Can you carbonate a 5 gallon soda keg with a handheld co2 charger?!
Can you carbonate a 5 gallon soda keg with a handheld co2 charger?
Here is the deal. The local soda guy in my town gave me a 5 gallon soda keg in return for some homemade beer. He gave me the container a whole bunch of hose and in and out valves. I do not want to buy the full big co2 container to carbonate the beer. Is there enough co2 in one of those little food grade co2 handchargers to fully carbonate the beer. I DO NOT want to natrually carbonate inside the container and then just use the charger as a regulator. I want to artificially carbonate. Can anyone answer this question...
Answers: There is not enough CO2 in one of those little containers to carbonate a 5 gallon container.
You need about 5 grams of CO2 per liter of liquid. The little "Bestwhip" cylinders used in a handheld contain about 8 grams of CO2. So you would need 100 grams of C02, or TWENTY "whippets" just carbonate the liquid, not even considering headspace.
But it does not instantly go into solution. It takes CO2 hours at a given pressure to dissolve into the liquid. For example you need 10 - 15 psi for several days to force carbonate 5 gallons of beer.
That assumes ALL of the CO2 from the whippet dissolves into the liquid. It won't, you have head space, etc. in the keg. And each time you change whippets, you will likely blow off the head space CO2.
It might take 40 or more?
If you did this successfully, now you start tapping it. You MUST replace the liquid with CO2 (headspace) at the same pressure, or it will go flat. How many will it take to push out 5 gallons of soda?
Sorry, realistically it ain't gonna work. It would be cheaper to buy a proper CO2 setup than pay for the whippets.
15 year homebrewer/kegger depends on on how much the hand held unit can hold... Yes you can. Homebrewers do it all the time. You just need to make sure that the keg is pretty full or the volume of CO2 will simply fill the headspace and not make it into the beer as well. As long as you can get the necessary pressure in your keg (gauges are always a good thing) then your carbonation will go fine.