Brewing in a bedroom?

The Homebrew Forum

Help Support The Homebrew Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

TAS123

Active Member
Joined
May 21, 2012
Messages
74
Reaction score
0
Are there any issues with brewing beer in a bedroom? (With regards to the CO2 buildup that is? I have done quite a few wine brews and always in the back bedroom. While talking to another brewer he said this was a dangerous thing to do if someone is going to be sleeping in the room. As in his opinion the CO2 buildup could be to high.

I've had friends sleep in the room with wine brews and never had any issues before. Is beer brewing different?
 
CO2 is heavier than air, so it should sink to the floor anyway. I doubt you'd produce enough to be dangerous, but it wouldn't hurt to leave the door open to ensure some airflow. You could always add some pot plants too, to turn the CO2 into O2 :-)
 
I'd put into perspective how much CO2 a human produces while sleeping...
The average human expires at 6L/min with 4% of that exhaled air being CO2 (16% O2, 80% N2). That means we exhale 240ml/min of CO2. A lot more than a fermentation I would guess...
So if there is a danger of CO2 suffocation, it's more likely to be from yourself (and perhaps a partner) than a fermentation bucket!
 
I have slept with brews going. Like what everyone said above. Leave the window or door open. Never thought about pot plants though. Good idea :)
 
Can't see it ever being a problem. Perhaps your friend was thinking of CO, carbon monoxide, which is deadly poisonous. This is a product of incomplete combustion so is only a problem if you have a gas fired copper in your bedroom.
 
That is basically what I was trying to tell him but he was adamant that I was putting people's lives at risk.

Thanks for all the replies...
 
ish1349 said:
I have slept with brews going. Like what everyone said above. Leave the window or door open. Never thought about pot plants though. Good idea :)

Don't plants switch round and take in oxygen at night? I thought it was only the day time they absorb co2 and exhale O2??
 
Living in a house share full of thieving little gits, I do all my brewing and conditioning in my bedroom and have never had a problem...Proof is I am posting on this thread. If you do get worried just open the window for 10 minutes.
 
I used to do it all the time and never had any problems. I think your mate is getting confused between CO and CO2.
 
Plants only transform Carbon Dioxide into Oxygen during day, via their photosynthetic metabolic pathway. producing sugars for storage. At night, deprived from light, they transform the sugars into energy, through a process called respiration, which produces CO2.
It's not safe having plants in small bedrooms with bad airflow. Not sure about the amout of CO2 a brew would produce but I doubt that in the homebrew scale and specially taking into consideration that the CO2 release spans through at least 7 days I't should not be a problem. I doubt the brew will produce in one night more CO2 than you do sleeping. But sometimes you just better be safe than sorry.
 
You will be fine - the biggest risk would be if you sleepwalked and then sleepdrank 23l of homebrew :cheers:
 
I been doin brews in my bedroom for about 18 months until I got a fermenting fridge and never had a problem. Only issue was the Mrs wasn't happy with the smells lol
 
for my two'pennorth - I regularly used to have two 5 gallon fermenters on the go at any time in my bedroom and I'm still alive! If you had, say, a huge 50 barrel fermenter on the go you may have an issue, but on our scale I think the risks are pretty negligible!
 
willypt said:
Plants only transform Carbon Dioxide into Oxygen during day, via their photosynthetic metabolic pathway. producing sugars for storage. At night, deprived from light, they transform the sugars into energy, through a process called respiration, which produces CO2.
It's not safe having plants in small bedrooms with bad airflow.

This is probably the silliest thing I have heard in a long time.

Plants are constantly carrying out respiration. In fact, the cessation of respiration is pretty much the biological description of death at the cellular level. Even if you stuffed your entire bedroom full of foliage it would still produce such a small amount of CO2 as to be insignificant compared to what you produce in your sleep.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top