Seeking Enlightenment. Hello Brewing Community! :D

[CO2Farmer]

Hey All,

Thanks for being such an active community and sharing so much information. I know I'll be able to dig up what I'm looking for here.

The subject I'm here for information on is using yeast for CO2 production. Since CO2 is a byproduct of fermentation.... I figured you folk would be the best to turn to.

Besides the stickies on Fermentation and Yeasts... are there any threads in particular that anyone would know off hand.... that would give me a more direct line of info to read up on? I'm really good at digging...

CO2Farmer

[And1129]

Welcome CO2farmer.

I'm new on this fourm too, but i'm rather intrigued by your question? Are you seeking only to produce a constant stream of CO2? I'm somewhat of a chemist myself, so i'm wondering what you might be using CO2 for, and why you would want to turn to frementation when there are genrally easier ways produce it.

Let me know what your tring to do in some more detail, and I should be able to help you out.

[CO2Farmer]

Indeed! I'm seeking a constant supply of cheap CO2.

I'm curious as to what cheaper method you know of than sugar/water/yeast? I can use any kind of sugar, corn syrup, frozen juice concentrate (corn syrup) and a number of other things... no? I'm all ears because I have such a tiny, tiny budget.

The main reason I thought of brewing was for the high alcohol yeasts... it would keep me from having to dump and dilute less often.


Currently I supply supplemental CO2 for a small 3x4' greenhouse that's cooled using re-circulated A/C. I'm using a 5gal bucket, aquarium heater (non-adjustable and set at 78F), water, sugar and baking yeast.

The mix bubbles constantly and produces enough CO2... but it's haphazard at best. Once the mix slows... I dump half of it off and add fresh water. When the sugar dissappears... I add more.

I'm looking for more information on

A) What things I should be looking for visually to indicate any changes I would have to make to keep CO2 production at optimum

B) Yeast varieties that are known to be long living and hardy... while also being resistant to high lvls of alcohol. (I've read on here the champagne varieties can run to 17.5% or so)

C) Processes and/or DIY Equipment that will help me maintain a steady lvl of CO2.

I've been reading... heh... but I still have issues formulating the questions... using brewery speak.

Thanks so much!

[curlyfat]

If you are just looking for a rapid fermentation with no regard for flavor, look for yeast for distilling. I believe some is called Turbo Yeast. I know that some distiller's yeast is good to well over 20%.

[CO2Farmer]

Awesome! That sounds like the ticket.

Thanks for the tip.

[And1129]

You have several options for producing CO2.

The easiest way would be to simply buy or rent a CO2 tank. I'm sure you've looked into it and found it a bit expensive, but with any gas tanks, the cost is all in the tank itself, and then the refills of the gas are usually dirt cheap. For example, I once got a liquid nitrogen tank for some experiments I was doing, and the tank itself was about $200, but the LN2 itself was only like $5.00.

A better way than that, or than getting CO2 by fermentation, but slightly more complicated, would be to create your own CO2 by some sort of chemical reaction. Any engine or heater that burns a fuel would create CO2. What I would do if I were you, is buy one of those 5 gallon buckets of Sodium carbonate (Na2CO3) or Sodium bicarbonate, which is baking soda, (NaHCO3) that they sell to raise the alkalinity of swimming pools (5 gallon bucket of the stuff is $10-15). Then you could use some sort of acid like vinegar or HCl (also dirt cheap) to slowly drip inside which would react with the carbonate to create a constant stream of CO2 gas.

The reaction would be: NaHCO3 + HCl ---> CO2 + NaCl + H2O

And again, you can buy 2 gallons of 12 molar HCl in a package for about $5 at any hardware store, and then you should dilute the 12 molar 10 times or more to get a large volume of acid that would work well for that. With this method, you could make a "reactor" that would give you a steady stream of CO2 and eventually be left with only a bucket of salt water.

Another method that would be very simple and effective would be to just get a little mammalian animal like a mouse or a hamster or something. Your plants should be producing loads of oxygen by photosynthesis, and animals produce CO2 through respiration. So naturally, putting the two reactions together forms a naturally balance ecosystem. So put a couple rodents in with your plants, and you shouldn't have a problem. Just add food.

Your other option is the subject of this forum: fermentation. As you have discovered fermentation produces large volumes of CO2 by the reaction:

C6H12O6 ---yeast---> 2CO2 + 2C2H5OH

Fermentation was in fact used by scientists such as Joseph Priestley, Humphry Davy, and Michael Faraday to discover aspects of gases like pressure, volume, mass, and definite proportions. So fermentation is definitely a viable production option. And honestly, if you're going through the trouble anyway, why not learn a bit more about brewing so you can make some good beer or wine for your friends and family. You could have a few designated areas in your greenhouse where you let your brew-buckets ferment away, or you could pipe the CO2 from your fermentors outside into a greenhouse where your plants are. The other perk of this, as you might realize, is that the yeast sediment of fermentation can be used as an excellent fertilizer for all kinds of plants because it's rich in nutrients and many essential elements. Why not get some good homebrew out of the process when your CO2 production will be about the same? There are many positive aspects about choosing fermentation if you can sustainably use all of the fermentation products.

So there you go. Several workable ideas that would allow you to produce relatively constant supplies of CO2. Any of those should work well for you as even a slight increase in CO2 in the vicinity of your plant enclosure will allow them to grow a bit faster than normal.

Hope that helped let me know if you want any further details on any of those ideas. Good luck.

[curlyfat]

Is that all you got?