Dry Ice

[ekul]

I was thinking dry ice could be quite useful.

-You could throw it straight in the fermenter to rapidly cool the wort. (dry ice turns straight into CO2 gas so won't add extra volume to the wort)

-When bottling you could put little chunks in the bottles to achieve quick carbonation without special equipment. You'd need to be careful as too much and you'd blow up some bottles!

Has anyone ever played around with it? If so what did you use it for?
I don't know where to buy it but i know when i was at school some of the kids used it to make CO2 bombs. (Dry ice in a coke bottle and water, pressure builds up and BOOM!). So it must be available somewhere if they're selling it to kids.

I did a search but nothing came up.

 

[brocky_555]

did you try BOC gases or one of the other gas supply mobs like Linde.
Never bought it myself but that would be my first port of call.

Good luck

 

[Sammus]

I think someone did, and chucking a chuck of it into just boiled wort was nearly lethal. a little chunk gives off a shiteload of CO2, and when that's released in an extremely small period of time while submerged in a large vessel of very hot liquid, the hot liquid goes everywhere and burns. burns badly.

edit: oops, fermenter.. I was thinking of someone wanting to use it to chill boiling wort

 

[unrealeous]

-You could throw it straight in the fermenter to rapidly cool the wort. (dry ice turns straight into CO2 gas so won't add extra volume to the wort)

-When bottling you could put little chunks in the bottles to achieve quick carbonation without special equipment. You'd need to be careful as too much and you'd blow up some bottles!

Apparently it can be done... looks dodgy though
http://www.wikihow.com/Carbonate-a-Beverage

I wouldn't use it - Just because its cold, doesn't necessarily mean its sanitary... but in the interests of science I always encourage others to give it a go

 

[Wolfy]

I'd be interested to know if it would work to instant-carb bottles for those of us who do not have a kegging system - just might be a bit difficult to store the stuff is all.

 

[Quintrex]

The gas is released too quickly from the dry ice with to little surface area and it doesn't get "taken up" by the liquid quickly enough. This means the head pressure will greatly exceed what your container will handle. That's what I've found anyway... ymmv

Oh and it's not very efficient at cooling wort etc for similar reasons, the dry ice doesn't really "touch" the wort as it's immediately converted to gas which forms an insulating layer around the actual cold dry ice.

 

[rendo]

Boom alright....thats exactly what it will do in ur fermenter!

I am sure the 'cooling power' of dry ice could be harnessed somehow, dont know how yet, but if u chuck it in the fermenter then CHK CHK BOOM

check it out on youtube (not redtube)

rendo


power of greyskull?
power of the darkside?
i have the power? snap

I was thinking dry ice could be quite useful.

-You could throw it straight in the fermenter to rapidly cool the wort. (dry ice turns straight into CO2 gas so won't add extra volume to the wort)

-When bottling you could put little chunks in the bottles to achieve quick carbonation without special equipment. You'd need to be careful as too much and you'd blow up some bottles!

Has anyone ever played around with it? If so what did you use it for?
I don't know where to buy it but i know when i was at school some of the kids used it to make CO2 bombs. (Dry ice in a coke bottle and water, pressure builds up and BOOM!). So it must be available somewhere if they're selling it to kids.

I did a search but nothing came up.

 

[jakub76]

could be an effective way to remove oxygen from bottles prior to bottling. Are there any sanitation concerns?

 

[thelastspud]

what if you had the ice in the bottom of the fermenter and slowly poured the hot wort on top of it?

 

[jayse]

what if you had the ice in the bottom of the fermenter and slowly poured the hot wort on top of it?

You wouldn't beable to see what you were doing in the thick white fog.

 

[dug]

what if you had the ice in the bottom of the fermenter and slowly poured the hot wort on top of it?

you'd end up with lots of cool looking fog in your brew room

 

[Chops]

I bought some pellets from BOC a little while back, they actually had bits of dirt and straw or something in with the pellets in the bag, like somebody had swept them up off the floor, not something i'd want to put in a beer.
Now that I think about it, they may even have actually had a little warning not to put the pellets into food stuffs....

