sictransit701
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My local homebrew shop closed. My co2 is empty. Where can I get co2? We have a welding shop that has co2 tanks. Will those work?
AFAIK, there's only one grade of CO2 commonly sold in the US and it's beverage/food grade.Should I ask for beverage grade or food grade co2? Don’t want to be poisoned.
Oh man, now we have to have Doug recalculate how many purge cycles it would take to properly purge a keg with super critical fluid grade co2Here's a chart of different grades of CO2. The purity count is obviously the percentage of pure CO2. The 'other gases' column is not anything that will kill you. There's no yoursuperdeadammonium in there - it's just air. The same air that you breathe. One factor that distinguishes between food grade and industrial grade is that they purge the food grade bottle before filling, industrial grade (welding supply) they don't.
I get my CO2 from a local welding supply or Airgas. All depends on where I am with the cert stamp. Never any off flavors or chunks of demons coming out of the industrial grade one.
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A 20# cylinder (food grade) cost me $41. Double the cost for regular co2 I was told.In the South San Francisco area we have an Airgas store. I want to say, I switch out a 5 pound tank and it cost me about 50 or 60 bucks. I could be wrong, but I don't think so. Never mentioned if it was food grade. Guess I will have to ask next time.
How difficult is it to refill a tank? I would not be against having a 20 pound tank and filling my 5 pound up if it saves me a couple of bucks and isn't too tough.
Yes, your local welding shop is a great place to swap out CO2 tanksMy local homebrew shop closed. My co2 is empty. Where can I get co2? We have a welding shop that has co2 tanks. Will those work?
That is an expensive sticker!Kinda a touchy subject:
Food Grade CO2 vs CO2.
After my 20# tank ran low I swapped it out for another 20# tank at a local Gas supply house. I called them yesterday and talked to someone there ad asked about Food Grade CO2 and he said dont worry about that because there’s no difference. Well when I went there today to swap it out…the guy saw a small tag on my old cylinder that said "Food Grade". He asked if I wanted food grade and that it was almost double in price. I told him that I heard there was no difference. He asked where I heard that from and I said from a worker here when I called yesterday. I asked as what the price was for Food Grade and he said about double and $41.
I said go ahead and give me the Food Grade. I figured that all the time and effort put into brewing a good Keg of beer that I may as well go the extra cost. What they do is put a sticker on it saying Food Grade. So I really don’t know for sure what I have. I use the 20# tank for refilling my 5# tanks. (Bought a transfer hose on Amazon) to do this. Anyways I feel better that it says Food Grade and also received a nice shiny new Aluminum cylinder made in 2021 and got rid of the old one manufactured nearly 23 years ago. (1998).
Cheers
AFAIK, there's only one grade of CO2 commonly sold in the US and it's beverage/food grade.
Now a tank's history (or cleaning procedure after hydro testing) may play a role in purity, maybe there's someone here who can chime in on that.
FWIW, the 20# tanks I've been getting here from Praxair are swapped, and have a "Beverage Grade" sticker on them.
Ditto in Mass.. ~$10 for a 5lb and ~$25 for a 20lb swap. aluminum only on the 5lb tanks, but they will sent the steel ones out for you.Being in Colorado with legalized marijuana, I have been getting my CO2 refill at a hydroponics shop. It’s about half the cost of the LHBS and I’ve had no issues with my beer.
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