Can I force carb with a 20oz CO2 bottle?

I realize I will have to refill more often but trying to save money and keep making beer. I could get a single regulator and a paintball bottle and carb with it fairly inexpensively right off. After a couple months I can get the dual gauge regulator 5lb bottle setup. Then I will have both a portable dispensing setup and the 5lb home deal.

But in the short term I would like to make beer, keg it, carb it and then store it.

So can I carb a keg or two with one 20oz bottle?

boy, I doubt it. It sure would go fast.

You could use priming sugar to carb the kegs, and dispense a keg with a paintball set up though.

I am trying to avoid carbing with sugar to keep the sediment down to a minimum. These kegs will travel alot.

So 20oz won't do a keg? But 5 lbs will do like 8? how is that possible? seems like with a 5lb bottle you can do over a keg per pound of CO2???

YooperBrew said:

boy, I doubt it. It sure would go fast.

You could use priming sugar to carb the kegs, and dispense a keg with a paintball set up though.

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That's what I do anyway and I have a five pound tank. You definitely wouldn't get too many kegs out of a 20oz setup if you were carbing and serving. So, it would probably work, but be ready to make a LOT of refill trips.

akthor said:

I am trying to avoid carbing with sugar to keep the sediment down to a minimum. These kegs will travel alot.

So 20oz won't do a keg? But 5 lbs will do like 8? how is that possible? seems like with a 5lb bottle you can do over a keg per pound of CO2???

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Well, priming or not, traveling with a keg will stir up the sediment. There isn't any way to get around that.

If you want to travel with kegs, the best way I've found to do it is to sit it in the kegerator for a couple of weeks and don't move it. Once it's all settled, dispose of the first pint. Even then, you'll still have a ton of sediment that will get stirred up again when you move it. So, after the first pint is gone, you can "jump" the beer to a new keg. I take a black QD, some beer line, and another black QD and make a beer jumper cable. Hook it up to the beer "out" on the keg and then hook it up to the beer "out" on the new keg. Push it with co2, pulling the pressure relief valve so that the second keg fills slowly without foaming. Then, this second keg can travel without stirring up the sediment.

If you're not "jumping" the kegs, each time you move the keg you'll resuspend the sediment. Priming or not doesn't seem to make much of a difference.

or you could rack the beer to secondary until it's clear, and then only rack the clear beer into the keg.

Carbonate it by 'jumping' two kegs together, and filling the empty keg with sugar, water, and yeast. Poor-man's CO2 generator

I'd say you'd carb and dispense 2 kegs before the co2 ran out.

paintball stores charge a lot to refill those little tanks too.

I usually force carb and dispense 6 gallons with one 20 oz paintball tank before it blows. Dick's Sprting Goods by me charges $4 for a 20-24 oz refill. My local welding store charges $17 for a 5# tank, it's actually a little cheaper to use the 20 oz tanks instead of the 5# tank. I have two of the 20 oz tanks and one 5# tank, the 5# one stays in the kegerator and the 20 oz tank is used to force carb (when needed) and to dispense from the portable kegerator.

As others have said you will get max 2 full kegs out of a 20 oz'r (about 8-10 kegs from a 5 lb so 16 oz / 5 lbs * 8-10 = 2 - 2.5 kegs)
Are you buying the 20 oz or reusing one you already have? as I would imagine that the price difference between a used 5 lbs and 20 oz would be nothing, and the reg will cost the same shouldn't it (maybe a bit more for the 20 oz to get an adapter for the pin valve)
If I were you I would do a bit of shopping around and check on prices and then compare the difference between the 20 oz and 5 lbs routes and see if the extra hassle is worth it.

This is coming from a guy using 9 oz bottles by the way, priming with sugar, though.
Cost to me for my system: regulator = free from my old man, modification to reg stem to be used with a pin valve 9 oz'r = free at work, 9 oz bottles = free (stolen from SWMBO's soda stream) => total gas dispensing system = $0. SO in short it will work but just make sure it is a wise investment.

I use my old 20 paintball canister. Costs me right around $2 per fill up (I think the most I've paid is $3) I only have 1 keg right now, and that usually lasts me carbing 2 and serving teh first one. I typically have to go get a refill soon into serving the 2nd. I'm also keeping mine cold in the kegerator at the moment so that my have something to do with my results. I'm going to stepping up to the 5lb soon and keeping it outside the kegerator.

I found a place selling used but newl reconditioned and hydro tested 7lb bottles on Ebay for $38.90 shipped to my door so I jumped on it since it was 1/2 what I saw anywhere else for a 5lb.

hey guys i know this is an old thread but in dispensing beer with sodastream/paintball bottles is a regulator a must have as i have modified a sodastream machine so i can squirt a little c02 into the rotokeg when the pressure gets low. would that work for standard kegs or would it be to dangerous ??
Thanks guys

ultra_ said:

hey guys i know this is an old thread but in dispensing beer with sodastream/paintball bottles is a regulator a must have as i have modified a sodastream machine so i can squirt a little c02 into the rotokeg when the pressure gets low. would that work for standard kegs or would it be to dangerous ??
Thanks guys

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Corney kegs should be able to handle it and the PRV should safegaurd you against extream overpressure. Do not know about the rotokegs, do they have a pressure relief valve?
The only issue I see is you can't set the pressure so you might be flip-flopping between over/under carbing your beer as you dispense. But if the rotokeg is working for you I can't see why it would be just the same in a corney.