Carbon Captured

This article originally appeared in the July/August 2023 issue of Zymurgy Magazine

By Andy Tipler & Pierre Margraff

A few months ago, our southern-Connecticut homebrewing community had a nasty shock when local gas suppliers were unable to refill or exchange pressurized carbon dioxide (CO₂) cylinders. We were also told that there would probably be no further supplies until well into 2023. What a disaster!

This came as a complete wake-up call for many of us to learn how dependent we really were on the availability of this pressurized gas in our regular homebrewing activities. How could this happen? Surely, the world has too much CO2 already, as evidenced by climate change concerns about its greenhouse effect.

A quick internet search revealed many articles explaining causes for the shortage, including production cuts during the pandemic, evolving cannabis production, COVID-19 vaccine production, and even contamination by gases from an extinct volcano. All these factors seemed to create a perfect storm, and where be is involved, CO₂ producers obviously prioritize their biggest clients—who are not homebrewers!

The severity of this CO₂ shortage may vary between locations, but there seems to be a real and current need to address it if we want to continue brewing our favorite beers. In this, the first in a series of three articles, we explore various options that are readily available to homebrewers to reduce our need for process CO₂. In homebrewing, we typically use compressed carbon dioxide for three things:

1. Purging vessels of oxygen before and after filling with beer to prevent oxidation
2. Force-carbonating flat beer
3. Pushing beer out of a keg for serving

What can we do to improve the methods we use for these, and what alternatives do we have at our disposal?

Log in to access the full article from the July/August 2023 Zymurgy magazine.

This article covers:

• Eliminating gas leaks
• Keeping oxygen out of beer while filling a keg
• Eliminating air from the headspace of a sealed keg
• Carbonating beer
• Pouring Beer Correctly