As several folks have pointed out I’m mistakenly using a spunding valve here when in fact I should be using a gas regulator. A regulator will set how much pressure I maintain in my serving keg whereas a spunding valve will set how much pressure will be released from the soda bottle. So please use a regulator with this setup such as KL26918.
6 місяців тому+21
Wouldn't a white plastic kegland regulator be better suited for this application? It is designed to regulate pressure after it and not inside the source container like a red spunding regulator.
I came down here to say just that. The spunding valve is regulating the wrong thing! So once your keg falls below the pressure the spunding valve is set to, you're going to stop sending CO2 to the keg. And before that point, the keg will be over-pressurized and will start to over-carb your beer. Definitely need a standard regulator for this application.
I also came to comment that the spunding valve will vent everything over the set psi. So if you’ve charged the bottle to 68psi and set the spunding valve to 15psi… as soon as you connect it to the keg it will equalize pressure between the two. Then continue to equalize until the soda bottle hits the psi of the spunding valve. Edit: He does link to the appropriate equipment in the referral links.
I've done this before while cold crashing before I switched to glycol. It was much easier to fit a 20oz or 2L soda bottle in my fermentation chamber and hold my fermenter at about 1psi to prevent issues when crashing. Now with glycol, I have less of a space constraint and so I don't mess with this anymore. One side note that another commenter mentioned as well is that you probably want a regular inline regulator for this, not a spunding valve. The spunding valve is going to regulate the pressure in your bottle and dump the excess out. So if you have 60psi in the bottle and set the spunding valve to 10psi, it's going to try to keep the bottle itself at 10psi, and will dump that full 60psi out to the keg until the bottle drops below 10psi (at which point it will stop outputting CO2 entirely). Might as well not even have a regulator at that point. A regular regulator would keep the pressure higher in the bottle and ensure your output is at 10psi.
I think it was mentioned, but is the Oxebar designed to hold more pressure than a soda bottle? If so, for added security, I would suggest buying a 4L Oxebar keg intended to contain the CO2. On my end, I have a mini regulator to be able to use a sodastream bottle. Great video, cheers!
Man...I can see this being immensely useful for taking your homebrew to a party and not wanting to lug your entire keg, CO2 tank, regulator etc. This is bloody brilliant my friend!!!!
Interesting to see this sort of DIY version. I have 5 liter insulated kegs from iKegger. I use sodastream gas bottles to carbonate and tap my beer. They are supposed to make your own carbonated water at home, but work just as well for anything beer. These gas bottles come with roughly 60 bar or 870 PSI and weigh about 1 kg. And I can buy them at my local Aldi.
Well, I guess a "welcome to the metric system" is in order. Now, ignoring CO2 as air is about the same math. 1L of air at 1Bar = 2L of air. So a 2L bottle on 5Bar is 10L of air. 600ml * 3bar is 1800ml or 1.8L of air. Now a fluid cant really be compressed by normal means, thus 1L of air will in theory displace 1L of water. Now, there is going to be a loss as you might need more pressure to push the water upwards and trough a hose with friction, etc. Also, the volume that is currently in the hose was also displaced, thought not 300ml. So all in all, the 2L bottle on 5Bar would be somewhat less than 10L, but a sodastream is more like 60L though due to the high pressure, so might be a better choice still :P
That idea is great! I'd bet you could also use these bottles to harvest some CO2 out of an active fermentation then! That way you could almost collect all the CO2 out of a fermentation, have it stored in these pet bottles and when you need it to dispense you just pick one and boom! That might save a lot of money with little effort.
I use PET bottles with Keglands Tee piece for adding finings when fermenting under pressure. Sanitise bottle, add finings, CO2 purge bottle. Then using a jumper and appropriate pressure partially fill bottle with beer to mix with finings then add more pressure to the bottle to push the mixture back into the fermenter.
Have you tried a "carb factory " to pour beer? Ie a keg containing solution and active yeast creating CO2 to be then tapped over to a keg containing beer to pour?
I use the exact same setup (with the large soda bottle) every time i serve beer at home - but for cleaning. It's made serving from kegs so much easier for me. Basically, whenever you're about to pour the last beer, take the soda bottle and fill it up half way with clean water. Pressurize it and attach it to the tap. At first, hold it normally and let the air squeeze out the last beer for that last pint. Then pressurize again and hold it upside-down to let the water run through - lastly pressurize it one last time to push out the water and leave it empty. If it takes weeks before I use the equipment again, I still do a proper cleanse, but otherwise, it just removes the old beer and leaves it fresh for next use.
My thoughts too. You are basically just creating CO2 dense compressed air otherwise. That's fine if you are going to be dispensing all of your beer in that one session but any left over beer couldn't be kept for too many days afterwards.
I might be missing something here, but since the ambient pressure is around 1 bar, meaning a 2 liter bottle at 5 bar overpressure holds enough air to fill another 10 liters at ambient pressure, I think you should be able to serve roughly 10 liters of a still liquid. Maybe the last 2 liters came from the air and/or beer warming up and the beer releasing CO2?
I tried it few days ago with 1,5 l bottle pressurized to 4 bars (60 psi). Used the cheap white regulator from kegland. I was able to get 4,5 litres of water out of the keg so for 9 l one which fit into any fridge it's just perfect with 2 bottles. No need to push it to 5 bars, that might be risky and even worse if it's hot outside. Obviously nothing will happen from plastic bottle but just be safe.
