Ontario District
MBAC Springfield Technical Session April 22, 2004

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Ivan Alvarez of Owens-Illinois http://www.o-i.com/, which produces 50% of the world's glass container production with facilities on 5 continents, presented an interesting speech on Glass Container Manufacturing. The film "Fire and Sand" gave those in the audience who had never been to a glass plant an in-depth view of the bottle making process albeit without the heat! Glass manufacture, use of cullet, blowing methods, annealing, additives and coatings, testing and inspection were all covered in the presentation. The origins of glass failure and the forensic capabilities to determine the point of and cause of failure were discussed. For those using returnable bottles, the importance of smooth bottle handling was stressed to increase life span of the bottles.

Rob McCaig of the Canada Malting Barley Technical Centre http://www.cmbtc.com/ did a talk on Desirable Traits in Malting Barley. After an overview on varieties, demand for barley and malt - present and future, and the geographical distribution of the same, the traits desired by the selector, maltster, and brewer were discussed. Rob also presented and overview of the work done at CMBTC including training programs, their pilot malting and pilot brewhouse. A talk on the varieties of malt and their rising or waning popularity was held as well as an outline of the activities of the Brewing and Malting Barley Research Institute http://www.bmbri.ca/ regarding malt for the domestic and export markets.