ATTN: Yuri -Carboy Purging-

Hey since you are the man when it comes to gadgets, I have a question for you.

I was thinking about oxidation and such when transferring between carboys. Would it be hard to come up with some sort of CO2 gun? SOmething that allows you to use your gas in line from a corny fitting, but has a long tube to shoot CO2 into the bottom of the carboy. I was trying to come up with a easy way to do this. Im thinking something along the lines of a beer gun, but for CO2 only and then a racking cane end to reach the bottom of a 6.5. I would feel alot better about racking if I could have the carboy purged with CO2 before hand.

Clear as mud?

Or is something like this allready available?

I do this now with Better-Bottles. I use the CO2 produced during primary fermentation to purge the air out of the secondary.

John


Purged Closed-Loop Racking (Fermentation CO2)

johnsma22 said:

I do this now with Better-Bottles. I use the CO2 produced during primary fermentation to purge the air out of the secondary.

John

Purged Closed-Loop Racking (Fermentation CO2)

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Pretty sweet! Too bad those better bottles are so expensive

*Shrug* Since I have my air hoses hooked up with quick releases, I jsut slap in a 3 foot hose when I want to purge something (usually only bother when I plan to let it sit in a specific container for a longer than normal)

It'd be easy! You could do as the post above suggests, or you could use one of those carboy caps that have two ports. Attach your racking tube to one port, and put pressure from the CO2 cylinder (LOW pressure, like 3 psi at the most) on the other port. Voila! Just like serving beer from a corny keg, but lower pressure.

Here's an article that describes exactly this setup for a "closed brewing system" where the wort is never exposed to air after the boil. Seems like a big pain in the ass as the article describes, but doing a simple CO2 pressure transfer from a carboy would be easy. This diagram says it all:



EDIT: After re-reading your post, it seems all you want to do is purge a carboy with CO2. Even easier. Either tee your CO2 line or use a quick disconnect to remove the ball lock fitting from the line and leave the end open. Put that end into the carboy and open the regulator valve. A valve setting of 8-12 psi would purge a carboy in well under a minute.

Oh, and many thanks for the "you're good with gadgets" praise...just go easy...don't want me getting all egotistical and stuff...

Another brainstorm - fill your carboy with sanitizer. Attach the CO2 lines as mentioned above. Pump out the sanitizer. Your carboy is now sanitized, purged, and ready for wort/beer/whatever else you want to store in a clean O2 free environment.

...which I think is what that little diagram is trying to show in the first place...

cheep and ez way to fill a carboy with CO2 is to use a paintball gun CO2 tank.

a 12oz bottle with on off valve is about 20 bucks and ya only need about a 2 second blast, 12oz wil last ya a good long time

My goodness, I guess I'm totally screwed up. I have sooo much stuff to worry about, I plumb forgot to even worry about purging my carboys!

Lesseee now, I want oxygen in my wort, so no need to pruge my primary. Then, when I transfer to a secondary, the beer has about 0ne volume of CO2 in it, to come out and sit in a layer on the beer, protecting it from oxygen, and displacing the light oxygenating air out the top.

I guess that unless you want to put one quart of beer into a five gallon vessel, I just don't see any need to purge. Now I'll go worry about starters, sanitation, mash temps, bottle cleaning, dropping my hydrometer, bugs in my malt, propane levels, running low on caps, is that mold on my beer, fermentation temps, yeast propagation, carb levels....

I'll put my purge worries in a sack with worries that a pound of cane sugar will turn my beer into cider, that fermenting at 72 degrees instead of 70 will ruin my beer, that not rinsing the chlorine off will give me bandaids, that dry yeast will make a substandard product, that I ought to sanitise my bottle caps, milling efficiency, mash-out timing, sparge speed....

casebrew said:

My goodness, I guess I'm totally screwed up...

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Nice!

Sarcasm aside, I think a lot of homebrewing has to do with how you feel about what's going on. It's a lot easier to RDW and HAHB when you've mentally assured yourself that your results are going to be good. So, although, pH, efficiency, hydrometers, weight/volume measurements, sanitation techniques, yeast starters, yeast washing, racking off of the yeast/trub cake, priming media, etc, etc, etc, each have their individual value, it's often a matter of what it takes to make you feel good about what you're doing. Some brewers never measure a thing, sanitize like a gas station bathroom, and somehow have good results. Others can't seem to get a good batch of brew regardless of how meticulous they are. I guess the point of this rant is this: you can take your brewing as far into the anal retentive realm of academia and science as you like, but if what you're doing works for you, don't bother changing it. On the other hand, if you're convinced that a particular change (like purging your carboys) will make a difference, then go for it!

kornkob said:

*Shrug* Since I have my air hoses hooked up with quick releases, I jsut slap in a 3 foot hose when I want to purge something (usually only bother when I plan to let it sit in a specific container for a longer than normal)

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What kind of quick release are you using with your gas hoses? Pics? Where to purchase?

I could use that with my big 20# cylinder now. Thanks.

casebrew said:

Then, when I transfer to a secondary, the beer has about 0ne volume of CO2 in it, to come out and sit in a layer on the beer, protecting it from oxygen, and displacing the light oxygenating air out the top.

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That's true, the problem is that while you're racking the carboy is full of O2 and any splashing at this point needs to be avoided. If you purge your carboy, there is no O2 in there and splashing a bit while racking is less of an issue. Oxidizing has the biggest affect on the stability of the finished product. So while one may not care about a session beer which is going to be gone in a month, the CO2 purge is probably a good idea for beers which require long aging like barleywines and imperial style beers. I've also read that it is essential for making meads since they hang around in carboys for a year at a time, and need to age much more than that.