Carbonation Cap

[Doc]

Yesterday I visited my old brew shop (I moved a while back) and after stocking up noticed he had the Carbonation Caps manufactured by Craig Decon from Keg Systems.

Haven't had a new gadget in a while so I bought one.

Tested it out last night on a flat bottle of coke and it work pretty well even for the coke being warm.

So then I got some cold water from the fridge and carbed that up. Worked a treat.

Tonight I think I'll take a sample from a beer in secondary and carb that up and see if it needs dry hopping

Beers,
Doc

 

[big d]

gday doc
any chance of a pic so we no what a carbonation cap looks like?

cheers
big d

 

[Batz]

Yes I'll like to see it too , poor old buggers up in the sticks we don't see anything new

 

[Doc]

Will take some pics tonight and post them here.

Beers,
Doc

 

[Doc]

The cap itself is sold as the white plastic bit that has a thread in both sides.
There is a washer on the gas post side.

Here is the unit with the gas post inserted.

 

[Doc]

here it is on a PET bottle.

 

[Doc]

and finally in my keg fridge attached to the gas line.

Beers,
Doc

 

[big d]

looks good doc.do you run the risk of popping the pet bottle if you over charge or is there some sort of built in relief valve.

 

[nicko]

damn good idea

especially for sampling from secondary


they retail for around $30 ??? looking at his price list

 

[GSRman]

re the popping the PET bottle, not very likely, when making bottle rockets, we have had them up to 100psi, (6.8 bar) (680 kpa) without a blowout...

a guy in our beer club just fitted a tire valve filler to his gas sytem, and fitted a few coke lids with bike tube valves...

 

[siiren]

I have one of those carbonation caps,
Mine didn't come with the washer for the seal between the bottle and cap, or the connector and cap.
When i asked the bloke I bought it from, he said that it wasnt needed....yah right...I found that out the hard way!!!!! sodastream everywhere!!!!
I made a makeshift washer out of the rubber seal in the coke bottle lid, but it still wasn'y airtight.
Any ideas guys?

 

[Batz]

Idea ?
Well you could sell it at a greatly reduced price too.......well........Batz ! h34r:

 

[Nearly]

Doc, Looks very interesting... forgive my thickness.... How do you carbonate with it? Bung on some high pressure for a short while and shake?

Would it be a good way to carbonate a couple of bottles from each brew ( the rest into the keg) so you have sediment free takeaways?

 

[Doc]

That's it Nearly.
Whack up the pressure to around 200kpa and if the liquid is cold then it will be carbonated in about 15mins.
Like normal I was in a hurry, so the bottle went into the freezer while I was eating dinner, then onto the gas for a few minutes with lots of shaking.
All gassed up nicely.

Beers,
Doc

 

[Doc]

Siiren,

Found the washer that looks very much identical (from the web page anyway) to the one that was supplied with my carbonation cap on Grain and Grapes webpage here.
It is the yellow one marked A (Turrett washer) in the link above.

Beers,
Doc

 

[Nearly]

Doc, Would you use your carbonation cap or your counter pressure bottle filler to create takeaways? I am wondering if the cap is the takeaway solution I have been looking for....

 

[Doc]

It will depend on what the source of beer is.
If the beer is coming straight from the fermenter then the carbonation cap will be the go as it needs to be fizzed up.

If I want to bottle from the keg then the CPBF as I don't want to loose carbonation when bottling. From my system I get a bit of foaming when trying to fill from the keg (without a CPBF). I guess you could argue that you could put the fizz back in with the carb cap, but if I use the CPBF there would be a lot less wastage of beer.

Beers,
Doc

 

[Nearly]

Thanks for the info Doc...
I mean it.... you have been a great source of info for me, and no doubt many others. Good on ya.

 

[Nearly]

Doc, I heard today that the carbonation caps may be prone to splits. Just letting you know that it may pay to be gentle with it.

 

[Doc]

Thanks for the info Nearly.
Will keep on eye on it.

Beers,
Doc