Cannular Can Filler Calibration and Fill Level Settings

[IrondaleBrewing]

I've used my Cannular filler in three canning sessions now and I'm having trouble getting it configured such that it doesn't have quite a lot of overflow during the fill process, so I wanted to see if others are using it and have any tips that might help.

Could be my settings, could be I still have too much foaming, or, if having a fair amount of foam overflow is to be expected, at least I'll know I'm not doing it wrong. I just get the sense that with some tweaking it could be a lot better.

For background, I did the calibration steps per the Kegland video and instructions (both the manual and the instructions on the device itself), i.e., I made a 100 mm mark on the gas post, filled a glass of water to that mark, let the pressure stabilize as much as it seemed it was going to, and hit the calibrate button. The video vs. the instructions are inconsistent as to whether or not you should have the liquid post in the glass when doing this, but that probably doesn't make a huge difference. In my latest calibration I had the liquid post in the glass.

For reference, here are the settings from the Rapt portal:

• Empty Pressure: -0.014718762598931788
• Calibration Factor: 0.0108580831438303
• Min Fill Rate: 0
• Fill Timeout: 0
• Temperature Offset: 0

500 ml Can preset settings:

• Purge time (seconds): 3
• Wait time (seconds): 0.20000000298023224
• Fill Height (millimeters): 130

And in terms of how I'm connecting the keg to the can filler, I'm using a jumper consisting of a 6-foot length of EVABarrier tubing with a Duotight ball lock connected directly to the keg on one end and a Duotight ball lock with the poppet removed (per Kegland's recommendation in their video) on the other end. I also removed the poppet from the carbonation cap on the can filler, again per Kegland's recommendation. The pressure on the keg is 11 PSI.

For the fill height I've tried everything from 120 - 150 ml and in terms of getting the can filled all the way to the top and avoiding the dreaded "fill stopped due to lack of progress" error that happens for me on lower fill heights, this seems to be the sweet spot.

But, here's a video of what that looks like in terms of overflow (no audio, sorry about that):


The overflow is basically all foam. When I set the fill height to 140 or 150 mm I start to see actual beer overflowing.

But that still seems like a lot of overflow to me. When I manually fill a glass through the can filler, once the lines are cold it isn't an excessive amount of foam; it just looks like a good pour with what I'd consider a standard amount of head.

What I was going to try next was fill a keg with plain water and see if I can even get the thing to fill a can with water to the top with minimal overflow, because as of now when filling with beer I either have to accept the amount of overflow demonstrated in the video, or get a fill that either errors out or doesn't fill the can enough.

And while I'm complaining, I also find it pretty infuriating that this hose slips forward and eventually pops off (with the catastrophic wall spraying you might imagine) while you're filling cans.

If anyone has solved that issue with a particular small clamp that fits in that tight space or via other methods it'd be great to hear about that as well.

That's probably WAY too much information! I'd appreciate any troubleshooting tips anyone might have or hearing what experiences in general people have had with this filler.

Thanks!

 

[tracer bullet]

I don't own one, but Maybe consider it like you would if you were serving from a keg into a glass, and the glass was overflowing with foam?

* Verify keg psi is set about right, something in the 10-12 psi range perhaps
* For kegs, you'd normally have a specific length of serving line, to slow down the beer, based on the line inner diameter - check an online calculator and see if your line length is long enough
* Check connections for restrictions, bad O-rings, anything else that could cause foaming issues
* Consider reducing the flow rate, even if it's just a band-aid maybe it'll get you there for now

I see faucet on the right side of the video so it's likely you know some or all of those things. Maybe approaching it in a similar manner to getting too much foam from the faucet would help?

 

[IrondaleBrewing]

Thanks for the ideas!

I don't own one, but Maybe consider it like you would if you were serving from a keg into a glass, and the glass was overflowing with foam?

Yep, that's what I'm doing more or less, but when I fill a glass through this thing it looks decent. Then again if I kept filling the glass until the foam got pushed out I suppose I'd be seeing exactly this, so that's a good head check.

* Verify keg psi is set about right, something in the 10-12 psi range perhaps

Yep, 11 PSI so we're good there.

