Forced carbonation - is there a trick to this?

[Litmus]

yup a local example to me https://www.pyramidsteel.co.uk/adams-gas

 

[Crappyfish]

Yes mate BOC in my opinion are not that good for public. There are suppliers who are happy to supply CO2 to the public. I get mine from a place that sells propane etc. Took some finding as they are a bit scattered around the country some deliver some collection only. I pay 15 quid for a refil at 6kg of gas

 

[Gerryjo]

Can the general public still buy large gas cylinders these days (terrorism and all that) I had a friend who had a TIG welder BOC refused to sell him the gas as he was not a registered company.

I have an account with BOC for home use and I live in Northern Ireland. You pay £33 for a fill and around £3.50 a month rental for suregas.

 

[DeadlyFeet]

Thanks for all the advice all. Super helpful

 

[MrL73]

yup a local example to me https://www.pyramidsteel.co.uk/adams-gas

Oooh, that would be my (not so local but) local one as well. Ever get any problems getting from them? Seems quite reasonably priced as well. Well, compared to soda stream bottles anyway!

 

[Litmus]

Oooh, that would be my (not so local but) local one as well. Ever get any problems getting from them? Seems quite reasonably priced as well. Well, compared to soda stream bottles anyway!

no issues here, I have been buying there for a while, well set up with a proper sales office always got the gas I need in stock.

I would say don't park on the street, go into the yard and double park in front of the sales office which is on the left as you go in.

 

[MrL73]

no issues here, I have been buying there for a while, well set up with a proper sales office always got the gas I need in stock.

I would say don't park on the street, go into the yard and double park in front of the sales office which is on the left as you go in.

Cheers dude! I'm definitely gonna head down there. I've only just embraced the big world of kegs so I'm just messing around with a soda stream canister at the moment. Looking forward to my first force carbed brew!

 

[woody1959]

I get my CO2 from Adams gas, very happy with them, I get it delivered direct from Adams because I really can't be arsed to drive to the nearest suppliers.
Works out at £33 with the VAT for the refill and delivery.

 

[cossie.j]

Can the general public still buy large gas cylinders these days (terrorism and all that) I had a friend who had a TIG welder BOC refused to sell him the gas as he was not a registered company.

I’ve managed to get co2 from BOC recently. I called their customer help number and went through a few details of what i needed etc, then they opened an account for me there and then. It was relatively easy to be honest and they ordered the gas for me too, to collect from my nearest outlet.

 

[Pinter]

Chandler near Brighton charges £25 deposit for the cylinder & £19.50 for filling.

 

[james1988]

Have a look at your local food cash and carries (the sort of food warehouses restaurants would buy food in bulk).

I get my gas from Global Foods in Cardiff (I don't know if they're a chain and if there's one near you) but they charge £18 a refill and around £30 for a new bottle.

James

 

[PerthRod]

How I carbonated:
1) temperature of the room was about 20 degrees
2) I am using a 19L korny keg with a soda stream co2 cannister
3) pressurised the keg to 25 psi
4) rolled it on the floor for 2 minutes
5) left it like this for about 2 weeks

When pouring the beer I turned down the pressure to about 5 psi.

Am I missing something here?[/QUOTE]

When you say you pressurised to 25psi ...............did you pressurise it and remove the gas cylinder? The trick is to roll the keg on the floor for a couple of minutes and then re-pressurise as the beer will have absorbed most of the CO2 and the pressure will have dropped considerably. You will need to re-pressurise several times to achieve a decent level of carbonation. I use this method using an S30 cylinder and it works OK for me.

Rod

 

[Birkin]

Can the general public still buy large gas cylinders these days (terrorism and all that) I had a friend who had a TIG welder BOC refused to sell him the gas as he was not a registered company.

Yeah I have 4 of them, 2 for brewing and 2 for welding. BOC are an absolute rip off for home users anyway, the gas is cheaper but you have to rent the cylinders.

For Gas welding, SGS Gas do rent free bottles, Pure Argon is about £40 a fill, CO2 about £20 a fill for 10 litre cylinders. SGS have distributors all over the country (Usually motor factors). The cylinders have a deposit of about £90 if i remember right, plus the gas.. but much cheaper if you're an occasional welder like me.

Tell your friend to google SGS Gasses.

For beer gas, Adams Gas have distributors all over but only do CO2, which to be honest I prefer (Never a fan of smoothflow ales, i prefer bigger bubbles. I'm a Guinness original over Draft guy). My big bottle came from a local fire extinguisher supplier who started doing their own beer gas. My little bottle for my kegerator was from Adams gas, 1.5Litre £40, £15 for a gas refil. My kegerator is only small because i only had a gap big enough for a 50cm fridge, but it fits a corny in and should fit the larger 3.15kg bottle (5 litre), but my local Adams gas distributor didn't have these in stock.

For force carbing, I carb at 20PSI, it takes about 2-3 weeks, i had initially planned to try to shorten this but I'm finding the time in the fridge (Lagering) makes a massive difference to how good the beer tastes, it just tastes so much better after 3-6 weeks at 0-4C (My controller cycles over this range). I carb with the big bottle in an old larder fridge that I have in the garage.

As others have said, to force carb you need to chill the beer, the colder it is the easier it'll carb.

 

[cossie.j]

I pay £4 a month for my SB (6.4 KG) gas cylinder and £34 for a refil from BOC. Granted they are more expensive than others, but for me it was convenience that outweighed the cost as it was the closest supplier. Also they claim I’m getting 100% food grade CO2 and a safe and tested cylinder. Happy days

 

[Birkin]

I pay £4 a month for my SB (6.4 KG) gas cylinder and £34 for a refil from BOC. Granted they are more expensive than others, but for me it was convenience that outweighed the cost as it was the closest supplier. Also they claim I’m getting 100% food grade CO2 and a safe and tested cylinder. Happy days

My Beer gas comes in almost the same size bottle, 10L (6.3kg), the cylinders are rent free and the refills cost £20 (Maybe + vat, I forget). It is food gas, they sell nitrogen mixes, and it's sold as Beer gas (They do welding gas too but I already had my SGS bottle).

There's a lot to be said for convenience, I'm lucky in that this supplier is only a few miles away, but I'm surprised at the BOC refill charge, i thought they were generally cheaper for the gas but you needed to be using it to offset the rental charge to make it work out cheaper..