C02

[GodfreyTempleton]

Does anybody know how much CO2 a five-gallon basic beer kit fermentation creates?

 

[Rodcx500z]

No but i would be interested to know, may be Buffers knows

 

[foxy]

Does anybody know how much CO2 a five-gallon basic beer kit fermentation creates?

 

[Buffers brewery]

I went through a phase of collecting “fermentation gas” in mylar balloons. I let the first day’s worth of gas vent as it would contain a lot of air from the initial headspace in the bucket. The best I managed was 5 brewloons..

..after that the gas production was so slow most of it probably leaked out of the bucket lid. So, now the complicated bit. One and a half brewloons worth of gas displaced a King Keg (filled to the brim, about 7 gallons or 35 litres roughly) of water. So 5 brewloons equals just short of 100 litres
Out of interest, what do you want to know for?

 

[GodfreyTempleton]

I went through a phase of collecting “fermentation gas” in mylar balloons. I let the first day’s worth of gas vent as it would contain a lot of air from the initial headspace in the bucket. The best I managed was 5 brewloons..

View attachment 97053
..after that the gas production was so slow most of it probably leaked out of the bucket lid. So, now the complicated bit. One and a half brewloons worth of gas displaced a King Keg (filled to the brim, about 7 gallons or 35 litres roughly) of water. So 5 brewloons equals just short of 100 litres
Out of interest, what do you want to know for?

Thinking if one was to ferment in a controlled sealed fermenter, say a Brewtools, would there be enough co2 given off to purge a keg, King or otherwise of air, ready for an airless transfer to cut down on the costs of bottled co2?

 

[Buffers brewery]

Thinking if one was to ferment in a controlled sealed fermenter, say a Brewtools, would there be enough co2 given off to purge a keg, King or otherwise of air, ready for an airless transfer to cut down on the costs of bottled co2?

The answer to that is "yes"....but, as I said, best to wait at the beginning to allow the remaining air in the fermenter to be flushed out. Not sure of the keg flushing method you're planning to use. Some just connect the fermenter to a vented keg. As you can see from my post I opted to collect the gas in balloons, fill the sanitized keg with water then connect the balloon to the gas post and a siphon hose to the beer post to drain the water from the keg and replace it with gas. However, when I brew NEIPA I use CO2 cylinder instead of balloons.

 

[foxy]

Thinking if one was to ferment in a controlled sealed fermenter, say a Brewtools, would there be enough co2 given off to purge a keg, King or otherwise of air, ready for an airless transfer to cut down on the costs of bottled co2?

It takes a lot of CO2 to purge a keg, and at high pressure.

 

[Buffers brewery]

If you use the water displacement method it costs around 25p-30p for 20-22 litres.

 

[RoomWithABrew]

Does anybody know how much CO2 a five-gallon basic beer kit fermentation creates?

This gentleman certainly does. Simply laid out.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/keg-purging-with-active-fermentation.628658/post-8004741

 

[hoppyscotty]

Thinking if one was to ferment in a controlled sealed fermenter, say a Brewtools, would there be enough co2 given off to purge a keg, King or otherwise of air, ready for an airless transfer to cut down on the costs of bottled co2?

I did this once. The only way to be sure to fully purge a keg is to completely fill it with sanitised water. I fill with stars solution, brim it, replace the lid, apply a garden pump pressure weed killer thing to the liquid post and push stars through under pressure and open the purge valve to purge air out, then open up the gas post with a screwdriver tip to push out any air that might be trapped in the short length of tube. That is the only way you can be sure you have nothing but liquid in the keg with no air trapped in any nook or cranny. Could also do it with water with Sodium Metabisulpate to purge dissolved oxygen from the liquid if you really wanted to be sure.

Then after a few days of fermentation to ensure the fermzilla headspace was purged, hooked up the gas post of my fermzilla to my keg gas post and a liquid post to a hose into a bucket and purged the starsan solution out of the keg. Think I managed about three and a bit kegs, so a bit over 60 litres. Only did it the once and have not been bothered to do it again. was a bit of a faff constantly keeping an eye on it to swap over the kegs. Thought about daisy chaining the kegs together but not bothered to give it a go.