Hey Martin I absolutely love your videos and Brulosophy. So much has been right over the years. And its been entertaining. This video however is a fail. By not purging the bottle before pressurizing you're exposing rhe beer to oxygen and will have a short life. That's generally not a problem for something that's going to get drunk at a party like you describe as being the intent. But since you're introducing oxygen anyway, this setup is unnecessarily complex. Just pour the carbonated beer out into cups directly from the mini keg. Also, I doubt that spending valve is controlling the pressure coming out accurately - only what is being held back in the bottle. A much simpler solution, is to fill those 2 L bottles with beer and squeeze them to the point that they start overflowing so you purge out all the oxygen and use the carb cap to lay some CO2 on top and keep it pressurized to avoid cabination loss until you get to the party. Open and pour. Reduces the oxygen exposure until you're ready to drink. And wirh just 2 liters, you can avoid exposure of a larger amount of beer in the mini keg if all doesnt get drunk at the party. You take take rhe extra 2 L bottle back home and itll be frwsher for longer. Of course this doesn't require nearly as much equipment purchased from kegland. 😉😀😜
When I tried this with the in-line regulator, I charged the bottle to 40psi then it just seems to only charge at 40psi even when I dial it down then all the pressure just seems to go into the keg. Edit: oh I have to think about it as the pressure in the keg now in the tubing supplied so I just dispensed a little and got my coffee to like 2-5 psi just for serving. Then I just charged the bottle again to 40PSI.
I bypass the whole CO2 secondary bottle concept, and simply fill the 2L bottle with beer from my keg. You can then bring 2L of beer wherever you want. Quick and easy.
that's just 4 beers. sure, you can take more bottles if you have larger party but if I brew in my workshop and want to bring it at home, I want beer fresh for long time, not to travel every day to the workshop to pour more into bottle.
There are plenty of Czech breweries that use 1.5 litre PET bottles to bulk package their beers, they work a dream. I do wonder if there is a way to capture CO2 from fermentation into a PET bottle?
Thats such a great idea. i occasionally bring a keg to football but usually lump the whole gas tank and regulator with me. definitely going to use this method. so much easier
I have not used the pop bottle for serving but I have used it for carbonating my FG sample. Always worry about the bottle of beer blowing up on me but now I know I can relax knowing my bottle will not blow up if I put the pressure to the 40 psi max I force carb my kegs at.
I actually use a soda bottle with a carb cap to clean my beer lines. Fill the bottle with cleaning solution/sanitizer, pressurize, hook to the beer line, and dispense. In my case it's pretty low pressure. Typically just what I have the serving pressure set to, but it gets the job done.
Great video. Zymurgy magazine had an article not too long ago about ways to save on bottle fills by using CO2 from a simple fermentation in a soda bottle for carbonating a keg. This exbeeriment brings us to the next step for severing that keg. Cheerz.
The problem here is that the fermenting beer would be exposed to the same high pressure that you're capturing. If you want to bottle the fermentation CO2 at 60psi, that means there would be 60psi of pressure above the beer during fermentation, at least for a bit. That seems like it might be a bit rough on the yeast?
I need some clarification… does that inline spunding valve hold bar? Mine only shows 15 psi or about 1 bar. But I would need it to “hold back” most or all of the pressure for serving right?
In general these pet bottles resist 13bar until explode. 5 bar is a lot of pressure, maybe work one time but the material get weaker and will explode. You can't know if the material is weak enough to resist a second time or a third time. It works but it is very risky to recommend this use.
Somewhat related, I bottle and bottle condition into reused soda bottles and they will definitely take a lot of pressure and keep it for a while. Much safer than glass though not aesthetically pleasing and you have to keep them in the dark.
Sorry, late to the party here! Very good idea... I would want to kick the keg on the same day though: You are mixing air already in the soda bottle (with initially 20% oxygen) with your CO2. So, set to 3bar, the bottle will have 6.67% oxygen or 66666ppm! Of course that value is in the gas, not dissolved in the beer, but some of that oxygen will dissolve in the beer while under pressure over time, just like the CO2 does. For a party where you kick the keg the same day, no problem. If the beer lasts longer, I'd want a purer source of CO2. Perhaps a setup like a corney keg you fill with sanitiser and then force out the sanitiser with CO2... Do the same with the soda bottle, but you'd need liquid and gas "posts" on the soda bottle... Is that even available for a soda bottle?!
@@vexy1987 they don't have 1-2 gallon soda bottles. Plus once you open it you need to pour it pretty quickly. This method lets you basically use this as another keg and the beer will stay fresh and carbonated for days/weeks.
@@jonathanwilliams1974 at that point, you're better off packaging individual servings in plastic bottles? Kegging makes sense at 5gallon scale. I guess this is just different strokes for different folks!
@@vexy1987 because it will go flat as the headspace repeatedly escapes. There’s a reason we push beer out with CO2. Note that I said a gallon, not a bottle’s worth.
That's not really the safest way to hydrostatic test a pressure vessel, as you're still using compressed gas, it's better to use a pump with a liquid. It's a pretty easy equation to work out how much (potential) liquid you could dispense, 1 bar of pressure will displace the same volume of liquid (ideal world). so 600ml coke bottle, at 3 bar, should do 1800ml of liquid, pretty close to the 1500 seen here, when you account for inaccuracies in measurements and inefficiencies in the system (using a spunding valve instead of a regulator, would limit things as well...)
