O2 instead of CO2 - is it possible?

I don't know how this beer turned in a matter of 2 days in the keg. I also have and ESB that has the same flavor. I just drew a pint of an IIPA that we were drinking this weekend that tasted great. Now it tastes like cardboard. Same with the ESB. Is it possible that my tank was filled with 02 and not CO2? I just can't understand the sudden change in the keg. Or am just down to the dregs?

did you force carb with the same tank? and i have never had the dregs taste worse than the first part of the beer

Yes. Same tank. Unless it is physically impossible to fill a C02 tank with O2, I'd swear those bastards fvcked me.

thats weird you would think that the beer would taste bad the whole way thru if it was carbonated with it. couple things are the bubbles normal Co2 bubbles bigger smaller etc. you could always take the regulator off and open up the the tank upside down into a cloth bag ( crown bags work good for this ) and see if you get dry ice. where 02 will just be cold. another way to test probably safer too is carbonate some water and see if you get the carbonic bite that c02 produces.

I don't know. Maybe it is just the dregs, but it really turned in this last two days. But I don't know how I would taste oxidation, just yeast. I've never had a beer do this.

Do you have a high pressure gauge on your tank? If it's showing more than 7-900 PSI, something's going on. O2 is stored as a high pressure gas, CO2 is stored as a liquid.

It's not very likely at all that they filled it with O2. I don't think the beer would have "carbonated" correctly with O2 for one thing. I'm not even sure if CO2 tanks are made to handle that kind of pressure for another.

Yep, it's at 1100 PSI. I've noticed it's stayed in the green for a long while.

1100? You're not storing this at 90F are you? That's above the critical pressure of CO2.

Yes, it's pretty much above 90 degrees in my garage every day...it's hot. But the gauge is still reading in the green.

Supercritical CO2 (above 88F) is going to have different properties than the gas we normally use. I wonder if that's what's doing it. As I said, I don't know if the bottles are rated for it, either. There have been stores of tanks venting from too high of pressure, which is going to go up exponentially above 88F.

I don't know. My bottle has not vented, at least as far as I know. And it's still in the green.

But you're no longer feeding gaseous CO2 into your regulator, you're giving it supercritical CO2, which isn't either liquid or gas, and the normal rules no longer apply. You can basically throw most of the laws of thermodynamics out the window. Even without the tank venting, I have no idea what effect it would have on your beer.

You could always burn a small stick. Blow it out where there are just coals showing. Put it by the bottle outlet and crack open the gas. If it flames up, you've got
O2, if it put it out, it's CO2. Incidentally, if it flames up green, it's freon and will probably kill you. Maybe have someone you don't like do the test? - Dwain

Oh, I can tell you what effect it's having. And it ain't good. Think I should put the bottle in the kegerator? I know it's too late for these kegs, but I don't want to repeat it in the future.

I would definitely keep it in the kegarator in your situation, you don't want to come home one day and find that the tank has blown up. On the low side of the regulator, the CO2 would be a gas again, so it may not be what's causing your problem, but still not a good situation.

Dwain said:

You could always burn a small stick. Blow it out where there are just coals showing. Put it by the bottle outlet and crack open the gas. If it flames up, you've got
O2, if it put it out, it's CO2.

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+1
But you might want to put some gas into a jar first rather than do it directly. If you turn the gas on too high or something and it IS oxygen (however unlikely), even just dust in the air can cause a dangerous fire with a flame nearby.

Yeah, I've got room inside, think I'm gonna do that. Thanks for the input.

Looks like the cga 320 (CO2) and CGA 540(?)(O2) threads. are the same but the stems are different, and it looks like you could possible thread a CO2 reg onto a O2 bottle. Is this a refill or a swap? and did you ask for CO2 or carbon dioxide, being if you asked for CO2 the guy might have only heard O2 and not of being paying attention to what you gave him. It's a very very very long shot though

It was a refill, and I don't remember what I specifically asked for. But I do remember the person asking me what I used it for. I said beer. Maybe he thought I could use some oxygen in my beer.