* For kegs, you'd normally have a specific length of serving line, to slow down the beer, based on the line inner diameter - check an online calculator and see if your line length is long enough

Inside my keg I have 5' of 8mm ID EVABarrier tubing from the keg to the faucet, and I'm using 6' of the same tubing for this, so I was guessing that's OK but good call on checking the math.

I see faucet on the right side of the video so it's likely you know some or all of those things. Maybe approaching it in a similar manner to getting too much foam from the faucet would help?

Thanks again for the sanity checks. Serving from my keg is definitely not too foamy (other than the usual issue with the first pour being a bit too foamy since the faucet is warm) so in theory all this should be good, but I really appreciate all the troubleshooting suggestions! Definitely gives me some things to work with.

 

[tracer bullet]

Yeah sounds like you have a good handle on that stuff. Could a quick disconnect be at fault? Some kind of mismatch between what's built into the Cannular and what are using from your own setup. Spring force issue where one side doesn't want to open up very far, and it's running through something like what happens if you open a picnic tap just a tiny bit (all foam instead of slow flow). I recently replaced a bunch of springs that came with some generic keg posts because they were basically too long and didn't compress like they were supposed to. Solved a lot of foam problems I was having.

 

[IrondaleBrewing]

Yeah sounds like you have a good handle on that stuff. Could a quick disconnect be at fault? Some kind of mismatch between what's built into the Cannular and what are using from your own setup. Spring force issue where one side doesn't want to open up very far, and it's running through something like what happens if you open a picnic tap just a tiny bit (all foam instead of slow flow). I recently replaced a bunch of springs that came with some generic keg posts because they were basically too long and didn't compress like they were supposed to. Solved a lot of foam problems I was having.

Thanks for all the ideas! I'll definitely be tracing through all this to see if I can maybe dial it in better and particularly appreciate the thoughts on the checking the springs. I also might just RDWHAHB and accept some foam losses so I don't lose sleep over it since the end result in the can is good. As with most stuff in brewing I'm sure it'll get better with more tweaking and repetition. Thanks so much again for the suggestions and helping me think through this!

 

[ippikiokami]

Did you end up getting it working? Where did you get the Cannular btw. Been looking for one

 

[IrondaleBrewing]

Well, I got it "working" in the sense that I wind up with full cans of beer and am capping on foam so the end result is good, but there's still a fair amount of foam overflow I need to keep working on. I think the filler itself is doing what it's supposed to do for the most part so I need to experiment a bit more with line length and maybe pressure. But in general I'm happy with it.

I did order some small clips to try to clip the hose coming out of the beer line that I pointed to in the previous post so it doesn't slip off over the course of a canning session. Haven't tried any of them yet but I'm hoping that'll fix that issue.

I got both the filler and the can seamer from MoreBeer -- I had to wait a while since they were both out of stock when I ordered (pulled the trigger when both were on sale), but they eventually showed up. From what I understand they're still having trouble keeping them in stock so I must have just gotten lucky a few months ago.

 

[IrondaleBrewing]

Someone in a thread on Facebook about the can filler said they had good luck reducing foam by reducing the CO2 pressure on the keg to like 3 PSI, so hopefully that'll work for me as well.

 

[JunctionPoint]

I having the same issue, excessive foaming. I've basically wasted a keg of beer to try to get this filler dialed in, but I'm having no luck at all.

 

[IrondaleBrewing]

I having the same issue, excessive foaming. I've basically wasted a keg of beer to try to get this filler dialed in, but I'm having no luck at all.

Ugh that sucks. Sorry you're having trouble as well. My next run at it my plan is to take the main gas line off the keg (my normal serving pressure of 11 PSI), release the pressure on the keg, and then attach a SodaStream canister with a mini regulator so I can start with a super low pressure of like 2 PSI and see how that goes, increasing as needed. If that doesn't improve things substantially I may have to give up and get a Duofiller or just use a beer gun because I don't have the patience to fight with this thing.

I will say the cans I filled for a competition got good comments on the firmness of the can and carbonation level, but I wasted a lot of beer in the process.

 

[JunctionPoint]

That's one of my concerns for the competitions—that the beer will lose carbonation. I just don't have the patience to waste kegs of beer to get it dialed in.

I usually fill from the tap and then can, but I bought this to save time canning beers and filling the cans properly. It's not looking promising, that's for sure.