I get the thrift aspect of this, and it is pretty cool. But from a safety standpoint, how many times will it survive the expansion and contraction of CO2 in the bottle before it fails? Rather not be on the receiving end of a failure. Plus, Murphy's law is going to make it fail at the more inopportune time! While it costs a bit more, a Sodastream bottle with the Kegland Mini Core 360 Regulator would be a better choice and far safer. Used your 5lb CO2 bottle to refill the Sodastream bottle. One SodaStream bottle will carb and dispense 2 corny kegs.
If the point is only dispensing, I say don't bother with a regulator. Just use a cheap valve that you can just momentarily add CO2. Not much different from a keg pump. You pump until it flows decent and add as you need.
Honestly, I don't see a point of a keg smaller than 5 gallon. Maybe 2.5 gallon or so could be ok. Otherwise, why not just use growlers? Even if I was using these tiny kegs, why not just stick with a 5# co2 tank, or even go to the smaller paintball gun tanks if you really want smaller. I dont see why anyone would want to deal with very limited co2, when a smaller paintball gun tank will hold much more than these plastic bottles. That's my opinion
I've used paintball co2 tanks and they work great. It takes bit engineering to get fittings but nothing difficult. B4 anybody's starts banging keyboard about how it not food grade ... go do some research. At least here in USA its same stuff.
The spunding valve is not suitable for this aplication, the Grey regulator is.. And second of all I add 4 bar regulary to 2l plastic bottles for water carbonation so everything safe here.
I could see this being useful even to produce your own co2 with a sugarwater yeast mix in a separate container, collect the co2 in a bottle at say 3 bar, then use that to dispense beer. Would have come in handy during covid when it was hard to find co2.
I'm somewhat surprised you're using a spunding valve as opposed to an in-line regulator. My understanding is that they have opposite functionalities in that an in-line regulator will (like other regulators) drop the pressure on from it's in- to out side; while a spunding valve vents pressure from the in side once it goers above a certain threshold. By that understanding the spunding valve would immediately vent the gas from the 3 bar bottle to the 10psi it's set to, thereby putting all that gas right into the keg and not release any further gas into the keg. The regulator however, holds the pressure on the bottle and slowly releases it as gas at 10psi to the keg as liquid is displaced, then once the pressure in the bottle is below 10psi the pressure from the regulator will start to drop.
Why not just use a hand held cartridge (8g or 16g) that is smaller than a coke can and has no risk of blowing up in your face? They can connect directly to the ball lock gas post of a keg...
@@lupinewoof basically the same as in the video, just that I used Kegland KL15035 regulator. The spunding valve has the gauge on the opposite side of the diaphragm.
You'll make your beer taste vinegar. As someone who has a small child and done baking soda volcanos, I can confirm that it is not a clean reaction and will put a lot of ethanoic acid (vinegar) into the air.
For my fellow Europeans being affected by the insane EU-directive that says that the cap on PET bottles must be tethered to the bottle... Please note that Coca Cola has ALTERED the threads on their bottles, making them a bit thinner and lower. I noticed this when my PET adapters from Kegland started to "skip" threads when tightening them. Other manufacturers bottles works just fine! When comparing the threads it's obvious that they don't look the same! The adapters won't make a tight seal when using Coca Cola's bottles. Obviously in the US you don't have these stupid regulations. Perhaps it's only in Sweden?
Very cool Martin. I bought some of the OxeBar kegs and was not overly happy. I went through far too many small CO2 cylinders as the tap head system was leaking. I bought 2 and only one worked properly. Not sure if I'd invest in more. Great idea for parties. Cheers!
The air that is in the bottle at the start will mix in your keg so if you don't finish your keg, you'll oxidize it... Interesting test but considering the risks and the oxidation I will keep my keg charger and little CO2 capsules
I was thinking of how to do something like this. I was amazed at this & I imagine if you have fully carbed beer transferred to an oxebar you use even less co2 in your coke bottle. Great find and great vid. Thnak you
Great video, very intereing as I've wondered about this myself! However I believe you're using the incorrect valve. A spunding valve sets the pressure before the valve, releasing any pressure above its preset. The white inline regulator kegland sells is what's needed, it looks the same but it's white. It sets the pressure after the valve.
I have a 1.125L that I use to help push the 4L oxibar kegs. My Garage is too far to go for a glass so I transfer to a 4L keg and store that in the fridge in the kitchen, add a soft drink bottle for gas and off you go. In saying that I usually have to refill the 1.125 because I had no clue about how much it could hold, this makes a big difference!!
I came up with a similar solution, but my twist is putting water, sugar and bakers yeast in the 600ml bottle. It kick off almost immediately, so you might want to cap the pressure with the spunding valve
For several years I have been using 2 liter pop bottles to share my beer when I go to homebrew meetings or visit family and friends. I use the ball lock adapters with dip tubes and CO2 bottles. I have been experimenting with using pop bottles for the gas source. My regulator is one I bought from Amazon that connects directly to the bottle ball lock and uses a tiny CO2 disposable to provide pressure. But, the tiny CO2 bottles are expensive and don't last long so I got a fitting that matches the threads the tiny CO2 bottles use and use a pop bottle CO2 source. Works great but the ball lock adapters can leak if the tubing exerts a side force on the ball lock fitting.
I wonder if the spending valve is the right tool for the job - surely it's made to ensure a specific maximum pressure inside a container, rather than a consistent flow out of one. Kegland makes in-line regulators that might serve the purpose better.
