News from Stahlin Enclosures

The Abita Brewing Co., founded in 1986, is located just north of New Orleans, LA. Abita is a rapidly growing brewery with specific corrosion manufacturing obstacles related to its aggressive environment. By nature, everything in their plant is constantly being exposed to many elements. All of their electrical enclosures need to be of NEMA 4X construction because of water, caustic acids, and bleach substances that are regularly used during cleaning procedures. Abita also has its own weather system and can some days lead to actual vapor clouds in the top half of the building. The result is ferrous metal products corroding at a very high rate. Fighting corrosion in the food and beverage manufacturing industry is a daily battle for most plant and maintenance engineers. James Franklin, Abita Brewery Plant Engineer, is one of those who have found ways to make the struggle easier. Seven years ago James started to replace Abita’s corroded metal enclosures with non-metallic ones from Stahlin. After replacing more than 50 metal enclosures with superior Stahlin non-metallic products, James is more than qualified to comment on how and why Abita made the switch. During a newly released video documentary entitled: THE CASE OF THE CORROSIVE CAJUN BREW, the viewer is taken on a tour of the Abita Brewery facility to see firsthand the corrosive processing environment. Engineers and plant maintenance staff will also be given a visual opportunity to see how James actually replaces a fairly large control enclosure on his own due to non-metallic enclosures’ lighter weight and ease of customization. The video also provides the additional views of other non-metallic enclosures used throughout the plant and how they effectively protect a variety of different controls and instruments. All video footage is supported by commentary from James Franklin, attesting to the benefits of non-metallic enclosures specific to product performance, time and labor savings, availability, and cost effectiveness. The video is a great training tool for plant personnel and is now available for free upon request by contacting: Stahlin Non-Metallic Enclosures, Sam Layle, 500 Maple Street, Belding, MI 48809 Phone: 616-794-0700, Fax: 616-794-3378., email slayle@robroy.com Worldwide Web: www. stahlin.com.