O2 instead of CO2 - is it possible?

[Reelale]

I don't know how this beer turned in a matter of 2 days in the keg. I also have and ESB that has the same flavor. I just drew a pint of an IIPA that we were drinking this weekend that tasted great. Now it tastes like cardboard. Same with the ESB. Is it possible that my tank was filled with 02 and not CO2? I just can't understand the sudden change in the keg. Or am just down to the dregs?

 

[jppostKW]

did you force carb with the same tank? and i have never had the dregs taste worse than the first part of the beer

 

[Reelale]

Yes. Same tank. Unless it is physically impossible to fill a C02 tank with O2, I'd swear those bastards fvcked me.

 

[jppostKW]

thats weird you would think that the beer would taste bad the whole way thru if it was carbonated with it. couple things are the bubbles normal Co2 bubbles bigger smaller etc. you could always take the regulator off and open up the the tank upside down into a cloth bag ( crown bags work good for this ) and see if you get dry ice. where 02 will just be cold. another way to test probably safer too is carbonate some water and see if you get the carbonic bite that c02 produces.

 

[Reelale]

I don't know. Maybe it is just the dregs, but it really turned in this last two days. But I don't know how I would taste oxidation, just yeast. I've never had a beer do this.

 

[Scimmia]

Do you have a high pressure gauge on your tank? If it's showing more than 7-900 PSI, something's going on. O2 is stored as a high pressure gas, CO2 is stored as a liquid.

It's not very likely at all that they filled it with O2. I don't think the beer would have "carbonated" correctly with O2 for one thing. I'm not even sure if CO2 tanks are made to handle that kind of pressure for another.

 

[Reelale]

Yep, it's at 1100 PSI. I've noticed it's stayed in the green for a long while.

 

[Scimmia]

1100? You're not storing this at 90F are you? That's above the critical pressure of CO2.

 

[Reelale]

Yes, it's pretty much above 90 degrees in my garage every day...it's hot. But the gauge is still reading in the green.

 

[Scimmia]

Supercritical CO2 (above 88F) is going to have different properties than the gas we normally use. I wonder if that's what's doing it. As I said, I don't know if the bottles are rated for it, either. There have been stores of tanks venting from too high of pressure, which is going to go up exponentially above 88F.

 

[Reelale]

I don't know. My bottle has not vented, at least as far as I know. And it's still in the green.

 

[Scimmia]

But you're no longer feeding gaseous CO2 into your regulator, you're giving it supercritical CO2, which isn't either liquid or gas, and the normal rules no longer apply. You can basically throw most of the laws of thermodynamics out the window. Even without the tank venting, I have no idea what effect it would have on your beer.

 

[Dwain]

You could always burn a small stick. Blow it out where there are just coals showing. Put it by the bottle outlet and crack open the gas. If it flames up, you've got
O2, if it put it out, it's CO2. Incidentally, if it flames up green, it's freon and will probably kill you. Maybe have someone you don't like do the test? - Dwain

 

[Reelale]

Oh, I can tell you what effect it's having. And it ain't good. Think I should put the bottle in the kegerator? I know it's too late for these kegs, but I don't want to repeat it in the future.

 

[Scimmia]

I would definitely keep it in the kegarator in your situation, you don't want to come home one day and find that the tank has blown up. On the low side of the regulator, the CO2 would be a gas again, so it may not be what's causing your problem, but still not a good situation.

 

[ballzac]

You could always burn a small stick. Blow it out where there are just coals showing. Put it by the bottle outlet and crack open the gas. If it flames up, you've got
O2, if it put it out, it's CO2.

+1
But you might want to put some gas into a jar first rather than do it directly. If you turn the gas on too high or something and it IS oxygen (however unlikely), even just dust in the air can cause a dangerous fire with a flame nearby.

 

[Reelale]

Yeah, I've got room inside, think I'm gonna do that. Thanks for the input.

 

[mattd2]

Looks like the cga 320 (CO2) and CGA 540(?)(O2) threads. are the same but the stems are different, and it looks like you could possible thread a CO2 reg onto a O2 bottle. Is this a refill or a swap? and did you ask for CO2 or carbon dioxide, being if you asked for CO2 the guy might have only heard O2 and not of being paying attention to what you gave him. It's a very very very long shot though

 

[Reelale]

It was a refill, and I don't remember what I specifically asked for. But I do remember the person asking me what I used it for. I said beer. Maybe he thought I could use some oxygen in my beer.

