CO2 Flushing bottles/minkegs with fizzy water?

[privatewiddle]

Hello!

I make very small batches using a minikeg and some bottles for secondary fermentation. I don't have C02. If I brew my beer 20% stronger than my target, could I remove oxygen by filling the minikeg 20% with cold carbonated water and adding the priming sugar. Then letting it rest for a while while nucleation from contact with the sugar and rising temperature push the CO2 out of the vessel?

Would the resulting beer have too many bicarbonate ions, and would this method produce enough C02 to flush the keg?

Thanks!

 

[Agentgonzo]

Wouldn't you still be left with a minikeg/bottle filled with sugary water? And when you try to remove that water, air will come back in?

 

[privatewiddle]

Wouldn't you still be left with a minikeg/bottle filled with sugary water? And when you try to remove that water, air will come back in?

what i 'm thinking of is doing this 15 minutes before transferring from the fermenter to the minikeg, so the sugar would be the priming sugar. The opening in the minikeg is half an inch, and the transfer tube would go in straight after the water/sugar, ready to start filling.

As I'd be brewing the beer 20% stronger than the target, the water dilutes the beer back down to the target strength.

 

[Agentgonzo]

Oh, I think I understand now.
Brew stronger beer, that will be watered down in the minikeg.

Fill minikeg partially with fizzy water, add priming sugar. Fizzy water will release co2, pushing out some oxygen and filling the headspace of the minikeg with air/co2 mix.

Then rack the strong beer into the keg, mixing with the sugar water which dilutes it down to regular strength beer with the priming sugar

Sure, it'll reduce the amount of o2 in the keg, but not eliminate it. I'm not sure it'll be worth the effort honestly. But try it and see what happens!

 

[DocAnna]

The sparkling water has CO2 vols dissolved of typically 3 to 4 vols, excluding what will be lost in opening the bottle and pouring it in. This means the maximum amount of CO2 you could get from it will be 4 times the volume of liquid, likely much less. ie the amount of CO2 will very unlikely be enough to fill your container. Even if you used a large enough volume of fizzy water it still wouldn't help since the CO2 released will mix with the air immediately on release and so any gas released would be a mix of the two. Sorry.

 

[DocAnna]

If you are willing to wait for delivery, would this sort of thing work for you?
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003123325313.html

 

[privatewiddle]

The sparkling water has CO2 vols dissolved of typically 3 to 4 vols, excluding what will be lost in opening the bottle and pouring it in. This means the maximum amount of CO2 you could get from it will be 4 times the volume of liquid, likely much less. ie the amount of CO2 will very unlikely be enough to fill your container. Even if you used a large enough volume of fizzy water it still wouldn't help since the CO2 released will mix with the air immediately on release and so any gas released would be a mix of the two. Sorry.

Thank you, that's great information.

 

[privatewiddle]

The sparkling water has CO2 vols dissolved of typically 3 to 4 vols, excluding what will be lost in opening the bottle and pouring it in. This means the maximum amount of CO2 you could get from it will be 4 times the volume of liquid, likely much less. ie the amount of CO2 will very unlikely be enough to fill your container. Even if you used a large enough volume of fizzy water it still wouldn't help since the CO2 released will mix with the air immediately on release and so any gas released would be a mix of the two. Sorry.

Thanks, that's great information

 

[DocAnna]

Oh I've just thought of something, that could in theory work, bit expensive to try but could just work. If you filled the keg to the brim with chilled fizzy water then let it sit somewhere a lot warmer for a day, you could dispense all the water from the tap to empty the keg entirely and leave behind only CO2. That would let you do a closed transfer as well - though how you'd push the liquid out of your fermenter is another problem. I rather suspect the amount of fizzy water required makes this not worth it, but it's an interesting thought experiment .

 

[Knuckles]

If you are willing to wait for delivery, would this sort of thing work for you?
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003123325313.html

Hi DocAnna, do you know if there is something similar to this but for the S30 type bottles of CO2?

 

[DocAnna]

Hi DocAnna, do you know if there is something similar to this but for the S30 type bottles of CO2?

The S30 attachment for CO2 bulbs is a lot simpler and widely available eg
https://www.lovebrewing.co.uk/s30-g...ding-black-bulb-holder-and-10x-8gm-co2-bulbs/
However I don't know of one with a regulator, and can't see how a regulator would work with an S30 valve really, but I suppose so long as the pressure exceeded the valve opening pressure it might work.

 

[Agentgonzo]

Small bulbs don't normally need regulators. They only introduce a small amount of CO2 before the bulb is empty and rely on a pressure releif valve just in case.