Haven't dome this as a portable dispenser, but I have some tips. Use seltzer water bottles. Pure sanitary water (no need to clean and sanitize), and dirt cheap. Put some starsan in a bottle, juice it up and invert with carbonation cap to flush beer lines. I think some one else mentioned it, but carb cap and a diptube to inject gelatin. I also use these if I end up with a little more than a 5 gallon batch for the overflow. You can then carbonate and pour to serve as others have mentioned. Cheers!
A couple of years ago i mentioned using a 500ml coke bottle at 40psi to close pressure transfer gelatin into a keg for clearing. You were not convinced at the pressure needed 😂 Also been using that same bottle all this time without it failing.
When doing a hydro static test you cannot have any air pockets left in the tank. Air compresses differently that liquid and if there is a flaw in the tank this can have catastrophic consequences
I’ve used these with a mini regulator to good effect. The 16G cartridges though. 2 of them emptied a full keg when taking a stout on a ski trip. Left the keg outside in the cold with a party tap attached. Worked a treat
You're not going to increase the amount of CO2 stored that way. The water is just going to take up space. If you want the most CO2 you can get, then an empty bottle with only compressed CO2 is the way to go. The only way to get more is a bigger container, higher pressure, or storing liquid CO2.
What an interesting idea! I’d never have imagined that a 2 litre soda bottle could dispense so much. It’s a very attractive proposition, far cheaper than the sodastream refills I’m presently using. But pop bottles with that amount of pressure on them really do give me the willys- I’m imagining dropping one when swapping over after a few beers & it going off like a plastic hand grenade. Maybe.
Yeah I think you would need to , with the hydrostatic test, flip the bottle over before venting pressure. So the CO2 that's in the bottle pushes out the water and doesn't allow oxygen back in
This is a fair question. While I have no actual knowledge or expertise, I would think it doesn’t matter, as the only role of the gas is to move liquid, and by design this is not intended to preserve the beer. I seem to recall there is actually a beer dispenser that really just uses an air pump, but I could be mistaken.
@@foldingthemap3823 of course the oxygen is a problem, or else everyone would dispense with compressed air instead of paying for CO2. Using an air pump is going to ruin the beer within a relatively short period of time. It might not matter in this specific use case, but at that point, you might as well not waste money on the CO2 at all if you're not going to purge the oxygen first.
@@ferrisr This system is not designed to store beer, only to dispense it for a party or something. It is about portability and pushing, not maintaining. That is my point I guess. This all being said, I guess you could just use a growler and gravity.
I am still waiting for The Brülosophy Show to make videos that are actually useful like: how many times you can reuse yeast and why, why it mutates and how it affects your beer; why it isn't necessary to wash yeast and why you can directly pitch the yeast slurry; how to prevent oxidation in bottled beer; what effect vitamin C (ascorbic acid) has on beer, after fermentation obviously not during the mash, ex.: during the dry hop and after; what effect do mixed fermentations have on the finished beer?; what is the difference between beer made only with whirlpool hops and dry hops and why do dry hopped beers oxidize faster than non dry hopped beers???
Kegland has the mini regulator that fits sodastream bottles, I've been rocking that as the main on the go solution. Seems like this could be a good backup system for that :)
As several folks have pointed out I’m mistakenly using a spunding valve here when in fact I should be using a gas regulator. A regulator will set how much pressure I maintain in my serving keg whereas a spunding valve will set how much pressure will be released from the soda bottle. So please use a regulator with this setup such as KL26918.
Wouldn't a white plastic kegland regulator be better suited for this application? It is designed to regulate pressure after it and not inside the source container like a red spunding regulator.
I came down here to say just that. The spunding valve is regulating the wrong thing! So once your keg falls below the pressure the spunding valve is set to, you're going to stop sending CO2 to the keg. And before that point, the keg will be over-pressurized and will start to over-carb your beer. Definitely need a standard regulator for this application.
I also came to comment that the spunding valve will vent everything over the set psi. So if you’ve charged the bottle to 68psi and set the spunding valve to 15psi… as soon as you connect it to the keg it will equalize pressure between the two. Then continue to equalize until the soda bottle hits the psi of the spunding valve.
Edit: He does link to the appropriate equipment in the referral links.
Joining the club. No idea what the pressure coming out of the sounding valve is...only how must is restricted from entering the valve.
I've done this before while cold crashing before I switched to glycol. It was much easier to fit a 20oz or 2L soda bottle in my fermentation chamber and hold my fermenter at about 1psi to prevent issues when crashing. Now with glycol, I have less of a space constraint and so I don't mess with this anymore.
One side note that another commenter mentioned as well is that you probably want a regular inline regulator for this, not a spunding valve. The spunding valve is going to regulate the pressure in your bottle and dump the excess out. So if you have 60psi in the bottle and set the spunding valve to 10psi, it's going to try to keep the bottle itself at 10psi, and will dump that full 60psi out to the keg until the bottle drops below 10psi (at which point it will stop outputting CO2 entirely). Might as well not even have a regulator at that point. A regular regulator would keep the pressure higher in the bottle and ensure your output is at 10psi.
god damn thats brilliant, where was this comment 10 years ago
How did we all miss that! Well spotted.
I think it was mentioned, but is the Oxebar designed to hold more pressure than a soda bottle? If so, for added security, I would suggest buying a 4L Oxebar keg intended to contain the CO2.
