Dispensing beer from a keg typically requires a CO2 tank, which can be a pain to transport. What if there was an easier way? Capable of holding a surprisingly high amount of pressure, some have claimed to successfully use pressurized soda bottles to push beer out of kegs, a clever hack that we attempt for ourselves.
12 thoughts on “The Brülosophy Show: Replace Your CO2 Tank With A Soda Bottle”
I use CO2 on my 2 liter bottles of Sprite Zero and Tonic for mixed drinks. Buy larger and when done put a special cap on and pressurize to 20 PSI. Carbonation is never lost and ready for the next mixed drink in a day or a month!
Great video with practical use. Ordering those parts today. This setup will make me even more popular in the neighborhood. Who’s bringing the beer?
I would prefer a soda stream cylinder but finding adapters to recharge them has been difficult.
Hi, go to the Kegland website. They sell adapters to suit sodastream gas cylinders. They also have a YouTube video showing how to use them.
While the coke bottle idea is certainly fun, I just use a sodastream and mini-sodastream reg for portable dispensing, which is heavier but not bulkier than the coke bottle, and much more reliable. 🤷🏼♂️🍻
If not planning on consuming the whole amount of beer, I might consider purging the PET bottle with CO2 to avoid creating a O2 mixed gas serving container. But with this amount of beer I doubt this would be an issue.
Hi Mike, I was thinking the same thing. Would this lead to 02 being injected into the beer? Perhaps a short shot of Co2 and then bleeding the bottle would help?
What a wonderful idea. I can use this for other activities that I do where CO2 is used. Thanks Martin
Is it possible to use this set-up to carbonate a keg? You fill half the 1,5L soda bottle with sugar, water, yeast then let it ferment and use that to carbonate. Is it possible?
It may seem fine to use plastic soft drink bottles as a cheap gas cylinder because they are designed hold pressure. But in the world of engineering, safety factors on burst pressure for pressure vessels are the most extreme. It’s because the energy contained in a gas under high pressure is quite dangerous. The soft drink bottle was designed to hold water under pressure, not a gas. Water is almost incompressible, which means if the bottle bursts the energy released is far less. Besides, a plastic soft drink bottle was designed to be single use. Repeated pressure cycles degrades the material. Finally, is there a pressure relief valve in use? It’s an important fail safe.
I have witnessed lots of burst tests of pressure vessels, always with liquid, except once when some improperly trained person allowed gas into the vessel. When that thing burst it made the news.
I really discourage economizing on safety in this area.
They say “If it is stupid but it works, it isn’t stupid.”. I don’t think so, pressure is arguably one of the most dangerous thing homebrewers deal with. One human error, equipment failure, material degradation etc. might possibly cause an accident and injury.
I’m wrote the warning about using the plastic soft drinks bottles as a cheap gas cylinder because I am intimately experienced with them having learned the ropes designing, testing and qualification of a gas cylinder for Space X’s Falcon rocket. There are a lot of ways things can go wrong with them and they are unforgiving!
Brewing involves pressure, heat and caustic chemicals, so we need to be vigilant. But just because there are risks that we can manage doesn’t mean it’s smart to take risks we cannot properly assess, especially when someone with background gives you a heads up.
I can’t know if the plastic bottles can kill you if they burst, but I do worry about shrapnel in the eyes or ruptured ear drums.