 

[Reelale]

You could always burn a small stick. Blow it out where there are just coals showing. Put it by the bottle outlet and crack open the gas. If it flames up, you've got
O2, if it put it out, it's CO2. Incidentally, if it flames up green, it's freon and will probably kill you. Maybe have someone you don't like do the test? - Dwain

Will that really work? I'm game for anything at this point.

 

[spatman]

Will that really work? I'm game for anything at this point.

i would not take any chances with flame near an O2 bottle. O2 is extremely volatile at high pressure.

take the bottle off your rig and bring it to where ever you had it filled and ask them to analyze it. if they can't, then a local scuba shop or fire department probably can.

 

[curlyfat]

For what it's worth, my tank sits outside the kegerator and gets well over 90f in the summer. I've never seen pressure anywhere near 1100, and never had any sort of off flavors mysteriously appear.

 

[Scimmia]

For what it's worth, my tank sits outside the kegerator and gets well over 90f in the summer. I've never seen pressure anywhere near 1100

That doesn't compute. At 88F, the vapor pressure of CO2 is 1070 PSI. If your tank is getting to 90F, the pressure will be 1100+ PSI.

 

[Reelale]

I take that back. Just read the gauge and it is a little bit over 1000 psi. I also took my lighter and held it to the disconnect while I depressed the plunger. I'm still here, so I guess one could assume it is indeed CO2 and not O2?

 

[spatman]

I also took my lighter and held it to the disconnect while I depressed the plunger. I'm still here, so I guess one could assume it is indeed CO2 and not O2?

breathe off the tank for 5 minutes. if you don't pass out or get a nasty headache, it's O2.

 

[Reelale]

breathe off the tank for 5 minutes. if you don't pass out or get a nasty headache, it's O2.

C'mon man, I'm on a quest for real answers here.

 

[homebeerbrewer]

Ok, this may be but I need to dispel a big myth here. Oxygen is not explosive, and it isn't flammable. Yes, it does enhance a flame, and will make a small fire bigger, but it won't explode or cause a fire. The person who suggested using a smoldering stick is correct, if the bottle does contain O2, the ember will either glow brighter, or may even reignite, but just having an O2 bottle under pressure near a flame won't cause any damage. Fire needs three things: a heat source, a fuel source, and oxygen. The smoldering stick is the heat and fuel, the oxygen is all around us, so it will smolder for a while. Give it a shot of oxygen from a pressurized tank, and you will able to reignite the stick until the fuel source is used up. The fire won't travel back into the tank and explode, because there is no fuel in there to burn.

Now, I do have to add a disclaimer, since I'm sure someone will try tossing a pressurized oxygen tank into a fire to see what happens, and then try to sue me, but I do not take responsibility for actions like that. Compressed O2 is under a large amount of pressure, and heating a tank beyond it's rated capacity is dangerous, so if you do toss one into a fire and get killed, don't blame me.

 

[Reelale]

Not off-topic at all. So if I put a lighter to a QD with the plunger depressed, would it blow the flame out it it was O2? I guess that depend on the pressure.

 

[mattd2]

Not off-topic at all. So if I put a lighter to a QD with the plunger depressed, would it blow the flame out it it was O2? I guess that depend on the pressure.

If the flame went out I would say it was CO2, for the same (but kinda opposite) reason as homebeerbrewer said - fire needs heat/fuel/O2, take away the O2 (by surrounding the flame with CO2) and no more fire.

 

[Dwain]

I was being a smart a$$, but actually the "smoldering splint experiment" is from my freshman year in high school. It won't explode, but the O2 will cause the smoldering stick to flame up. The correct way is to ignite the stick and place it away from the O2. Put some O2 in a beaker or coffee can. Blow out the stick and then put it inside the beaker. If it's O2, it will flame up. However, if you don't know what kind of gas this is, I wouldn't put it next to an open flame. What if you put that smoldering stick in a coffee can full of calibration gas like 1,3 butadiene? I would call the welding supply place and see if they can help you out. Let us know what you end up doing. - Dwain