On my end, I have a mini regulator to be able to use a sodastream bottle.
Great video, cheers!
Man...I can see this being immensely useful for taking your homebrew to a party and not wanting to lug your entire keg, CO2 tank, regulator etc. This is bloody brilliant my friend!!!!
3 extra bar of pressure is able to serve 3 times the amount of the container volume. Who would have thought? Welcome to the metric system.
I'd go ear protection as well, a 2l PET bottle going off at 100psi is up there with centerfire rifle loud
Interesting to see this sort of DIY version. I have 5 liter insulated kegs from iKegger. I use sodastream gas bottles to carbonate and tap my beer. They are supposed to make your own carbonated water at home, but work just as well for anything beer. These gas bottles come with roughly 60 bar or 870 PSI and weigh about 1 kg. And I can buy them at my local Aldi.
I think ill just use a paintball tank with thread adapter. Safer and are available in as little as 3.5 oz. capacity.
Well, I guess a "welcome to the metric system" is in order. Now, ignoring CO2 as air is about the same math. 1L of air at 1Bar = 2L of air. So a 2L bottle on 5Bar is 10L of air. 600ml * 3bar is 1800ml or 1.8L of air. Now a fluid cant really be compressed by normal means, thus 1L of air will in theory displace 1L of water. Now, there is going to be a loss as you might need more pressure to push the water upwards and trough a hose with friction, etc. Also, the volume that is currently in the hose was also displaced, thought not 300ml.
So all in all, the 2L bottle on 5Bar would be somewhat less than 10L, but a sodastream is more like 60L though due to the high pressure, so might be a better choice still :P
If that's a spunding valve then it'll let pressure above what you've set through won't it? You actually need a secondary regulator to do this
That idea is great! I'd bet you could also use these bottles to harvest some CO2 out of an active fermentation then! That way you could almost collect all the CO2 out of a fermentation, have it stored in these pet bottles and when you need it to dispense you just pick one and boom! That might save a lot of money with little effort.
Well... hopefully not "boom" 🤣
@@justthebrttrk😂 good point 🤐
I use PET bottles with Keglands Tee piece for adding finings when fermenting under pressure.
Sanitise bottle, add finings, CO2 purge bottle. Then using a jumper and appropriate pressure partially fill bottle with beer to mix with finings then add more pressure to the bottle to push the mixture back into the fermenter.
Have you tried a "carb factory " to pour beer? Ie a keg containing solution and active yeast creating CO2 to be then tapped over to a keg containing beer to pour?
I use the exact same setup (with the large soda bottle) every time i serve beer at home - but for cleaning. It's made serving from kegs so much easier for me.
Basically, whenever you're about to pour the last beer, take the soda bottle and fill it up half way with clean water. Pressurize it and attach it to the tap. At first, hold it normally and let the air squeeze out the last beer for that last pint. Then pressurize again and hold it upside-down to let the water run through - lastly pressurize it one last time to push out the water and leave it empty.
If it takes weeks before I use the equipment again, I still do a proper cleanse, but otherwise, it just removes the old beer and leaves it fresh for next use.
Maybe this isn't necessary for small vessels but what about purging the oxygen from the soda bottle before charging it with co2?
My thoughts too. You are basically just creating CO2 dense compressed air otherwise. That's fine if you are going to be dispensing all of your beer in that one session but any left over beer couldn't be kept for too many days afterwards.
I might be missing something here, but since the ambient pressure is around 1 bar, meaning a 2 liter bottle at 5 bar overpressure holds enough air to fill another 10 liters at ambient pressure, I think you should be able to serve roughly 10 liters of a still liquid.
Maybe the last 2 liters came from the air and/or beer warming up and the beer releasing CO2?
I tried it few days ago with 1,5 l bottle pressurized to 4 bars (60 psi). Used the cheap white regulator from kegland.
I was able to get 4,5 litres of water out of the keg so for 9 l one which fit into any fridge it's just perfect with 2 bottles.
No need to push it to 5 bars, that might be risky and even worse if it's hot outside. Obviously nothing will happen from plastic bottle but just be safe.
Hey Martin I absolutely love your videos and Brulosophy. So much has been right over the years. And its been entertaining. This video however is a fail. By not purging the bottle before pressurizing you're exposing rhe beer to oxygen and will have a short life. That's generally not a problem for something that's going to get drunk at a party like you describe as being the intent. But since you're introducing oxygen anyway, this setup is unnecessarily complex. Just pour the carbonated beer out into cups directly from the mini keg. Also, I doubt that spending valve is controlling the pressure coming out accurately - only what is being held back in the bottle. A much simpler solution, is to fill those 2 L bottles with beer and squeeze them to the point that they start overflowing so you purge out all the oxygen and use the carb cap to lay some CO2 on top and keep it pressurized to avoid cabination loss until you get to the party. Open and pour. Reduces the oxygen exposure until you're ready to drink. And wirh just 2 liters, you can avoid exposure of a larger amount of beer in the mini keg if all doesnt get drunk at the party. You take take rhe extra 2 L bottle back home and itll be frwsher for longer. Of course this doesn't require nearly as much equipment purchased from kegland. 😉😀😜
When I tried this with the in-line regulator, I charged the bottle to 40psi then it just seems to only charge at 40psi even when I dial it down then all the pressure just seems to go into the keg.
