounted for,” says Grumm. “They deplete each inch of bar area as a result of that’s the cash maker.”
Moreover, Grumm knew the can seamer wanted to be quiet and look good as a result of it’s “proper there, entrance and middle.”
With that in thoughts, the brand new automated model takes issues a step additional. Constructed-in LED lighting makes the machine stand out on the bar.“You need prospects to see it and see its presence…so that they ask about it,” says Grumm. “It has some novelty to it.”
The truth is, when a bartender pushes the button to seal the can, the lights get even brighter to “get individuals’s consideration whereas sitting on the bar,” says Grumm. It’s intelligent, well-thought out, small touches like that which set this may seamer other than the rest.
Along with the modern design, the Mannequin 8 Can Seamer is simpler to make use of. “It’s plug and play, coming calibrated and able to go,” says Grumm.
Plus, the automated can seamer can accommodate all can sizes from tiny little 8oz sleeks or 250mL cans all the way in which as much as bigger cans for espresso beans.
For all these causes and extra, Oktober Can Seamers’ automated machine is completely poised (on the bar) to be the longer term for any bar or brewery’s to-go program.
How Can I Discover an Oktober Can Seamer for My Brewery?
So glad you requested!
For brewery house owners like Knoll, with the chance to beta take a look at the automated model, the proof is within the canning.
“As quickly as they picked it up, I requested once I may get it again or preorder two of them,” says Knoll. “I’m hoping to be one of many first to put that order.”
