co2 in the fridge?

[HillbillyBee]

Can I keep my tank in the fridge?
Will anything happen to the gas?
Or is it best to drill a hole and keep it outside?

 

[Hammy71]

Many if not most keep their tanks in the fridge. Most keggerators you can buy have the tank inside. It's really personal choice but it won't hurt the gas either way.

 

[Bheher]

Either way works fine, keeping it in the fridge does nothing to the gas. It basically comes down to where you have room and can access the tank.

 

[Fid]

I keep mine in the fridge. Only downfall is that, for whatever reason, the fridge temp renders the fill gauge on my regulator useless... it always reads near empty. Psi gauge works just fine though. I figure the less holes you have to drill through your fridge the better.

 

[lotbfan]

I keep mine in the fridge. Only downfall is that, for whatever reason, the fridge temp renders the fill gauge on my regulator useless... it always reads near empty. Psi gauge works just fine though. I figure the less holes you have to drill through your fridge the better.

As a bonus though, you can remove your bottle from the fridge, and after a couple minutes at room temperature, you can get a visual on how full it is from the frost line

The benefit to having the gas inside is you don't need to use hardware to get it outside, the negative is there is less room for beer, other than that, watch for rust buildup on threads and there should be no issues.

 

[SpacemanSpiff]

No issue at all keeping it in the fridge. Just don't freak out when your gauge drops when it's in there. PV=nRT which means that when the temperature drops the tank pressure drops as well.

First time I set up my kegerator I about lost it thinking my tank had a massive leak. Took my neighbor and I until the next day until we figured it out. Did I mention that we both have chemical engineering degrees and really should have known better?

 

[Linkin]

What about the effect of the temperature in terms of efficiency? Meaning that, with the CO2 tank inside the fridge, the pressure drops from the cold, will that mean you can get less use out of the same tank?

I know when I played paintball we tried to keep the tank warm to get more shots out of each fill. I will be building a keezer soon and am tempted to try to rig the tank up outside the keezer, but I am not sure that keeping it warm will make a difference because once the air gets to the Keg, the temp drops and any added benefit of a warm tank might be rendered obsolete.

Thoughts on this?

 

[Hammy71]

Psi is psi. The CO2 couldn't care if its in the fridge or not. The difference of 30 degrees shouldn't effect the amount you get out of the tank.

 

[SpacemanSpiff]

I wouldn't expect there to be a significant difference. The tanks are filled by weight so that's why you get 5# or 20# tanks. And the only way the weight changes is when gas escapes. Even at fridge temps CO2 wants to be a gas so as the pressure in your tank drops as gas is used, there's no reason that you still shouldn't get just about every bit of gas out.

The difference between kegging and paintball I think is that you're using fairly steady output of gas for kegging where you're using quick, high pressure bursts for paintball. Even then though I wouldn't expect too significant of a difference. Keeping a paintball tank warm would keep the pressure up and maybe you'd get a few extra shots out of it.

 

[Seven]

I teach scuba physics and I can tell you that gases do expand/contract depending on temperature. However, the contraction in the case of taking a C02 tank from room temperature to "keezer" temperature would be very small.

For example, taking a tank with 2015 PSI from 70-degrees F. to 36-degrees F. will change the tank pressure from 2015 to 1885.

Google "Charle's Law" if you're interested in learning more.

 

[HillbillyBee]

Thanks Guys,

My first keg is on day 2 of 30psi, and i'm looking forward to my frist pour in a couple days