Though CO2 is more expensive than it used to be in the grand scheme of things it's still cheap...at least where I get it from...maybe £30 - £35 every 9 months or so. I can live with that cost and as a slice of the pie chart of my overall brewing costs its pretty minor. Far more concerned about cost of hops and yeast, and electricity of course. Waters dirt cheap, malt is dirt cheap...CO2 is quite cheap.

 

[JockyBrewer]

Though CO2 is more expensive than it used to be in the grand scheme of things it's still cheap...at least where I get it from...maybe £30 - £35 every 9 months or so. I can live with that cost and as a slice of the pie chart of my overall brewing costs its pretty minor. Far more concerned about cost of hops and yeast, and electricity of course. Waters dirt cheap, malt is dirt cheap...CO2 is quite cheap.

I'm in the same boat. I pay £30 delivered for a CO2 tank every couple of years, and that's used to liquid purge, force carbonate and serve 25-30 kegs of beer. I wouldn't mind doing the liquid purge using fermentation CO2, but then I'd need to have the kegs already cleaned when I'm starting a fermentation, and I rarely do.

For a keg of beer, this is where my CO2 is used:

Liquid purge - 1 volume (19 litres)
Carbonating - 2-3 volumes (38-57 litres)
Serving - 1 volume (19 litres)
Leaks - ???

So if I were to try and save money on CO2 I'd first do it by naturally carbonating in the keg by adding a little sugar, as that will cut out the 2-3 volumes of CO2.

I'd also check my whole system for leaks, and turn everything off when not in use. To check for leaks just turn off your CO2 bottle and look at both the regulator gauges. If either of them have dropped significantly after 10 minutes you have a moderate to serious leak in your system - ideally they should hold for an hour or more.

 

[Rodcx500z]

Mine is due for changing £33-00

 

[RoomWithABrew]

My refill of 6kg cylinder, plus routine check cost 215 dollars NZ, so about 110 pounds.

I purge kegs with ferment gas, spund for carbonation and use CO2 to serve.

Don't get me started on the cost of beer gas, just changed to a micro nitrobrew for a long term solution to that cost.

 

[foxy]

A lot to be desired with the King Kegs/Key Kegs then. 100% oxygen-free, air to dispense and better-tasting beer to boot. No faffing around with balloons, purging kegs with sanitised water and contaminated CO2 from the ferment.
In fact no CO2 needs be included in the brewery.

 

[MashBag]

I have seen and like that setup.

Do you recycle the gas from the empty keg?

Another idea may to collect and compress your own fermenter gas using a simple pump and a corny as the pressure vessel.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/284547454263

This is type of pump could do it easily, for after a little modification (note this is an example not a recommendation)

 

[Agentgonzo]

Another idea may to collect and compress your own fermenter gas using a simple pump and a corny as the pressure vessel.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/284547454263

I had a muse about this a while ago. These compressor pumps just take in ambient air from the side grills. If you wanted to use it to compress your CO2, you'd have to have the pump entirely inside whatever you collect CO2 in. Or set up some elaborate ducting to get the flow from your CO2 container into the vents on the compressor. Not a simple tasks.

I don't know how much pressure it could build up either.

I figured that if something like this was easy, we'd probably see a lot of YouTube videos about it. We don't, so I therefore assume it's hard/not very good

 

[MashBag]

Some YouTuber are not famous for their iq.

I agree about ambient air, but they are not all the same and could be modified with a port, or just encapsulated. Some have a simple filter houseing that could be tweaked.

I think 60-80psi is not unreasonable. Within corny limits. And I have a pump that makes 90psi for my tyres.

The components are there. Tim Berners-Lee started with less

 

[RoomWithABrew]

Err why not just ferment some sugar, water, nutrient in the corny keg.
Build the pressure up to a level below the safety threshold of the keg.
Yeast will ferment at very high pressures, seek out the ferment to failure video for a fermenter by keg king. Yeast still going at 100 PSI if memory serves me.

Found it

 

[MashBag]

Oh FFS. Full marks. Yes of course.
That recipe would be dirt cheap too.

 

[Agentgonzo]

Err why not just ferment some sugar, water, nutrient in the corny keg.
Build the pressure up to a level below the safety threshold of the keg

Have we just reinvented bottle/keg conditioning?