Dry Ice and Carbing

[amrmedic]

Ok wacky question. Can you use dry ice to carb a beer?

Dry ice is frozen CO2 which sublimates into CO2 gas.

If you put dry ice into a corny and then racked the beer onto it and put the lid on it, will the dry ice force carb the beer?

The liquid would rapidly become cold and as the dry ice sublimates the gas is released into the beer. So in theory it should carb the beer.

What do you think?

 

[rycov]

i got some dry ice to fix a thermometer recently and was thinking the same thing. maybe in a keg, but im not sure how much you would have to use. if you drop it in water the water bubbles a **** ton. it looks like its boiling. thats why i don't think it would work for the bottles. but in a keg you would have room for it to bubble, but i wonder how much co2 you would loose before you close the lid.

also the bubbles come up and out of the liquid so i think the co2 would go into the head space then have to defuse back into the beer, so i dont think you would be saving time. and i would imagine the amount you would need would cost more than if you just used co2 from a tank. but i do think it would work, and i think it would be a cool experiment

 

[nostalgia]

This comes up from time to time here. I put "dry ice carb" into the search box and got a ton of results.

-Joe

 

[Phunhog]

Well technically it would work but on a practical level it won't. I would be concerned about over pressurizing the keg. It would be really hard to dial in the carbonation level too. I guess if you added a very small amount until you got the right carb level maybe it would work. But at that point might as well just hook it up to a tank.

 

[Yuri_Rage]

The dry ice would sublimate faster than it would go into solution, overpressurize the keg, and make a sizable bomb. It's a fascinating concept that is rather horrific in practice.

 

[theredben]

Don't forget the machine oils, unless you shell out major $$ for food grade.

 

[rycov]

i'm pretty um... un-carefull about stuff i ingest. i would drink it (not everytime, but one batche) , i would just be a little scared to do it. i blew up a bottle the other day at work with dry ice.