CO2 gun for purging bottles?

[Blinky]

Is there such a thing as a little handheld CO2 gun that I could use to purge my bottles prior to bottling? One thing I'm toying with is buying one of those whipped cream dispensers, they take NO2 canisters but I'm sure that's ok, better than air and it might be able to take a CO2 bottle. I'm just wondering if there is anything else I can use, there are little bike pumps but I assume they have a valve connection so could not be used on an empty bottle. The other thing that's more expensive is a soda water machine, you get them as handheld machines that I assume can be used empty to just dispense CO2 but they look pretty much the same as the whipped cream machines which are cheaper!

 

[Blinky]

I should mention, I don't have kegs or anything, just plastic fermenters

 

[Blinky]

I have an answer! Get one of the Schroeder valve CO2 bike pumps, and a set of adapters to allow it to blow up things like air beds that have no valve. That should work and it all comes to 22 quid for the pump, adapter and canisters, worth a punt yeah?

 

[Harbey]

I use one of these:

 

[foxy]

I honestly don't know how the commercial breweries stayed afloat in bygone days. Filling up bottles with cork lined caps, or filling stoneware jugs with baker-lite stoppers and a rubber seal.

 

[Blinky]

My little gun arrived last night, so I skooshed some CO2 into the bottles prior to filling each one. I could see the CO2 coming out as a mist when bottling so I assume that means it was in there. I also left the caps just sitting on to for a bit and could here them occasionally ping as the CO2 off gassing from the beer pushed them up a little. So hopefully with that combination I have lowered the O2 level in the bottles. Time will tell!

 

[AnimatedGIF]

Can I ask, why do you need to purge prior to filling?

 

[Blinky]

I have no idea! But my hoppy beers seem to only last a few days, I was hoping that adding in CO2 to the bottle would remove some of the oxygen and give them a bit more shelf life

 

[Begbie]

Everyone has their own way of doing things but I've always had the opinion (rightly or wrongly) that when bottling, by the time I've got around to capping the bottles, they've off-gassed enough to create a CO2 blanket in the head space of the neck and therefore purged any O2. Not had any issues in 3 years of brewing and bottling mead, wine, cider and beer. Maybe I've just been lucky!

 

[Binkei Huckaback]

I've never purged bottles with C02, because I only started buying C02 when I bought kegs. If I were wanting to keep, say, a beer of a style that doesn't conventionally benefit from keeping for a long time, I might consider it. Or if I was entering a competition.

I think commercial brewers purge their bottles prior to filling and they must do so for good reason.

If I were you, I'd fill three or four bottles without purging and keep those along with the same number of purged bottles and blind taste them side by side over the course of a year and see if you can tell the difference.