Edit: oh I have to think about it as the pressure in the keg now in the tubing supplied so I just dispensed a little and got my coffee to like 2-5 psi just for serving. Then I just charged the bottle again to 40PSI.
I bypass the whole CO2 secondary bottle concept, and simply fill the 2L bottle with beer from my keg. You can then bring 2L of beer wherever you want. Quick and easy.
that's just 4 beers. sure, you can take more bottles if you have larger party but if I brew in my workshop and want to bring it at home, I want beer fresh for long time, not to travel every day to the workshop to pour more into bottle.
There are plenty of Czech breweries that use 1.5 litre PET bottles to bulk package their beers, they work a dream. I do wonder if there is a way to capture CO2 from fermentation into a PET bottle?
Thats such a great idea. i occasionally bring a keg to football but usually lump the whole gas tank and regulator with me.
definitely going to use this method. so much easier
I have not used the pop bottle for serving but I have used it for carbonating my FG sample. Always worry about the bottle of beer blowing up on me but now I know I can relax knowing my bottle will not blow up if I put the pressure to the 40 psi max I force carb my kegs at.
I actually use a soda bottle with a carb cap to clean my beer lines. Fill the bottle with cleaning solution/sanitizer, pressurize, hook to the beer line, and dispense. In my case it's pretty low pressure. Typically just what I have the serving pressure set to, but it gets the job done.
Great video. Zymurgy magazine had an article not too long ago about ways to save on bottle fills by using CO2 from a simple fermentation in a soda bottle for carbonating a keg. This exbeeriment brings us to the next step for severing that keg. Cheerz.
The problem here is that the fermenting beer would be exposed to the same high pressure that you're capturing. If you want to bottle the fermentation CO2 at 60psi, that means there would be 60psi of pressure above the beer during fermentation, at least for a bit. That seems like it might be a bit rough on the yeast?
I need some clarification… does that inline spunding valve hold bar? Mine only shows 15 psi or about 1 bar. But I would need it to “hold back” most or all of the pressure for serving right?
In general these pet bottles resist 13bar until explode. 5 bar is a lot of pressure, maybe work one time but the material get weaker and will explode. You can't know if the material is weak enough to resist a second time or a third time. It works but it is very risky to recommend this use.
That’s a good point but I dont think “very risky” is a fair assessment. It’s a soda bottle of co2 not an industrial application that needs a PE stamp.
Somewhat related, I bottle and bottle condition into reused soda bottles and they will definitely take a lot of pressure and keep it for a while. Much safer than glass though not aesthetically pleasing and you have to keep them in the dark.
Sorry, late to the party here! Very good idea... I would want to kick the keg on the same day though:
You are mixing air already in the soda bottle (with initially 20% oxygen) with your CO2. So, set to 3bar, the bottle will have 6.67% oxygen or 66666ppm! Of course that value is in the gas, not dissolved in the beer, but some of that oxygen will dissolve in the beer while under pressure over time, just like the CO2 does.
For a party where you kick the keg the same day, no problem. If the beer lasts longer, I'd want a purer source of CO2. Perhaps a setup like a corney keg you fill with sanitiser and then force out the sanitiser with CO2... Do the same with the soda bottle, but you'd need liquid and gas "posts" on the soda bottle... Is that even available for a soda bottle?!
This is genius, gives me a way to give friends a gallon of beer without having to lend them a tank and regulator.
Right??!!
Yeah, but why not just transfer carbonated beer to the soda bottle and pour?
@@vexy1987 they don't have 1-2 gallon soda bottles. Plus once you open it you need to pour it pretty quickly. This method lets you basically use this as another keg and the beer will stay fresh and carbonated for days/weeks.
@@jonathanwilliams1974 at that point, you're better off packaging individual servings in plastic bottles? Kegging makes sense at 5gallon scale. I guess this is just different strokes for different folks!
@@vexy1987 because it will go flat as the headspace repeatedly escapes. There’s a reason we push beer out with CO2. Note that I said a gallon, not a bottle’s worth.
That's not really the safest way to hydrostatic test a pressure vessel, as you're still using compressed gas, it's better to use a pump with a liquid.
It's a pretty easy equation to work out how much (potential) liquid you could dispense, 1 bar of pressure will displace the same volume of liquid (ideal world). so 600ml coke bottle, at 3 bar, should do 1800ml of liquid, pretty close to the 1500 seen here, when you account for inaccuracies in measurements and inefficiencies in the system (using a spunding valve instead of a regulator, would limit things as well...)
Really cool experiment Martin! Never thought of doing that, but now it’s on my radar! Cheers 🍻
I get the thrift aspect of this, and it is pretty cool. But from a safety standpoint, how many times will it survive the expansion and contraction of CO2 in the bottle before it fails? Rather not be on the receiving end of a failure. Plus, Murphy's law is going to make it fail at the more inopportune time!
While it costs a bit more, a Sodastream bottle with the Kegland Mini Core 360 Regulator would be a better choice and far safer. Used your 5lb CO2 bottle to refill the Sodastream bottle. One SodaStream bottle will carb and dispense 2 corny kegs.
I did my first tries at pressure fermenting in 3 Liter soda bottles. Worked perfectly well. These do hold a ridiculous amount of pressure!
If the point is only dispensing, I say don't bother with a regulator. Just use a cheap valve that you can just momentarily add CO2. Not much different from a keg pump. You pump until it flows decent and add as you need.
