Home of the BrewNosers

Hey guys, been home brewing for a while and just found these awesome forums! Anyways, I am in the process of jumping to kegging and was wondering where you folks get your CO2 cylinders? Noble Grape seems to be charging an arm and a leg for CO2 with exchange and I am hoping to go elsewhere. Anybody go industrial to Praxair or Liquid Air? Thanks for the input.

Welcome to the forums!

As for your question..I went the noble grape route for the sake of convenience. I live 20 seconds from noble grape and the exchange price is equivalent or cheaper than a fill elsewhere in town. Also, with the noble grape deal, you don't have to worry about the hydro testing of tanks.

There is a thread stickied in the group buy section that discusess the local c02 fill stations.

Here's the link

http://www.brewnosers.org/forums/viewto ... ?f=13&t=75" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

There's a thread on here somewhere about Don Brenton's. They seem to be the cheapest for refills at least. I'm not sure if they sell tanks though.

keep an eye on kijiji for deals on CO2 tanks...they pop up from time to time, you just have to be patient

Thanks guys! I will probably end up going the NG route just for convenience sake.

Just a side note, anybody do any 1/2 barrel beer kegging? I am modifying an old fridge for my kegerator and was wondering if anyone had any experience with commercial kegs as opposed to cornies. I have a Labbatt keg and just popped the top yesterday and cleaned/sanitized, getting excited to pour some draft in a month or two!

only concern i had when i was thinking of going the commercial keg route was carbing them, and ensuring they're clean. Then lifting and moving the 1/2 barrel kegs when full is another task. I had a bunch of the 1/6th kegs and was thinking of using them for my keezer, but opted not to in the end.

Yeah lifting them is a two person job for sure. I thoroughly cleaned/sanitized the keg and have a commercial coupler, now I just need the CO2 and I'm good to go.

Cool. How are you going to be carbing the beer in these? natural carb or force carb? When i was going to go this route, i wanted to force carb them but couldn't figure out how.....or do you just put a cap/plug over the liquid out part of the coupler and hit it with CO2?

As long as you have a faucet or picnic tap hooked up to the liquid end then you're good to go. Just hook up gas/beer lines as normal, set the pressure to desired carbonation level and let it go! (watching for leaks of course if you decide on a picnic tap)