 

[poppa joe]

COST OF DRY ICE....
Forget it..
PJ

 

[ekul]

thanks for all of the quick replies replies!

Jakub- the purging was the initial thing that got me thinking about it. i was trying to think of ways to purge a container of oxygen. i just came back to write it as one of the things it could be used for, but you beat me to it!

Also Quintrex, thats very interesting about the dry ice not being a very efficient cooler. I hadn't actually thought about the dry ice forming a gaseous insulating layer around itself but you're probably right. From your post it sounds like you have tried it. How big a piece did you use? I was thinking of using tiny pieces. But if its expensive then i won't bother.

From that video in the link from unrealous it looks like you could just throw a heap of dry ice in a 23L container of flat beer (with the top off!!!) for parties. It would hopefully chill (surely it would get cold after awhile) and carbonate the beer at the same time. The smoky effect would also make my homebrew look even more like witches brew!

Thanks again for the quick replies guys, if anyone else has any experience i would be interested in hearing about it.

 

[ekul]

Imagine if you could get liquid nitrogen! I'd have the finest bubbles in the land But i don't think i'll be able to find a place to sell it to me

 

[Sammus]

Imagine if you could get liquid nitrogen! I'd have the finest bubbles in the land But i don't think i'll be able to find a place to sell it to me

its not too hard to get surprisingly, there are cryogenic supply places dotted around, and as long as you have a suitable container for storage it only costs about $1/L (at least that was 10 years ago when I go some last...).

 

[Quintrex]

Also Quintrex, thats very interesting about the dry ice not being a very efficient cooler. I hadn't actually thought about the dry ice forming a gaseous insulating layer around itself but you're probably right. From your post it sounds like you have tried it. How big a piece did you use? I was thinking of using tiny pieces. But if its expensive then i won't bother.

I've used Pellets which are pretty small. Crushed up it might work better... or it might just insta-foam up your wort/beer

 

[drsmurto]

The gas is released too quickly from the dry ice with to little surface area and it doesn't get "taken up" by the liquid quickly enough. This means the head pressure will greatly exceed what your container will handle. That's what I've found anyway... ymmv

Oh and it's not very efficient at cooling wort etc for similar reasons, the dry ice doesn't really "touch" the wort as it's immediately converted to gas which forms an insulating layer around the actual cold dry ice.

you'd end up with lots of cool looking fog in your brew room

Having studied/worked in a chemistry lab for the past 15 years i can safely tell you this wont work.

I've tried cooling down water baths from 50C using dry ice and apart from filling the lab with CO2 the temperature drop was minimal. Crushed ice (water) worked much better as is very rapid. It did look impressive but my labmates weren't nearly as impressed as i was

The problem you have using dry ice is unlike water which goes from solid to liquid, CO2 goes from solid to gas. Gas is very inefficient at transferring thermal energy.

Think about it another way.

Is it faster to cool down your wort by sitting allowing the air at room temperature to cool it down or by immersing it in a bath of water as the same temperature?

If you combine dry ice and acetone then you would be in business. The temperature of a dry ice/acetone bath is -78C and it remains a liquid (well, technically a slurry). If you put your wort in that it would cool down very rapidly (although you might damage/crack the plastic container it is in)

 

[Sammus]

If you combine dry ice and acetone then you would be in business. The temperature of a dry ice/acetone bath is -78C and it remains a liquid (well, technically a slurry). If you put your wort in that it would cool down very rapidly (although you might damage/crack the plastic container it is in)

Imagine pumping this through your plate chiller... I wonder if you could get the wort through fast enough not to freeze it before it exits?

 

[Dave70]

You can / could do it if you were keen, I saw a guy on foxtel make a batch of snap frozen peas by sitting them in like a colander, and sitting that on top of another colander with dry ice in it, then basically using a garden blower to blow through the ice and peas. The whole arrangement was sealed on both sides of corse and got the temp down to -40 deg.

So with a bit of ducting, a garden tool, tape and ingenuity, its possible.

I think I'll stick to no chill for the time being though.

And buying my frozen vegetables from coles..