Closed system transfer and CO2 flakes

I tried making a closed system transfer using my primary bucket. Didn't work as well as I hoped. I had air line going from my reg to the airlock gasket in the lid. I drilled a big hole in the lid to fit a carboy stopper. The hole in the stopper fit a racking cane. Line from the racking cane to the beer out of my keg. Just like a carboy system. It didn't seem to work all that well. Not sure if I did something wrong. I had the release valve open to let CO2 out of the keg to prevent back pressure. In theory it should have worked.

I noticed about 10 minutes into the transfer white flakes where in my air line. I didn't think much of it until a few minutes later I pulled the airline out of the bucket and white flakes came out of the tubing. It kept happening. Are these just liquid co2 flakes that didn't make it to a gas? I assume they would be ok in my beer.

I'm no chemist, but even I can decipher from the below that one has to do some pretty dramatic things to CO2 to force it into a liquid or solid:

"Carbon dioxide has no liquid state at pressures below 5.1 standard atmospheres (520 kPa). At 1 atmosphere (near mean sea level pressure), the gas deposits directly to a solid at temperatures below −78.5 °C (−109.3 °F; 194.7 K) and the solid sublimes directly to a gas above −78.5 °C. In its solid state, carbon dioxide is commonly called dry ice.

Liquid carbon dioxide forms only at pressures above 5.1 atm; the triple point of carbon dioxide is about 518 kPa at −56.6 °C (see phase diagram at left). The critical point is 7.38 MPa at 31.1 °C.[19][20] Another form of solid carbon dioxide observed at high pressure is an amorphous glass-like solid.[21] This form of glass, called carbonia, is produced by supercooling heated CO2 at extreme pressure (40–48 GPa or about 400,000 atmospheres) in a diamond anvil. This discovery confirmed the theory that carbon dioxide could exist in a glass state similar to other members of its elemental family, like silicon (silica glass) and germanium dioxide. Unlike silica and germania glasses, however, carbonia glass is not stable at normal pressures and reverts to gas when pressure is released."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide

Well then I have no clue what those flakes could have been. They seem to be some kind of ice crystals because they melted on my hand.

Do not worry. The regulator acted in the same fashion as an expansion valve. The high pressure in the CO2 tank was reduced at the regulator causing rapid boil off of CO2. Due to pressure drop a small amount of liquid CO2 entered the tubing. When a cylinder is cold and when ambient temperature is low it happens more often. Because the bucket has a relief in it CO2 continued to flow at low pressure. If the bucket was tight the occurrence would not take place, same as when a CO2 tank is connected to a keg. A fire extinguisher that uses CO2 will create CO2 snow balls. GREAT JOB using CO2 to transfer beer!!! I use a Blichmann fermentation vessel with a blow off attachment. The vessel comes with a pressure relief on the lid. I hook a CO2 line to the blow off and apply about three pounds of pressure to push beer into corny kegs. The transfer tubing is snapped on to the outlet of the keg and the keg is filled from the bottom up with the relief valve on the keg open. When beer comes out of the relief, done.

VladOfTrub said:

Do not worry. The regulator acted in the same fashion as an expansion valve. The high pressure in the CO2 tank was reduced at the regulator causing rapid boil off of CO2. Due to pressure drop a small amount of liquid CO2 entered the tubing. When a cylinder is cold and when ambient temperature is low it happens more often. Because the bucket has a relief in it CO2 continued to flow at low pressure. If the bucket was tight the occurrence would not take place, same as when a CO2 tank is connected to a keg. A fire extinguisher that uses CO2 will create CO2 snow balls. GREAT JOB using CO2 to transfer beer!!! I use a Blichmann fermentation vessel with a blow off attachment. The vessel comes with a pressure relief on the lid. I hook a CO2 line to the blow off and apply about three pounds of pressure to push beer into corny kegs. The transfer tubing is snapped on to the outlet of the keg and the keg is filled from the bottom up with the relief valve on the keg open. When beer comes out of the relief, done.

Click to expand...

Great, thanks. I figured it was something like that but wanted to double check.

I tried to do the transfer in my bucket but it didn't work as well as I hoped for. I think it works better with a glass carboy or stainless. I want to buy a ss brew tech fermenter.