How long will my co2 canister last?

i have had 3 kegs set up with 13psi for about a month. all 3 kicked within a few days of one another so nothing is pulling from it now. will be filling the 3 kegs up within the next week or week and a half.

with the holidays there should be plenty of action on the kegs and i don't want to run out of co2. seems i heard somewhere that it's kind of "by looking at the gauge it looks like you have plenty one day and the next it's empty."

forgot to mention it's a 5lb cannister.

5lb full cylinder, no leaks, should do 5 to 8 kegs, carbing at 'normal' volumes, and serving them.

Really good practice to have a backup CO2 tank, though. If you get a leaky disconnect, you can run out quickly and never notice until you've got the family and friends over and no serving pressure.

The gauge is useless, as long as there is ANY liquid CO2 (five pounds' worth or a quarter-pound), it'll read the same.

I go through about 20oz per month, mainly due to slow leaks all over the place, but also including carbing and dispensing. I'm not too worried about it, though, as I buy CO2 in bulk (~70lbs for $40)

I carbed and dispensed 6 kegs with my 5lb tank at 13 PSI.

I think I have a leak, I only get 4 kegs (quick carbing and serving) out of my 5 lb.

I'm surprised by these low numbers or the lack of a standard definition as to what is a keg. Are we talking Keg = 31 gallon or 1/2 keg = 15.5 gallon. I can guess that no one is talking about a full keg but are we talking about a corny keg? I have 5 corny's on tap right now. I use Co2 whenever I transfer beer, whenever I clean a keg I purge and fill with Co2. I use Co2 for all kinds of stuff and it lasts a long time. I think that the tank pressure gauge is useful. I find that I can run for at least a week when the gauge enters the "red" so I order my refill and pick it up soon after it "reds"

5-7 was about my average on a 5 lb tank. Now, I prime and naturally carb all of my kegs and really just use gas to push, so it's about double that.

I actually found the high-pressure gauge to be surprisingly useful. Of course it does bounce around depending on temperature rather than the fill level of the tank while it is still relatively full, but once the needle started dropping well down into the red, I still got three full kegs carbonated with it (this is with a 5-lb tank and a taprite regulator).

I didn't count how many total kegs i got out of the 10 lbs, but it must have been somewhere around 12-15.

i average 6-8 5 gal kegs on a 5lb tank. If you are shaking kegs at high pressure to carb faster it will use up more.

Shoot I must have massive leaks. I don't think I can get past 2 kegs per 5lb tank.

pretzelb said:

Shoot I must have massive leaks. I don't think I can get past 2 kegs per 5lb tank.

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Most leaks are fairly easy to find by submerging all the connections (except the regulator, of course) in some water. You'll almost immediately see tiny bubbles rising from the spot of the leak. I found this more sensitive than the spraying method of leak finding.

iaefebs said:

I think that the tank pressure gauge is useful. I find that I can run for at least a week when the gauge enters the "red" so I order my refill and pick it up soon after it "reds"

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Also agree with this and what ArcaneXor has to say about the high pressure gauge. Very useful. Never understood those who say otherwise.

Got a 5lb tank in a 3 keg keezer that's used for pushing and some "set and forget." It's good for 15-20 kegs.

20lb in the basement used for purging and carbing up to 4 kegs at a time in an upright refrigerator (edit: kegs, not tank in fridge). Been using it for a good six months with no signs of running out.

Next time I refill, I need to keep track of this... I swear I'm on a neverending cylinder right now. This 5 lb. one lasted probably 7-8 kegs when I had a 2 tap kegerator and now I have three on tap with my new 3 tap keezer. That includes 30 psi force carbing all of them and then keeping them at 10 psi. Nervous every time I pull a pint!

And it just occurred to me.... I got a second propane tank so as not to be caught with my pants down... A second CO2, especially with holidays upon us, would be smart.

DubbelDach said:

A second CO2, especially with holidays upon us, would be smart.

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Picked up one of those 20oz paintball tanks for bringing beer places. It also serves as a home backup and only costs about three bucks to fill.




edit:
Actually picked up two of the 20oz tanks during Keg Connections Black Friday sale last year for $15 each.
If you go this route, you'll need one of these to use your regulator.

going to swing by LHBS and grab a back up. better safe than sorry. thanks for the feedback.

ArcaneXor said:

Most leaks are fairly easy to find by submerging all the connections (except the regulator, of course) in some water. You'll almost immediately see tiny bubbles rising from the spot of the leak. I found this more sensitive than the spraying method of leak finding.

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What you say makes sense but I just opened my keezer and thought "how the heck am I supposed to submerge these connections in water"? I'm sure I'm being stupid so I'll just poke around some posts.

Weight the bottle empty, weigh the bottle full, empty a keg with it, weight it again, do some math, figure out how much co2 to empty a keg. You can then occasionally weigh your tank and make an educated guess as to how much more beer you can dispense before you need a refill.

Lots of gas BBQ's use tank weight to tell you approximately how much is left, they just use nifty levers, springs, and stickers to save you throwing it on a scale.

This assumes no leaks, and that you don't deviate much in your kegging and dispensing routine.

pretzelb said:

What you say makes sense but I just opened my keezer and thought "how the heck am I supposed to submerge these connections in water"? I'm sure I'm being stupid so I'll just poke around some posts.

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Depending on how permanent your installation is, that can be tough. If the connections aren't easy to remove, you can always go back to the soapy water method or, even better, use leak detection fluid or gel or whatever it is (many homebrew stores sell it).

ArcaneXor said:

Depending on how permanent your installation is, that can be tough. If the connections aren't easy to remove, you can always go back to the soapy water method or, even better, use leak detection fluid or gel or whatever it is (many homebrew stores sell it).

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I use a product from Swagelok called Snoop. It will find those small leaks.

ArcaneXor said:

Most leaks are fairly easy to find by submerging all the connections (except the regulator, of course) in some water. You'll almost immediately see tiny bubbles rising from the spot of the leak. I found this more sensitive than the spraying method of leak finding.

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I used to work at a compressed gas company, and they just used soapy water in a spray bottle to find leaks. The trick to it is to use a spray bottle with a stream setting, and give it a shot from each side of the joint to the point where it's dripping. I'm sure there's a couple places that people are likely to overlook, the joint of the neck and the bottle, the safety pressure release. If you have a good soap/water mix it will bubble like crazy when you spray a leak.

edie said:

going to swing by LHBS and grab a back up. better safe than sorry. thanks for the feedback.

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might be a dumb question but i don't know........ where should i store my x-tra c02 tank? does it matter?