Co2 gathering

[itry]

Greetings. Has any one or does any one , looked into gathering their own c02? Is gathering your own co2 is it a worthwile thing?

So to do it id imagen you would need a ballon on the blow off kane. Then when ferment is done put it on a compressor in port and have it pumped in to a co2 bottle?

 

[AnimatedGIF]

That sounds like the sort of thing I really could not be bothered to do. I recently paid £16.50 for 6.35kg of Co2. So much easier! I'd be interested in hearing the opinion of others though.
If using a baloon, I imagine it could need to be one that wasn't stretchy. I'd have thought that any pressure build up would escape through the path of least resistence (in my case the lid of the FV). That said, I only have basic FVs, not Fermzilla-type things.

 

[MickDundee]

I think most people who “gather” CO2 in a balloon during fermentation do it to prevent suck back of oxygen/Starsan when they cold crash. I don’t think the time/benefit ratio (potentially cost/benefit ratio as well but I have no idea how much that set up would cost) of trying to harvest your own yeast and compress it into a CO2 bottle would be worthwhile.

 

[foxbat]

I've started harvesting fermentation CO2 for the purpose of keg purging. See my post here for details.

 

[foxy]

Greetings. Has any one or does any one , looked into gathering their own c02? Is gathering your own co2 is it a worthwile thing?

So to do it id imagen you would need a ballon on the blow off kane. Then when ferment is done put it on a compressor in port and have it pumped in to a co2 bottle?

I have collected it for dispensing cask ales, I have thought of compressing it using water, trouble is water carries oxygen so that is out. Using a compressor same thing unless the intake is sucking in the co2. Purging casks, kegs and secondary's is another use.

 

[xozzx]

CO2 is cheap and lasts a long time. The savings would not be worth the hassle (for me) and cost of equipment required.

 

[cushyno]

@foxbat wrote recently about purging a keg with co2 from fermentation. See if this gives you any ideas.

 

[Wynne]

I ferment in a corny keg and have followed Foxbat’s approach but with a “daisy-chain” of several sanitised kegs connected to the fermenter. This gives the kegs a thorough purge with CO2 at no cost. Sometimes, I fit a spunding valve to the final corny in the daisy-chain instead of a blow-off tube and naturally carbonate the beer in the fermenter and build up pressure in the captured CO2 for later transfer/dispense of the finished beer.

 

[CD]

I gather CO2 in a foil balloon (See Thread: Draught Beer), merely to use in dispensing at atmospheric pressure and preventing air from spoiling the beer. Works for me, and has done for years.

 

[foxbat]

I ferment in a corny keg and have followed Foxbat’s approach but with a “daisy-chain” of several sanitised kegs connected to the fermenter. This gives the kegs a thorough purge with CO2 at no cost. Sometimes, I fit a spunding valve to the final corny in the daisy-chain instead of a blow-off tube and naturally carbonate the beer in the fermenter and build up pressure in the captured CO2 for later transfer/dispense of the finished beer.

That's a nice setup, tidy and cheap. Do you do a closed transfer out of the fermenter corny into a purged corny as well?

 

[Wynne]

Short answer, yes.
Long answer, connect a corny pressurised with captured CO2 onto the fermenter (gas-in to gas-in), connect another purged corny from the daisy-chain to the fermenter (liquid-out to liquid-out) put a spunding valve on the gas-in of the receiving corny and use that to bleed off CO2. reducing pressure in the receiving corny and causing beer to be pushed into it from the fermenter.