Dwain said:

You could always burn a small stick. Blow it out where there are just coals showing. Put it by the bottle outlet and crack open the gas. If it flames up, you've got
O2, if it put it out, it's CO2. Incidentally, if it flames up green, it's freon and will probably kill you. Maybe have someone you don't like do the test? - Dwain

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Will that really work? I'm game for anything at this point.

Reelale said:

Will that really work? I'm game for anything at this point.

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i would not take any chances with flame near an O2 bottle. O2 is extremely volatile at high pressure.

take the bottle off your rig and bring it to where ever you had it filled and ask them to analyze it. if they can't, then a local scuba shop or fire department probably can.

For what it's worth, my tank sits outside the kegerator and gets well over 90f in the summer. I've never seen pressure anywhere near 1100, and never had any sort of off flavors mysteriously appear.

curlyfat said:

For what it's worth, my tank sits outside the kegerator and gets well over 90f in the summer. I've never seen pressure anywhere near 1100

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That doesn't compute. At 88F, the vapor pressure of CO2 is 1070 PSI. If your tank is getting to 90F, the pressure will be 1100+ PSI.

I take that back. Just read the gauge and it is a little bit over 1000 psi. I also took my lighter and held it to the disconnect while I depressed the plunger. I'm still here, so I guess one could assume it is indeed CO2 and not O2?

Reelale said:

I also took my lighter and held it to the disconnect while I depressed the plunger. I'm still here, so I guess one could assume it is indeed CO2 and not O2?

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breathe off the tank for 5 minutes. if you don't pass out or get a nasty headache, it's O2.

spatman said:

breathe off the tank for 5 minutes. if you don't pass out or get a nasty headache, it's O2.

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C'mon man, I'm on a quest for real answers here.

Ok, this may be but I need to dispel a big myth here. Oxygen is not explosive, and it isn't flammable. Yes, it does enhance a flame, and will make a small fire bigger, but it won't explode or cause a fire. The person who suggested using a smoldering stick is correct, if the bottle does contain O2, the ember will either glow brighter, or may even reignite, but just having an O2 bottle under pressure near a flame won't cause any damage. Fire needs three things: a heat source, a fuel source, and oxygen. The smoldering stick is the heat and fuel, the oxygen is all around us, so it will smolder for a while. Give it a shot of oxygen from a pressurized tank, and you will able to reignite the stick until the fuel source is used up. The fire won't travel back into the tank and explode, because there is no fuel in there to burn.

Now, I do have to add a disclaimer, since I'm sure someone will try tossing a pressurized oxygen tank into a fire to see what happens, and then try to sue me, but I do not take responsibility for actions like that. Compressed O2 is under a large amount of pressure, and heating a tank beyond it's rated capacity is dangerous, so if you do toss one into a fire and get killed, don't blame me.

Not off-topic at all. So if I put a lighter to a QD with the plunger depressed, would it blow the flame out it it was O2? I guess that depend on the pressure.

Reelale said:

Not off-topic at all. So if I put a lighter to a QD with the plunger depressed, would it blow the flame out it it was O2? I guess that depend on the pressure.

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If the flame went out I would say it was CO2, for the same (but kinda opposite) reason as homebeerbrewer said - fire needs heat/fuel/O2, take away the O2 (by surrounding the flame with CO2) and no more fire.

I was being a smart a$$, but actually the "smoldering splint experiment" is from my freshman year in high school. It won't explode, but the O2 will cause the smoldering stick to flame up. The correct way is to ignite the stick and place it away from the O2. Put some O2 in a beaker or coffee can. Blow out the stick and then put it inside the beaker. If it's O2, it will flame up. However, if you don't know what kind of gas this is, I wouldn't put it next to an open flame. What if you put that smoldering stick in a coffee can full of calibration gas like 1,3 butadiene? I would call the welding supply place and see if they can help you out. Let us know what you end up doing. - Dwain

Scimmia said:

That doesn't compute. At 88F, the vapor pressure of CO2 is 1070 PSI. If your tank is getting to 90F, the pressure will be 1100+ PSI.

