Nitro idea...

So I recently purchased all the required toys to start serving beer on nitro (tank, regulator, stout faucet). In researching how to serve I've come across a lot of conflicting ideas and tips.

I understand that ideally you should use a mixture of nitrogen and CO2 (roughly a 75%, 25% mixture from what I've read). This allows you to keep the beer carbonated and served at the same time.

However, my local gas supply store does not carry this mixture readily. They can get it but it's like a month waiting time.

So I came up with this idea (picture below):



I would keg my beer and carb to around 1.9 volumes with 100% CO2. After it is carbonated I would put it into my kegerator hooked up to this design. The idea would be to use the isolating ball valves from each line to serve while maintaining carbonation when not serving. Open the valve to nitro to serve, then close, purge, and open to CO2 when not serving to maintain my carb.

Would this work or am I totally missing something?

That mixture is called beer gas. Someone should have it readily available.

Theoretically, your workaround could work that way. Make sure there are check valves in each gas's supply line. Why and how would you purge? Each gas will push (and mix) the other out of its way.

That will not work the CO2 at a lower psi will not flow against or into the higher psi of the N2 gas. You need a blender aka a diaphragm that uses the high psi to push the lower psi out through another regulator. Ouse my old gas blender that I had for welding gas. You would need to vent the keg to get CO2 level back every time.

You'd be better off serving it on 100% nitrogen. It will lose carbonation over time, but not nearly as much or as fast as you might think. You could always vent the pressure and connect to CO2 occasionally to bump the carb level back up.

beaksnbeer said:

That will not work the CO2 at a lower psi will not flow against or into the higher psi of the N2 gas. You need a blender aka a diaphragm that uses the high psi to push the lower psi out through another regulator. Ouse my old gas blender that I had for welding gas. You would need to vent the keg to get CO2 level back every time.

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I stated that I would purge the N2 out when putting the CO2 back on in the OP.

mrrshotshot said:

I stated that I would purge the N2 out when putting the CO2 back on in the OP.

Click to expand...

Sorry missed that waste a lot of gas but go for it