 

[LitBrewing]

I just got mine, but i'm havine a different problem. It just stops after about 1 second of filling and kicks the "stopped due to lack of progress" error. Can't seem to get around this no matter what setting, calibration, etc that I do. If you have any advice i'd love to hear it.

Regarding your issues, I ended up putting a an 8mm f to f ball valve on the beer line right before the quick disconnect so I could turn off the flow right at the unit. Not sure if that would be an idea to help, but maybe?

I'm trying to go from the tap using a nukatap ball lock adapter and quick disconnect, and i'm using a flow control nukatap faucet so hopefully I can dial in the fill speed. Right now I still get the error even at full speed.

 

[micraftbeer]

I've got one of these, but I use it for bottles. I'm happy with the fills. A couple comments:

1. @LitBrewing there's a default setting in there that kept getting me tripped up as well. It was looking for immediate progress on fill and it would keep shutting off. I have to look up which one it was that I changed. It's intended to avoid you from blowing keg CO2 into a can/bottle after the keg kicks and never getting a fill. But it was way too aggressive. I'll check it tomorrow and share.

2. @IrondaleBrewing I got mine working with an acceptable/small amount of foam overflow in my bottles. It seems like cans would have a higher volume of foamy overflow due to the large opening. The duration of your foam over is probably about the same as mine, but yours would be messier with the bigger opening/greater volume of foam.

3. The big difference for me was insulating the beer line. I have about 10 ft of 4mm x 8mm EvaBarrier beer line, and 6 ft of it is outside my keezer. I put on pipe insulation around the beer line, for that 6 ft run and it made a big difference in foaming. It's way larger than the tubing diameter, and I don't have it all sealed up or anything, but it provides insulation barrier and does the trick. When I first start doing a beer/batch of bottles, I do have to run about a beer's worth through the lines and into the sink to get the line cooled down. After that, the foam is under control, and the pipe insulation keeps it from warming up.

4. Another key to my set up is I mounted it onto a board, which I set up right in/on my sink. This makes a huge difference because you don't get stressed about overflowing foam. If you've got something robust that catches your foam, and doesn't make a mess for you to clean up, I'll bet you probably would not worry too much about your overflow.

 

[micraftbeer]

I forgot to add, I don't change the serving pressure at all from my keezer. I just hook up my 10 ft beer line to whichever keg I want to bottle, run that first stream through to cool the line, then I'm in business.

I also have the insides of the ball lock and the post removed as Kegland suggested.

As for the tube working its way off, I had that issue, too. I went to a stiffer tube, but also a small wrap-around spring hose clamp. I haven't used it enough since those additions to know the issue is fully resolved, but it seems a lot more secure.

 

[LitBrewing]

Hey thanks for the response! Yeah, I’ve seen a few settings that look like they might help, but it’s really hard to say what I need to do to the settings to make it work, the troubleshooting and instructions are very much lacking on how to fix my problem.

Also called them but then they told me the person that can help us in a meeting so they gave me an email could send for support, hopefully that helps.

 

[micraftbeer]

OK, I squinted in the morning light at the teeny-tiny digital screen, and here's some info. I think one of these is @LitBrewing 's problem:

1. Fill Presets (I've only ever done 12 oz bottles, so I've only ever tweaked the 300 ml bottle presets. I can't tell you what the default values were, these are what I have in there now and things are working:
   1. Purge 2.0 s
   2. Wait 0.4 s
   3. Fill 193 mm (I remember I had to keep increasing this value from default).
2. Settings menu
   1. Min Fill Rate 0.0 mm/s To be honest, I think I thought this was doing something else, but I think it's just after it's registered that filling is started, it looks for this fill rate before detecting you've run out of beer in your keg and shutting off. If that is so, I would think 0.0 would never detect an error and shut off, but I know from unplanned experience, I had a bottle in half fill the other day when the keg kicked. It sputtered a second or two and then shut off, before I could even react to try to do anything.
   2. Fill timeout 3 s I think this is @LitBrewing 's problem. I believe the default is 0 sec. This seems to be how long it waits after it opens the valve to start to fill, to see the pressure start to rise in the fill tube, indicating fill has started.

 

[LitBrewing]

My 1000ml bottle settings are :

• purge 6s
• wait : .2s
• Fill 300mm

It purges fine and I didn't play with the wait time, but unless .2s is 'too low' but .4 is 'fine', i can't see that being a problem either.

