Decanting Co2 Between Cylinders

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browndog

Are you bulletproof boy?
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G'Day Fellas,
In my never ending search to find cheaper gas, I found that the best price I cound get for a refill of my 5kg CO2 fire extinguisher was $50 + GST, a 20km drive and a few days wait for the return trip to pick up the cylinder. I rang BOC and found I could get a VT size bottle from a local distributor for $40 + $9 per month rent. I figured why not rent the bottle for a month, then on the last day, fill my fire extinguisher and return the bottle. Now I am looking for any one with experience in decanting between bottles. I was thinking of seeing the guy that sold me the cylinder and seeing if I could get two of the hoses that were originally on the extinguisher and join then together by whatever means to create a decanting hose. I would assume that the VT bottle would need to be inverted to get the liquid CO2 flowing though the hose and into the fire extinguisher. Also, as I use CO2 at work to make dry ice, I know the decanting process would get very cold. Could this cause blockages thereby subjecting the decanting hose to the full pressure of the VT bottle ? Are there any hidden dangers trying this ? it seems a similar process and a whole lot less dangerous that getting your LPG cylinder refilled down at the local servo by the teenager behind the counter.


cheers

Browndog
 
Ooo...scary. IMHO just pay the $50 and be done with it. Your really not saving that much money by going this route for the effort and risk required to do it. As far as I can see your only going to get a months worth of gas for free in the end. How often do you really fill your cylinder? And in my opinion 20km is nothing to drive. Plus your not factoring driving to pick up the BOC cylinder, messing around setting up and account and then taking the thing back. I don't know but this seems counter productive to me.

Maybe you should find another fire bloke, mine only charges $25-30 (can't remember exactly) to fill it so maybe you can find a better price by asking around.

I don't like the idea of tipping a VT sized cylinder upside down, if you drop it then it's going to be mighty exciting. Plus you need special braided hoses, something to weight your cylinder on while filling so you know when it's full. And a bit of safety knowledge.

Your choice though, that's just my opinion.
Cheers and good luck with whatever you do.

JD
 
Thanks for the words of warning Justin. It will be interesting to see what others think. I wonder why they are so expensive to refill up here in Brissie. I've rung around quite a bit any Brissie guys found any cheaper places ?


Browndog
 
I think they are generally dearer to fill anyway, basically because extinguishers don't need refilling very often so I guess they need to make their money somehow. I'm a bit lucky with my bloke I guess as he's pretty laid back and doesn't really seem to approach filling my bottle as part of his extinguisher business, more doing some work on the side. I pay cash too so maybe that helps ;).

I'm pretty scared of CO2 or working with it anywhere where you might get an unrestricted release of CO2. From all reports you need to treat it with a lot of respect. However others here fill soda stream bottles, which is exactly the same.
 
You can't use extinguisher hose , it is not a pressure hose as the C02 has been released when it passes out this hose.
It is safe to decanter C02 with the correct braided hose , I have one , the hose also freezes .

You can buy them , lot of places will not sell it to you if you say you are going to decanter , as I worked for BOC for some years and have an understanding of this , I was sold one , contact me if you want more info

Looks like this

http://www.andale.com.au/category/gas4.html

Batz
 
Why not try saving the CO2 that you produce during fermentation? The bigger breweries do it can it be that difficult?
Just a thought.
James
 
Jim_Levet said:
Why not try saving the CO2 that you produce during fermentation? The bigger breweries do it can it be that difficult?
Just a thought.
James
Collecting it isnt difficult. Making it smaller is.

An average brew fermentation produces around 0.5 m3 of CO2 at room temp. So you could pipe from the fermenter into a sealed plastic bag about 0.8 m x 0.8 m x 0.8 m. But to be any use, you need to squeeze your CO2 gas down into a liquid and push it into a gas bottle, in which case that 0.5 m3 is going to become real small.

For that you need a bloody great compressor, I imagine the ones used in a brewery to recycle CO2 are probably the size of a car.

Or a big fridge. Cool the plastic bag down below -79 degrees C, the gas turns to dry ice crystals, you scrape them off the plastic bag and put them in the gas bottle.

Hard to achieve on the home brew scale though.
 
Now your being silly GL :D
 
browndog said:
G'Day Fellas,
In my never ending search to find cheaper gas, I found that the best price I cound get for a refill of my 5kg CO2 fire extinguisher was $50 + GST, a 20km drive and a few days wait for the return trip to pick up the cylinder. I rang BOC and found I could get a VT size bottle from a local distributor for $40 + $9 per month rent. I figured why not rent the bottle for a month, then on the last day, fill my fire extinguisher and return the bottle.
[post="34630"][/post]​

Thats great idea except for one thing, although its only $9 a month for the rental BOC or AirLiquide will only let the bottle out if you pay them a years rent in advance, the ba$tards!

Ausdb
 
I don't know what the big fuss is, I have the big F size CO2 from BOC and its only $60 something to fill and the rental along with my E size oxygen and D size Actylene is only a dollar a day all up!

My F size CO2 isn;t anywhere near empty after six months! I reckon just go the biggest u can get the rental isn't much more!

Kramer.
 
Wow.. I get my 22KG AirLiquide bottle filled for $50.
Wonder why it's so expensive to get such a small bottle filled.
 
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