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Well, now I'm questioning the accuracy of my gauge. I've only seen it over 600psi once, and actually it normally shows in the red "order gas" region below 400psi. Perhaps I don't understand gaseous physics and need a new gauge..it's pretty new, though. Sorry to hyjack the thread...

Edit: I just hooked my regulator up to a full tank and it shows almost 1000psi (about 75f), and the almost empty tank shows about 400psi. So I'm guessing the amount remaining in the tank has some effect on the pressure, not just the temperature of the CO2. I'm looking for understanding, not attempting to "argue"

If I were you, I would just take the tank back to where you filled it. If they truly put O2 into you tank, that would be like filling your gas car with diesel--i.e. a *very* bad thing. Don't get a flame near it, don't do any experiments, just have the fillers look at it. If they know anything at all, they know about liability and won't screw around.

Frankly I just can't wrap my head around them mis-filling your tank. It's like using salt instead of sugar in a cake. I just doesn't compute.

Dwain said:

I was being a smart a$$, but actually the "smoldering splint experiment" is from my freshman year in high school. It won't explode, but the O2 will cause the smoldering stick to flame up. The correct way is to ignite the stick and place it away from the O2. Put some O2 in a beaker or coffee can. Blow out the stick and then put it inside the beaker. If it's O2, it will flame up. However, if you don't know what kind of gas this is, I wouldn't put it next to an open flame. What if you put that smoldering stick in a coffee can full of calibration gas like 1,3 butadiene? I would call the welding supply place and see if they can help you out. Let us know what you end up doing. - Dwain

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I agree with Dwain. And I also worked for a gas distributor and if you/they have a problem with the Co2 they will want to know. And two my hillbilly litmus test...Co2 will burn your nose, just like a stifled soda burp. But I would not recommend trying #2.

Cheers...

curlyfat said:

Edit: I just hooked my regulator up to a full tank and it shows almost 1000psi (about 75f), and the almost empty tank shows about 400psi. So I'm guessing the amount remaining in the tank has some effect on the pressure, not just the temperature of the CO2. I'm looking for understanding, not attempting to "argue"

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The amount remaining only matters after all of the liquid CO2 is gone. As long as there's liquid in the tank, the pressure will stay at the equilibrium vapor pressure for whatever temperature it's at. Once the liquid is gone, you're down to just compressed gas which will drop in pressure as you use it.

japhroaig said:

If I were you, I would just take the tank back to where you filled it. If they truly put O2 into you tank, that would be like filling your gas car with diesel--i.e. a *very* bad thing. Don't get a flame near it, don't do any experiments, just have the fillers look at it. If they know anything at all, they know about liability and won't screw around.

Frankly I just can't wrap my head around them mis-filing your tank. It's like using salt instead of sugar in a cake. I just doesn't compute.

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^^^ This guy is correct, it is almost impossible, I have been in the welding/gas business for 20 yrs. All the fittings are unique to specific gases or family of gases and Co2 is no exception.

When a 5,10and 20lb. Co2 cylinder is filled, it is first opened and completely drained, then the fill line is connected to the cylinder a bit of gas/liquid is put in the cylinder (This cools the cylinder and helps it keep more of the Co2 in liquid state during filling).

Then the valve on the cylinder is closed and it is disconnected from the fill line. This bit of gas is now vented the valve is closed. It is now reconnected to the fill line, put on a scale, valve opened and filled to it's intended final weight. Valve closed and disconnected from the fill line.

This is a basic outline, I haven't filled one in quite a few years.

Here is an example on a 20oz. paint ball tank, it is very similar if you fill of a 50lb. tank of pump it directly from a bulk tank.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRFK-mcOd3I"]video[/ame]

Scimmia said:

The amount remaining only matters after all of the liquid CO2 is gone. As long as there's liquid in the tank, the pressure will stay at the equilibrium vapor pressure for whatever temperature it's at. Once the liquid is gone, you're down to just compressed gas which will drop in pressure as you use it.

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Learned something today. Thanks!

