Kegging Set Up - Pressure Loss

[Dutto]

Ahh @Dutto

I think you misinterpreted my statement a bit.
You ferment and naturally carbonate in the kegs as you do now.

You get another keg ( think of it as your sodastream cylinder ) and in that you put some, sugar, yeast and water, maybe some nutrient. This will ferment and produce CO2, put an inline regulator on the gas line coming out of the gas producing keg and then run that line as your gas supply to the kegs. In a corny keg you could easily generate about 60 psi and safely contain it.


Not suggesting you pressure ferment your beer at all.

Generate my own CO2 is different for sure! At the moment I have 10 litre SS Kegs which (if memory serves me right) are rated to 30psi rather than the 60psi of Corny Kegs.

I like the idea though, so I’ll give it some thought. Many thanks.

Sodastream bottles are a really, really expensive way to buy CO2. Your bottle is costing you £31.70 per kilo of CO2. Adams Gas, which is far from the cheapest, work out at £4.85 per kg. There are others on here that are paying half the price that Adams Gas charge for a refill.

I know Sodastream is expensive but two things are:

1. The CO2 is “Food Grade” every time.
2. The convenience outweighs the cost most of the time.

However, I like the idea of generating my own CO2 in a separate fermentation process using just sugar, water and yeast.

The partial pressure thing (CO2 + Nitrogen + Oxygen etc) would sort itself out after the first “charge” of the CO2 source, but the questions remain. i.e. 1 & 2 above versus the cost of doing my own. A real conundrum methinks!

Thanks for the input and as above, I’ll give it some thought.

Many thanks.
:hat:

 

[RoomWithABrew]

Problem is you have to purge the keg supplying CO2 first or you'll be forcing a CO2/air mixture into the beer. Mostly air to begin with, then trending to more CO2 content as time passes.

Purging the keg very achievable of it's pre existing oxygen once ferment got going especially as some oxygen would be metabolised, and you wouldn't need that much head space to start with either. You say mostly air to begin with but that is only about 20% oxygen anyway so 2000ml headspace is 400ml of oxygen to get rid of. That is something thats workable out as to how long it would take to be nearly all CO2.

 

[RoomWithABrew]

At a domestic level noticing or detecting the difference between food grade and other CO2 is pretty marginal I'd reckon. But own grade CO2 will be high quality or high enough.
I only recently realised that the Nitrogen generators that are advertised instead of nitrogen cylinders must actually use the " waste " gas of oxygen generators and then pressurise the nitrogen. Would be neat to get an oxygen generator and use one side for oxygen in the home brew and the other for a nitro mix beer line. Too many ideas, need to find a physicist and a good technician to work it all out.