Honestly, I don't see a point of a keg smaller than 5 gallon. Maybe 2.5 gallon or so could be ok. Otherwise, why not just use growlers? Even if I was using these tiny kegs, why not just stick with a 5# co2 tank, or even go to the smaller paintball gun tanks if you really want smaller. I dont see why anyone would want to deal with very limited co2, when a smaller paintball gun tank will hold much more than these plastic bottles. That's my opinion
I've used paintball co2 tanks and they work great. It takes bit engineering to get fittings but nothing difficult.
B4 anybody's starts banging keyboard about how it not food grade ... go do some research. At least here in USA its same stuff.
I think using a SodaStream cylinder is far better, it's much smaller in comparison to the 2L bottle.
I'd hate to be in the car when that thing bursts.
You're gonna show up to the picnic with a flat keg of beer and some bleeding eardrums. 😂
I use a "Soda stream" CO2 bottle when taking my keg with me. A full bottle is good for up to 60 L of liquid.
The spunding valve is not suitable for this aplication, the Grey regulator is..
And second of all I add 4 bar regulary to 2l plastic bottles for water carbonation so everything safe here.
I could see this being useful even to produce your own co2 with a sugarwater yeast mix in a separate container, collect the co2 in a bottle at say 3 bar, then use that to dispense beer. Would have come in handy during covid when it was hard to find co2.
I'm somewhat surprised you're using a spunding valve as opposed to an in-line regulator. My understanding is that they have opposite functionalities in that an in-line regulator will (like other regulators) drop the pressure on from it's in- to out side; while a spunding valve vents pressure from the in side once it goers above a certain threshold.
By that understanding the spunding valve would immediately vent the gas from the 3 bar bottle to the 10psi it's set to, thereby putting all that gas right into the keg and not release any further gas into the keg. The regulator however, holds the pressure on the bottle and slowly releases it as gas at 10psi to the keg as liquid is displaced, then once the pressure in the bottle is below 10psi the pressure from the regulator will start to drop.
I don’t think a spunding valve is the correct bit of kit for this..?
Nope. And neither is a spunding valve
Why not just use a hand held cartridge (8g or 16g) that is smaller than a coke can and has no risk of blowing up in your face? They can connect directly to the ball lock gas post of a keg...
Not really understanding how a spunding valve becomes a regulator.
Just did this last weekend. It worked great for bringing a 1 gallon growler on vacation. I used a Kegland mini regulator instead of a spunding valve.
how did you attach the mini regulator to the soda bottle that was acting as the tank?
@@lupinewoof basically the same as in the video, just that I used Kegland KL15035 regulator. The spunding valve has the gauge on the opposite side of the diaphragm.
I’m curious about using binaries to dispense with… like baking soda and vinegar. Things that are stable but could be used to pressurize later
You'll make your beer taste vinegar. As someone who has a small child and done baking soda volcanos, I can confirm that it is not a clean reaction and will put a lot of ethanoic acid (vinegar) into the air.
kegland have some cool inexpensive equipment. I Highly Recommend them.
I'm using the small "sodastream" co2 tanks, small and portable.
For my fellow Europeans being affected by the insane EU-directive that says that the cap on PET bottles must be tethered to the bottle... Please note that Coca Cola has ALTERED the threads on their bottles, making them a bit thinner and lower. I noticed this when my PET adapters from Kegland started to "skip" threads when tightening them. Other manufacturers bottles works just fine! When comparing the threads it's obvious that they don't look the same! The adapters won't make a tight seal when using Coca Cola's bottles.
Obviously in the US you don't have these stupid regulations. Perhaps it's only in Sweden?
Seems to me that the soda container needs a PRV, just in case it is crushed, warmed, etc. like all pressure containers.
Air and a bicycle pump can be used to empty small kegs of carbonated beer.
Uhh - that's not a hydrostatic test. At best, it's a really sh*tty pneumatic test.
Very cool Martin. I bought some of the OxeBar kegs and was not overly happy. I went through far too many small CO2 cylinders as the tap head system was leaking. I bought 2 and only one worked properly. Not sure if I'd invest in more. Great idea for parties. Cheers!
The air that is in the bottle at the start will mix in your keg so if you don't finish your keg, you'll oxidize it...
Interesting test but considering the risks and the oxidation I will keep my keg charger and little CO2 capsules
I was thinking of how to do something like this. I was amazed at this & I imagine if you have fully carbed beer transferred to an oxebar you use even less co2 in your coke bottle. Great find and great vid. Thnak you
I just use a sodastream gas cylinder.
Great video, very intereing as I've wondered about this myself!
However I believe you're using the incorrect valve. A spunding valve sets the pressure before the valve, releasing any pressure above its preset.
The white inline regulator kegland sells is what's needed, it looks the same but it's white. It sets the pressure after the valve.
I have a 1.125L that I use to help push the 4L oxibar kegs. My Garage is too far to go for a glass so I transfer to a 4L keg and store that in the fridge in the kitchen, add a soft drink bottle for gas and off you go. In saying that I usually have to refill the 1.125 because I had no clue about how much it could hold, this makes a big difference!!
I came up with a similar solution, but my twist is putting water, sugar and bakers yeast in the 600ml bottle. It kick off almost immediately, so you might want to cap the pressure with the spunding valve
An interesting follow up video would be to see if you can make your own CO2 using water/sugar and plastic bottles.
