6kg Co2 bottle life expectancy with cornies?

[Steve62]

Hi, i'm very happy with my corny keg and i'm thinking of getting a few more, if I get 3 more and connect all 4 to a 6kg Co2 bottle at 10 psi how long would you expect the gas to last? only asking as i'm thinking I might need 2 bottles??

 

[Godsdog]

Hi, i'm very happy with my corny keg and i'm thinking of getting a few more, if I get 3 more and connect all 4 to a 6kg Co2 bottle at 10 psi how long would you expect the gas to last? only asking as i'm thinking I might need 2 bottles??

how long is a piece of string?i run 3 cornies and two KKs which on occasion I force carb and top up with a serving pressure blast.my first 6KG lasted nearly a year and that was with a lot of faffing about and losing loads of gas to the atmosphere,trust me you wont need two tanks:thumb:

 

[JapanBrew]

It really depends. The first tank I used I wasted a lot. Doing things wrong and the dreaded,... ball lock wasn't sealing up letting a little bit of gas out overtime. Now I check my fittings with starsan spray. Make sure everything is tight. My current tank is low but it's lasted a long time. I think most of the gas use is from my wifes sparkling water addiction.

 

[Fil]

well i have the capacity for 4 beers online at once i generally have no more than 3 on at a time and a bottle will generally last 12months + However a spare bottle is a very useful backup against the odd calamity and loosing a full bottle overnight to a leak in the system.
And the time you have between signs of running out and actually running out is often too short to get a refill too ... bottle pressure starts to drop and a week later you can be empty..

 

[peebee]

I get 12+ months, but may be a light user (even if I do have 4-5 beers available at one time). So I don't need a spare cylinder? Err ...

Last year my cylinder started to indicate it was getting low. As "Fil" said, you don't get much time between a "low" indication and "empty". So on the morning of Christmas Eve I was sorting out a refill.

If you're not charged much for rental (I pay less than £1/month) two cylinders seems like a good idea.

As an alternative some means of monitoring the weight of the cylinder will give a better indication of the contents - the pressure gauges tell you nothing, until its too late. Making sure all the joints are gas tight, using "aquarium" style solenoid valves to automatically cut the gas so any leaks have little effect (as I do). All good policies, but they only create a false sense of security and when the gas does run out it still takes you by surprise.

 

[JapanBrew]

The tanks in Japan are nice because they have a kind of float system on the head of the tank.

 

[BarnBrian]

I'm on my first cylinder and I've used it for 22 cornies so far, my guess is that I'll get close to 30. In theory you should get a lot more than that but due to the poor tolerances of the equipment, quite a lot of gas is lost through leakage. The technical figure is: 1kg of liquid CO2 is equal to 538 litres of gas at atmospheric pressure, at 10psi this equates to 366 litres.
I always leave my cylinder turned off to reduce leakages, just turn it on as I need to.

 

[peebee]

... I always leave my cylinder turned off to reduce leakages, just turn it on as I need to.

Yeap, what I do but am forcing the policy by having a solenoid on the primary regulator controlled by one of those "delay off" switches used by landlords in shared hallways. But how do you monitor the cylinder so it doesn't take you by surprise (going empty) after, say, 15 months instead of 3?

 

[Steve62]

Thanks for all the help guys, i'll go with one tank for now, (who knows I might find somewhere to refill the one I was given)

I only asked the question as I can't find a local supplier that will deliver so I have a 50 mile round trip to thebeerandgasman in Rugby

 

[Steve62]

Yeap, what I do but am forcing the policy by having a solenoid on the primary regulator controlled by one of those "delay off" switches used by landlords in shared hallways. But how do you monitor the cylinder so it doesn't take you by surprise (going empty) after, say, 15 months instead of 3?

So, it's best to keep tank turned off until I want to serve? I have so much to learn

 

[BarnBrian]

Yeap, what I do but am forcing the policy by having a solenoid on the primary regulator controlled by one of those "delay off" switches used by landlords in shared hallways. But how do you monitor the cylinder so it doesn't take you by surprise (going empty) after, say, 15 months instead of 3?

As someone else mentioned you could go by weight. Personally I'm about to get a second cylinder as stand by.
I like your idea of the solenoid with delay off switch. I've not checked them out, do you install upstream or downstream of the regulator.

 

[peebee]

So, it's best to keep tank turned off until I want to serve? I have so much to learn

Not exactly. Keeping the tank turn off keeps anxiety at bay ("is my gas leaking away?"). But it doesn't prevent you unexpectedly running out of gas.

I wrote a little primer a while back, you may find it useful:
http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=67424

 

[peebee]

As someone else mentioned you could go by weight. ....

In this thread? I think you'll find that was me!

... I like your idea of the solenoid with delay off switch. I've not checked them out, do you install upstream or downstream of the regulator.

Downstream. It doesn't have to close on such a high pressure then. Actually it's built into the "primary" regulator, as is common for aquarium use. There are piccies of it in this old thread of mine:
http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=64248
Further downstream there are more solenoid valves and the secondary regulators all hidden away in control boxes. If you need more evidence that you might be dealing with a paranoid lunatic here's a piccie of the "field" CO2 control box I'm building (with the "house" boxes cluttering up the rest of my table).

Guess I'm having breakfast elsewhere for a bit!

 

[BarnBrian]

In this thread? I think you'll find that was me!

Downstream. It doesn't have to close on such a high pressure then. Actually it's built into the "primary" regulator, as is common for aquarium use. There are piccies of it in this old thread of mine:
http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=64248
Further downstream there are more solenoid valves and the secondary regulators all hidden away in control boxes. If you need more evidence that you might be dealing with a paranoid lunatic here's a piccie of the "field" CO2 control box I'm building (with the "house" boxes cluttering up the rest of my table).

Guess I'm having breakfast elsewhere for a bit!

Paranoid lunatic? Maybe. But the bang on your head doesnt' seem to have interfered with your lateral thinking ability:thumb:.

 

[BarnBrian]

PeeBee.
Two questions. What are the sight glasses for? (at least I think they look like sight glasses)
What's the water bottle for, are you producing your own CO2?

 

[peebee]

PeeBee.
Two questions. What are the sight glasses for? (at least I think they look like sight glasses)
What's the water bottle for, are you producing your own CO2?

Not sight-glasses but bubble-counters. An "aquarium" thing for judging the rate of CO2 going through. Here used as a tool for "venting"; an approach to a traditional process used to prepare cask ales ("Real Ale") for serving. Here they are associated with 50-150mbar LPG regulators to deliver "pseudo" cask ale. Read more about it (if you want to) in my article here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BwzEv5tRM-5EQUhZbDNPdmV1bWc.

The water bottle is just providing me something to pressurise as I bench test this jobbie. Well spotted, those caps are used for CO2 generators, but I was using them as traps (to see that you've just connected an over-carbonated keg and are about to fill the regulator with beer).

 

[peebee]

Paranoid lunatic? Maybe. But the bang on your head doesnt' seem to have interfered with your lateral thinking ability:thumb:.

"Lateral thinking"? Is that why everything spreads sideways?

 

[BarnBrian]

What part of North Wales are you in, I wouldn't mind visiting to see you spread out system sometime.
Brian

 

[Steve62]

Do you guys add sugar or carbonation tablets when you put beer in your cornies?

 

[BarnBrian]

Do you guys add sugar or carbonation tablets when you put beer in your cornies?

Only by mistake when I first started. No need to as far as I'm concerned.