Using An Inert Gas To Displace Oxygen

[The King of Spain]

Given the problem that oxygen can cause racking beers or even in the bottle, why couldn't you use an inert gas like helium to displace oxygen?

 

[MHB]

He is lighter than air, expensive and hard to get (relatively) and you need a special Reg.
CO2 is heavier than air, cheap and most people have it. And beer isnt affected by it.

MHB

 

[Adamt]

In what context are you talking about displacing oxygen?

To displace all the oxygen whilst racking/bottling you would need a helium-filled atmosphere/room in which to rack/bottle in, and some scuba gear to keep yourself alive.

Am I missing something? :blink:

 

[AUHEAMIC]

You could use an inert gas during racking but IMO it is an added step that may not be necessary.

If you are careful and ensure your racking hose coils in the bottom of the vessel you are racking into, oxygenation should not be a problem.

This also goes for bottling. Make sure the bottling attachment or hose goes to the bottom of the bottle.

 

[benno1973]

I know of someone who stores their grains in an old keg under a blanket of Argon - an inert gas heavier than air. Still no word on whether it makes much of a difference, but I guess it's a smart way to store grains for long periods of time. Good for hops too I would imagine...

 

[ausdb]

You could use an inert gas during racking but IMO it is an added step that may not be necessary.

If you are careful and ensure your racking hose coils in the bottom of the vessel you are racking into, oxygenation should not be a problem.

This also goes for bottling. Make sure the bottling attachment or hose goes to the bottom of the bottle.

When racking I always use keg that has just had sanitiser stored in it then blown out under CO pressure, when you crack the lid there is a nice cloud of gas sitting in there. I then purge the headspace of the fermenter with a trickle of CO as I fill the keg. Seems to work ok for me

As for Argon I have read it is used in winemaking for purging and blanketing as it is nowhere near as soluble in wine(possibly beer?) as CO so doesnt add any carbonation. Except that its a more expensive than CO and another bottle to rent, but it could be seen as a good excuse to get a TIG welder :lol:

 

[Ken Man Do]

There is an HBS owner in the States who regularly stores wort under N2. It is pretty much insoluble, I believe. Ask him about it.
His name is Dan Listermann.
listermann.com

 

[Corellion]

Ok, quick table from one of the books lying in my office...

(solubility in mL gas per 100mL water)
T 0 20 40 50
-------------------------------------------------
Ar 5.2 3.3 2.5 2.2
CO2 171.3 87.8 53 40
N2 2.4 1.5 1.2 1.1
O2 4.9 3.1 2.3 2.0

of course this is only a rough guide because the solubility depends a lot on all the other stuff you have mixed in with the water...

"Air" is pretty much N2 and O2 and so doesn't have a huge solubility in our precious wort, whereas CO2 is quite clearly two orders of magnitude more important for our purposes... What you have to concentrate on is the use of inert gasses like nitrogen (N2), argon (Ar), helium, etc to displace the "air" in the headspace above your fermentor/bottle/keg/grain-storage-system,etc ...

Oxygen is what causes the aging of grains/hops/etc so displacing the oxygen from the "air" in your storage containers with an inert gas would be beneficial for long-term storage purposes, so there's no oxygen left to "age" the good gear, but that's really it...

Once a beer is in a bottle, keg, whatever there should be more than enough CO2 around in the water to make the levels of oxygen negligible unless you're talking about some seriously long term storage of your brew (which makes no sense to me - you made it for drinking not for decoration!)

Quote me not on this, but don't Guiness(tm)®© use nitrogen when bottlilng their brews? And they're about the only ones??