Palletised Cask Filling System

Palletised maturation

 

Palletised maturation is carried out by placing six casks vertically on their ends on a pallet. The casks are then strapped together close to the top end. Hogsheads and ASBs are the predominate types of casks used for palletised maturation. Palletised maturation offers greater safety for operators due to the absence of any manual handling and is also much more cost effective as the use of forklifts and other mechanical handling aids for all cask movements enables each operator to process upwards of four times more casks an hour than in racked warehouse operations. The pallets are placed in the warehouse directly on to the floor or on top of the casks of the lower pallet. When palletisation was first trialled the casks were filled on their bilge and then rotated and placed on pallets. This was due to all filling operations at the time filled casks for traditional and racked warehouses. Currently the majority of palletised casks are still filled traditionally and then palletised. As a result spirit rests against the bung for the duration of the maturation process. Although there is minimal effect to maturation losses when the bung remains sealed if a leak develops half of the cask is lost. The process of rotating the casks after filling is also labour intensive and time consuming as it requires an additional forklift truck and driver in order to rotate and place the casks on the pallets. It also requires the casks to be removed from the pallet for disgorging after maturation. In order to maximise on the efficiency offered by palletisation it is best fill and disgorge the cask while they remain on the pallet.