Capturing CO2

[faithie999]

I have read about capturing CO2 from the fermenter in mylar balloons. do people get the "normal" mylar party balloons from the party store? or is there another source, potentially of larger balloons?

thanks

 

[CascadesBrewer]

My challenge has been more with finding smaller balloons than larger ones. There is only so much space I have in my fermentation chamber. Sometimes it can be hard to find inexpensive mylar balloons, but I have gotten some from Walmart and Target in the past in the $1 to $2 price range.

 

[GoodTruble]

I used these before. They worked by replacing the spigot with a rubber bung (and can cleaned and re-used).

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[rburrelli]

If you want to do it right check out the Cold Crash Guardian on brewhardware.com. This is what I use.

 

[IslandLizard]

I got an empty, medium size Mylar party balloon at the Dollar Tree for $1. A helium filled one would have been the same price...
I guess they're $1.25 now.

 

[pvtpublic]

I got an empty, medium size Mylar party balloon at the Dollar Tree for $1. A helium filled one would have been the same price...
I guess they're $1.25 now.

 

[hotbeer]

A collapsible bag of any sort can work. I've used zipper bags for food storage sometimes. Just poke a hole in them, stick in the tube and seal with vinyl tape (electricians tape). Of course get as much of air out as possible before use.

Perhaps there might be some concern for a how much air can or can't permeate through various plastics and contaminate your CO2, however the CO2 you collect probably isn't pure anyway.

 

[GoodTruble]

FYI - I used larger bags (5-10 gallons) so I could back fill the fermenter during transfers as well. It's a lot easier to just use a CO2 tank, but this is another option as well. I was able to actually squeeze the bag to provide pressure to push the liquid out to start a siphon/gravity transfer.