Min fill rate is defaulted to 0.0, and i changed it to .5/mm/s. I would think that the min fill rate would need to be as LOW as possible ( which it is ) so the machine doesn't think nothing is happening when some beer is still flowing. So following that logic my setting should be fine...

There is another setting for "empty pressure", mine is set to .1379 kPa ( kilopascals ) a measuremenet of atmospheric pressure. At my altitude i'm at 101 kPa atmospheric pressure. For reference, 1 kPa is .145 PSI.... Not sure what all that means for what the setting should be but the support engineer just asked me what my setting for this is, so perhaps it matters. What is yours set to?

 

[IrondaleBrewing]

I've got one of these, but I use it for bottles. I'm happy with the fills. A couple comments:

1. @LitBrewing there's a default setting in there that kept getting me tripped up as well. It was looking for immediate progress on fill and it would keep shutting off. I have to look up which one it was that I changed. It's intended to avoid you from blowing keg CO2 into a can/bottle after the keg kicks and never getting a fill. But it was way too aggressive. I'll check it tomorrow and share.

2. @IrondaleBrewing I got mine working with an acceptable/small amount of foam overflow in my bottles. It seems like cans would have a higher volume of foamy overflow due to the large opening. The duration of your foam over is probably about the same as mine, but yours would be messier with the bigger opening/greater volume of foam.

3. The big difference for me was insulating the beer line. I have about 10 ft of 4mm x 8mm EvaBarrier beer line, and 6 ft of it is outside my keezer. I put on pipe insulation around the beer line, for that 6 ft run and it made a big difference in foaming. It's way larger than the tubing diameter, and I don't have it all sealed up or anything, but it provides insulation barrier and does the trick. When I first start doing a beer/batch of bottles, I do have to run about a beer's worth through the lines and into the sink to get the line cooled down. After that, the foam is under control, and the pipe insulation keeps it from warming up.

4. Another key to my set up is I mounted it onto a board, which I set up right in/on my sink. This makes a huge difference because you don't get stressed about overflowing foam. If you've got something robust that catches your foam, and doesn't make a mess for you to clean up, I'll bet you probably would not worry too much about your overflow.

Thanks for sharing your experiences! I'm gearing up to do some canning for an upcoming competition and have a sacrificial keg ready to go, so this will be super helpful as I try to dial this in. Cheers!

 

[LitBrewing]

I'm going back and forth with support, will let you know when i get it solved or learn something new.

 

[micraftbeer]

My "empty pressure" is 0.1191 kPa. I've never done anything with this setting, unless there was some sort of calibration routine I did at the beginning that I don't remember. Google says my city in Michigan is at an elevation of 860 ft.

But @LitBrewing what is your Fill Timeout set to? I'm pretty sure I had the problems you describe with the default settings until I bumped this up.

 

[LitBrewing]

Yeah I actually tried that as well after I found the setting. I think it was like 0 or 1s or something, I changed it to 5 seconds. Didn't make a difference.

They told me to update the firmware as they just released some kind of bug fix they think is affecting me. The machine is not detecting any firmware updates though.

THe software version on the screen starts with 20250130, which I assume is a date ( yesterday ) so it seems to have updated.

My machine also doesn't make any beeping sounds even though the sound is 'enabled'.

I also noticed on the screen showing the version, scrolling down it says pressure: error (0) and also temp: error C ( 4095 ). Not sure what those mean, maybe it's just informational...

 

[LitBrewing]

Ok so I got it working! After the update, when I calibrated it now says "waiting for pressure to stabilize" for a second or two. After that it tells you to put in a liquid at known height and press enter, etc. After re-calibrating with this update, everything works perfectly.

I would highly recommend using 8mm evaBarrier line going into the unit as it takes less pressure. My unit is slightly above the tap, and i'm using a flow control nukatap with a keg post adapter ( also highly recommended ). Keg pressure is normal 11 psi or so and it comes out great with just the right amount of foam for 'cap on foam'. That's first pour as well, very little 'cooling' of the line which I kept as short as possible ( around 3 feet ). Flow control is wide open but I will try some with reduced flow to see what effect that has.

Unit still doesn't beep even though sound is enabled, but that's kind of minor. Waiting to see if they have ideas on how to fix that....