Nitrogen with Small CO2 keg charger?

[dontman]

So I am dying to add nitrogen charging capability to my keg system but there is no way I can swing or even justify the expense on a full regulator tank setup for nitrogen or beer gas.

I've seen a couple of mentions of the Handheld keg charger for cornies and the possibility of using a 16 g nitrogen capsule with it.

Is this doable? Does it actually work to successfully dispense a co2 conditioned keg? I am skeptical since I would think that the nitrogen would want to hang out on top of the beer while the co2 was more soluble.

I like the idea of spending $20 plus Nitrogen capsule cost for adding nitrogen capability.

Anyone using this?

 

[oldschool45]

Dotman,
I could be wrong but if you are already setup for CO2 with a reg all you would have to do is get the gas shop to blend a tank for you and just use one tank and the same equipment probably not much more than the $20 for the charger but it would probably have to be a welding shop. I thought the whole point of the Nitrogen was that you could run ~30psi for serving without over-carbing the beer in that cases you’d probably need about 4 times as many Nitrogen 16grams to charge a keg as you would CO2. I know squat about this application but I have about a days worth of breathing mixed gases underwater running Nitrox tanks.
Ray

 

[dontman]

I thought they could only do that into a nitrogen tank. Plus don't you need a special regulator for that? Add $60. I would have to buy a dedicated tank for this purpose as well. At least $60 which for pushing one keg of stout every 6 months. This would never pay for itself with my stout tastes.

 

[oldschool45]

I’m not certain about needing a Nitrogen tank. The local party stores rent beer gas tanks that are mixed gas so I assume you could do it into a CO2 tank. You can get an adapter to run a nitrogen tank to a co2 reg. The regs all appear to be identical (i.e., no real difference between, nitrogen, co2, argon/co2 mix, high pressure air, etc.) except that I would imagine bad things would happen if you hooked up a reg to a co2 tank with a siphon tube. A siphon tube feeds liquid co2 mainly for refilling other tanks like paintball tanks, liquid co2 expands very rapidly. I can’t imagine it doing kind things to a reg getting it out of calibration at best or destroying it at worst The moral of this story don’t turn your co2 tanks upside down or on their side while attached to a reg.
I just don’t know if you can get 30psi reliably out of 16gram cartridges. At a $1 a shot for 16g No2 cylinders plus the charger pretty soon you will be at break even with getting a welding tank off Craig’s list and having it filled with beer gas or a cheap Co2 tank and having it filled with the same. If your initial investment is going to be (~$20 for the charger and ~$5 for qty 5 16g No2 cylinders total of $25) Assuming again that it only takes 5 cylinders to push a corny at about the 6th keg of stout you break even and on #7 you lose money with the chargers and save/make money with a beer gas blend. But I don’t know what psi naturally carbing the keg will get you to.
I hope somebody who knows the answer chimes in because I want to brew a double chocolate stout to have ready around Christmas/New Years and I would like to know how to push it.