Scimmia said:

The amount remaining only matters after all of the liquid CO2 is gone. As long as there's liquid in the tank, the pressure will stay at the equilibrium vapor pressure for whatever temperature it's at. Once the liquid is gone, you're down to just compressed gas which will drop in pressure as you use it.

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And if you would like a rough idea of the remaining liquid Co2 in your cylinder. Look on your cylinder and there should be a stamped TW (tare weight) with a number stamped after it. That number should be the weight of your cylinder empty. Weigh your cylinder and deduct the TW. The sum is your remaining Co2

homebeerbrewer said:

Ok, this may be but I need to dispel a big myth here. Oxygen is not explosive, and it isn't flammable. Yes, it does enhance a flame, and will make a small fire bigger, but it won't explode or cause a fire. The person who suggested using a smoldering stick is correct, if the bottle does contain O2, the ember will either glow brighter, or may even reignite, but just having an O2 bottle under pressure near a flame won't cause any damage. Fire needs three things: a heat source, a fuel source, and oxygen. The smoldering stick is the heat and fuel, the oxygen is all around us, so it will smolder for a while. Give it a shot of oxygen from a pressurized tank, and you will able to reignite the stick until the fuel source is used up. The fire won't travel back into the tank and explode, because there is no fuel in there to burn.

Now, I do have to add a disclaimer, since I'm sure someone will try tossing a pressurized oxygen tank into a fire to see what happens, and then try to sue me, but I do not take responsibility for actions like that. Compressed O2 is under a large amount of pressure, and heating a tank beyond it's rated capacity is dangerous, so if you do toss one into a fire and get killed, don't blame me.

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You're right that oxygen is not flammable (I don't think anyone said it was), but suggesting putting a burning ember in front of a full tank of pure oxygen is not good. Pure oxygen is now considered a hazard by NASA after the 1967 fire that claimed three lives. I don't think there is any school or laboratory in the world that would allow students/employees to set fire to something in front of an open tank of oxygen.

Like I said earlier, even dust can be explosive in the presence of pure oxygen. In fact, grain mills and silos have been known to explode under normal atmospheric conditions. Add more oxygen to that (our atmosphere is only about 20%) and you're asking for trouble. Yes, some of us have barley dust floating around from time to time.

No harm in filling up a glass with gas and doing the experiment in a controlled manner.

ballzac, you are correct, no one said that oxygen is flammable (at least not in this thread, the term used was "volatile"), and it definitely isn't a good idea to set a fire near an open tank of O2. However, a closed tank of O2 is no more dangerous than an empty tank, as long as the heat of the fire doesn't come in contact with the tank. (I should also note that the pressure in a full tank has more explosive power under the right conditions than the gas itself, the term "volatile" is accurate here.) I'm not advocating setting anything on fire and opening a tank directly onto the flame (see my disclaimer), but as Reelale asked, if he put a lighter to a QD with the plunger depressed, the flame from the lighter would get bigger. Obviously, the pressure could blow the flame out before the O2 had an effect on the flame.

The point I'm trying to make is that oxygen is not a big bad monster that people should be afraid of. If you want to be afraid of something, be afraid of the pressure in the tank and handle all tanks with care.

Now, back to the regularly scheduled program...

If the beer is indeed oxidized, I'd be willing to bet that the oxygen came from another source. As has been discussed already, it is nearly impossible for a CO2 tank to be filled with O2. It seems strange to me that the off flavor developed later, so I have no idea where the O2 could have gotten in.

That smoldering splint experiment will not hurt anything, as long as you do it in a coffee can or something similar. Worst case senario - you have a flammable gas. It won't explode when the splint goes in, it will ignite and make a short, quick fireball. Explosions only happen when you ignite a flammable gas in a sealed container. You could singe your arm hairs or maybe get a very small burn. Use a glove if you are worried about that.

But that scenario is also HIGHLY unlikely. You have already carbed your beer and if you carbed it with a flammable gas like 1,3-butadiene, it would taste horrendous and nothing like cardboard. You'd probably also be pretty sick since you have been drinking on that keg for a bit now!