Does Alex have a UA-cam channel
For several years I have been using 2 liter pop bottles to share my beer when I go to homebrew meetings or visit family and friends. I use the ball lock adapters with dip tubes and CO2 bottles. I have been experimenting with using pop bottles for the gas source. My regulator is one I bought from Amazon that connects directly to the bottle ball lock and uses a tiny CO2 disposable to provide pressure. But, the tiny CO2 bottles are expensive and don't last long so I got a fitting that matches the threads the tiny CO2 bottles use and use a pop bottle CO2 source. Works great but the ball lock adapters can leak if the tubing exerts a side force on the ball lock fitting.
I wonder if the spending valve is the right tool for the job - surely it's made to ensure a specific maximum pressure inside a container, rather than a consistent flow out of one.
Kegland makes in-line regulators that might serve the purpose better.
If the liquid is already carbonated - maybe it’s beer - you should be able to push out more, as the gas will go out of solution, helping the process.
Haven't dome this as a portable dispenser, but I have some tips.
Use seltzer water bottles. Pure sanitary water (no need to clean and sanitize), and dirt cheap.
Put some starsan in a bottle, juice it up and invert with carbonation cap to flush beer lines.
I think some one else mentioned it, but carb cap and a diptube to inject gelatin.
I also use these if I end up with a little more than a 5 gallon batch for the overflow. You can then carbonate and pour to serve as others have mentioned.
Cheers!
Wow, another great video! Sure would like to see some of those 4l Oxebar kegs for sale in the US while we’re still young…
Huh. I wonder if instead of going out and buying co2, you could just ferment a bit of sugar water alongside your brew and just use that to serve
Nice Russian hacker reference LOL 😂 “safety is number one priority”
A couple of years ago i mentioned using a 500ml coke bottle at 40psi to close pressure transfer gelatin into a keg for clearing. You were not convinced at the pressure needed 😂
Also been using that same bottle all this time without it failing.
I use one for line cleaning with a diptube attached. Fill up with gas. Pull through line.
When doing a hydro static test you cannot have any air pockets left in the tank. Air compresses differently that liquid and if there is a flaw in the tank this can have catastrophic consequences
Anyone noticed the height of the threaded area has been reduced and while not the only failure point I wonder if it impacted the max burst pressure?
You could probably piggyback a few of the soda bottles to get more.
Combine the shank tank idea and this then you have a naturally carbonated co2 soda dispensing bottle.
Why not use a 20g Bike tire Co2 cartridge?
I’ve used these with a mini regulator to good effect. The 16G cartridges though.
2 of them emptied a full keg when taking a stout on a ski trip. Left the keg outside in the cold with a party tap attached. Worked a treat
I prefer to use bike pump. Just drink the whole keg in one day
Love Kegland
An idea, what you have 1/3 of the bottle with highly carbonated water that will slowly disperse getting more co2
You're not going to increase the amount of CO2 stored that way. The water is just going to take up space. If you want the most CO2 you can get, then an empty bottle with only compressed CO2 is the way to go. The only way to get more is a bigger container, higher pressure, or storing liquid CO2.
What an interesting idea! I’d never have imagined that a 2 litre soda bottle could dispense so much.
It’s a very attractive proposition, far cheaper than the sodastream refills I’m presently using.
But pop bottles with that amount of pressure on them really do give me the willys- I’m imagining dropping one when swapping over after a few beers & it going off like a plastic hand grenade. Maybe.
I like the soda stream tanks. you can refill them yourself using dry ice to save a little bit of money
Nice idea. Lighter than taking a soda stream bottle and mini regulator out with my 10L keg to parties.
I do the soda stream as well, but take the whole corny keg in a little insulated box on roller wheels
@@plwadodveeefdv JetKeg - KegPack is your solution instead of roller wheels. :)
Love this idea!
What about the oxygen that is left in the bottle
Yeah I think you would need to , with the hydrostatic test, flip the bottle over before venting pressure. So the CO2 that's in the bottle pushes out the water and doesn't allow oxygen back in
This is a fair question. While I have no actual knowledge or expertise, I would think it doesn’t matter, as the only role of the gas is to move liquid, and by design this is not intended to preserve the beer. I seem to recall there is actually a beer dispenser that really just uses an air pump, but I could be mistaken.
Drink quick enough to not worry about oxidation. Problem solved.
@@foldingthemap3823 of course the oxygen is a problem, or else everyone would dispense with compressed air instead of paying for CO2. Using an air pump is going to ruin the beer within a relatively short period of time. It might not matter in this specific use case, but at that point, you might as well not waste money on the CO2 at all if you're not going to purge the oxygen first.
@@ferrisr This system is not designed to store beer, only to dispense it for a party or something. It is about portability and pushing, not maintaining. That is my point I guess. This all being said, I guess you could just use a growler and gravity.
I am still waiting for The Brülosophy Show to make videos that are actually useful like: how many times you can reuse yeast and why, why it mutates and how it affects your beer; why it isn't necessary to wash yeast and why you can directly pitch the yeast slurry; how to prevent oxidation in bottled beer; what effect vitamin C (ascorbic acid) has on beer, after fermentation obviously not during the mash, ex.: during the dry hop and after; what effect do mixed fermentations have on the finished beer?; what is the difference between beer made only with whirlpool hops and dry hops and why do dry hopped beers oxidize faster than non dry hopped beers???
Kegland has the mini regulator that fits sodastream bottles, I've been rocking that as the main on the go solution.
Seems like this could be a good backup system for that :)