thatguy314 wrote:Everyone talks about how CO2 is heavier than air, but not so much that it'll just always settle and form a nice blanket. There's plenty of CO2 mixed in with our air around us. If CO2 really just sat below air so well we wouldn' tbe able to crawl because we'd choke on the CO2.
You should let in slowly so it mixes with the air, then you vent it. Every time you do this, the air will be a smaller percentage of the total. Vent it a few times and it'll flush out the O2.
Hey guy, you've got a decent point there. The big thing with most gasses in the atmosphere, especially with CO2, they are easily bonded to whatever they are introduced to. They are prone to stay in "suspension" which is evident due to the fact that we don't really have layered atmospheric gasses in order of their molecular weight. This is true not only within the atmosphere, which is why we can infuse the CO2 into a liquid and it stays in suspension within the liquid and doesn't necessarily seperate out and easily rise to the top of the liquid, unless disturbed.
In wine making, which I know more about than beer making, unless you are making a sparkling wine you have to agitate the wine prior to bottling and sometimes between rackings to get the CO2 to release from the wine. I use a drill operated agitator to do this with my wine. And it takes some work to get it done.
So to kind of dispute your statement, not meaning any disrespect, but when you can introduce a pure amount of CO2, it does infact displace the regular air with oxygen upward and will settle beneath it. The trick is, ofcourse, not to break over the pressure or flow threshold that will then start to mix the gasses together. I've done the method I listed above more times than I can remember in carboys. And it does work as I state. It may not eliminate all the air 100%, but it certainly does displace the air without excess waste of CO2. And the match trick does work. And I've never had a problem with any oxidation of my wine.
So, to each is own. i can see that both methods will work so now readers have two options!
