Owly055
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When I was growing up, can seamers were not uncommon. I've used the old cast iron hand crank units that bolt down to a bench top or counter top. Just fill the can with beans or whatever, set the lid in place, pull the lever and crank. Like an electric can opener, the can rotates and the seaming dies crimp a nice seam all around. Forgive me if I'm not 100% accurate on this, it's been over half a century since I've used one.
These seamers can be purchased today on Ebay, though I don't know where one would get the empty cans and lids these days.
The other night I was talking with another home brewer and the topic of canning came up as it often does, and we came up with an interesting idea. Suppose you could simply slice the lids off empty cans right next to the seam, clean, refill, and drop a new lid on.....
Cans are not readily available in small quantities, but empty cans are available in the millions. lids are small, and could be shipped economically. Seaming dies are readily available, and the process is simple enough that it would not be difficult to design and build a good seamer for aluminum cans from readily available parts. Ebay lists hundreds of seaming dies.
You could can your beer in anything from Bud Lite cans to Coca Cola cans, and by using different cans for different batches it would be fairly easy to keep track of what is what without putting your own label on the can. In addition, there are times when it might be useful to have beer in a pepsi can.
As a test, yesterday, I removed the lid from a beer can, a rather delicate operation using an abrasive wheel on the top of the standing seam, cutting through a single layer, which released the inner part of the lid, leaving the outer ring in place, which was then easily removed. What I found was that the seam involved rolling over both a standing portion of the can and the lid. The lid drops down into the top of the can so you have two standing pieces of aluminum, and both are then rolled over and crimped down over the outside of the can. With the lid removed the way I did, I believe it would be possible to reuse the can. About as much vertical surface is left as was rolled over when the can was crimped, and crimping it over again would crimp it against part of the can that tapers inward, but I suspect that this would work with properly designed dies. The real challenge would be removing the lid consistently and cleanly, but I believe this would be possible.
Interestingly there were visible deposits of green hop particles all over the interior of this can, which was a heavily dry hopped beer called Bitteroot Single Hop, an excellent Northwest Pale Ale by Bitteroot Brewing in Hamilton Mt. I've noticed hop trub in my glass when pouring this.
My conclusion is that it is probably very possible for the home brewer to reuse beer cans with an inexpensive seamer that is either hand cranked or uses a small motor. The equipment would not be difficult to build, or manufacture, Obtaining lids would be the problem, but probably not too much of one. It might cause quite an uproar among the commercial canners when they discovered that people were reusing their cans. I can see attempts to prevent lids from falling into the hands of "evil doers", and a black market developing as a result, and ultimately the commercial guys being forced to print the lids as well as the cans for liability reasons. You could only reuse a can once, unless a there was resizing equipment as is used for rifle brass, that could reshape the shoulder. A few home brewers doing it would not cause problems, but thousands of home brewers doing it would cause a major backlash I think.
Note that the Ebay seamers are just a model of how a simple seamer works, a guideline on how one would be built. It's possible that they might be adaptable with the right dies, and ingenuity.
H.W.
These seamers can be purchased today on Ebay, though I don't know where one would get the empty cans and lids these days.
The other night I was talking with another home brewer and the topic of canning came up as it often does, and we came up with an interesting idea. Suppose you could simply slice the lids off empty cans right next to the seam, clean, refill, and drop a new lid on.....
Cans are not readily available in small quantities, but empty cans are available in the millions. lids are small, and could be shipped economically. Seaming dies are readily available, and the process is simple enough that it would not be difficult to design and build a good seamer for aluminum cans from readily available parts. Ebay lists hundreds of seaming dies.
You could can your beer in anything from Bud Lite cans to Coca Cola cans, and by using different cans for different batches it would be fairly easy to keep track of what is what without putting your own label on the can. In addition, there are times when it might be useful to have beer in a pepsi can.
As a test, yesterday, I removed the lid from a beer can, a rather delicate operation using an abrasive wheel on the top of the standing seam, cutting through a single layer, which released the inner part of the lid, leaving the outer ring in place, which was then easily removed. What I found was that the seam involved rolling over both a standing portion of the can and the lid. The lid drops down into the top of the can so you have two standing pieces of aluminum, and both are then rolled over and crimped down over the outside of the can. With the lid removed the way I did, I believe it would be possible to reuse the can. About as much vertical surface is left as was rolled over when the can was crimped, and crimping it over again would crimp it against part of the can that tapers inward, but I suspect that this would work with properly designed dies. The real challenge would be removing the lid consistently and cleanly, but I believe this would be possible.
Interestingly there were visible deposits of green hop particles all over the interior of this can, which was a heavily dry hopped beer called Bitteroot Single Hop, an excellent Northwest Pale Ale by Bitteroot Brewing in Hamilton Mt. I've noticed hop trub in my glass when pouring this.
My conclusion is that it is probably very possible for the home brewer to reuse beer cans with an inexpensive seamer that is either hand cranked or uses a small motor. The equipment would not be difficult to build, or manufacture, Obtaining lids would be the problem, but probably not too much of one. It might cause quite an uproar among the commercial canners when they discovered that people were reusing their cans. I can see attempts to prevent lids from falling into the hands of "evil doers", and a black market developing as a result, and ultimately the commercial guys being forced to print the lids as well as the cans for liability reasons. You could only reuse a can once, unless a there was resizing equipment as is used for rifle brass, that could reshape the shoulder. A few home brewers doing it would not cause problems, but thousands of home brewers doing it would cause a major backlash I think.
Note that the Ebay seamers are just a model of how a simple seamer works, a guideline on how one would be built. It's possible that they might be adaptable with the right dies, and ingenuity.
H.W.
