Most beer is carbonated with 100% CO2. Some beers, notably Guinness and some other
porter/stouts, contain a mixture of nitrogen and CO2 in a ratio commonly 75/25
N2/CO2. The nitrogen is less soluble in
water, and allows the beer to be served at a higher pressure without dissolving
too much gas into the beer itself. The
higher serving
pressure churns up the beer as it exits the spout, and creates a
creamy head that is the signature of a good Guinness pour. Some pubs use 75/25
gas to push normally carbonated beers out of the tap, but the beers themselves
contain only CO2.
In this video I wondered what would
happen if I used argon instead of nitrogen.
I started by using %100 argon since the solubility of Ar is between that
of N2 and CO2. As it turns out, the Ar
is not soluble enough to produce a decent head on the beer. Additionally, the complete lack of CO2 makes
the beer taste sweet (like it's flat) since the CO2 is necessary to form
carbonic acid in water, and this is an important flavor component of beer.
Xenon has anesthetic properties at
atmospheric pressure, while the other noble gasses can become anesthetic at
higher pressures. Does anyone want to
explore xenon beer, or have any experience with xenon used as an anesthetic?
hey everyone today
I've got something
pretty unusual I've got a container here
that I built full of beer that instead
of using carbon dioxide to carbonate
I've used argon to argon ate it so this
is sort of unusual beer as almost always
a hundred percent co2 but some beers
like Guinness are served 75 percent
nitrogen 25 percent carbon dioxide and
the purpose is that the nitrogen gives
the the bubbles of a different quality
so I'm kind of curious what would happen
with argon the solubility of argon in
water is higher than nitrogen but much
lower than carbon dioxide so I'll get
into the details later but right now I
just want to open this up and see what
it what the pore looks like and taste it
so I've got 30 pounds of argon in there
and this has been sitting in a
refrigerator for about a week so it's
fully as much as good is going to
dissolve has dissolved so let me pour
some out and see what it looks like okay
looks the bubbles are actually quite
large on the surface inside there so
let's see we've got pouring pretty flat
not a whole lot ahead there at all the
state was trying out
it's pretty much flat beer so the argon
doesn't introduce any off flavors in
fact there's a small amount of
carbonation there but it's it's nothing
like real carbonation
you wouldn't want to drink a whole glass
of that for sure so what I'm going to do
is repressurize this the 30 psi and make
sure it's all built up again in terms of
argon as much argon is going to go in
there as possible and then I'm going to
add co2 to it as well so I'll empty the
chamber and then add co2 pressure to
help that dissolve so I think the
combination of carbon dioxide and argon
might produce the best result which
makes sense since you know Guinness
figured out that doing 75 percent
nitrogen 25 percent co2 is actually the
ideal ratio for that beer I guess but
people argue about it it could be half
half and whatnot so let me show you how
I built this thing this is a stainless
steel water bottle that I got from the
hardware store for like ten dollars and
the cap it came with was hollow so I was
kind of worried about modding it because
I want this to hold 30 psi in that
hollow cap we really wouldn't be able to
use a a pipe tap or anything in there to
tap that so instead I started with a a
solid piece of Delrin and turned it down
and faced it and then I got a parting
tool and shaped the parting tool such
that it matched the threads on the
existing cap and I kind it down and then
kind of you know smooth the corners a
bit and then I mounted the parting tool
in the lathe and used it just like a
threading tool so it kind of looks like
an Acme thread even though it isn't it's
just a square cut thread and then
threaded the part using the parting tool
and then I you know turned down a little
bit more and knurled the top drilled a
couple holes in the top and tap them
with pipe thread taps and added a gauge
to it and added a brass valve to it so
that I could connect gas to it and then
shut the valve and seal the chamber off
and then I filled the thing up with
homebrew from my stainless steel home
brew kettle and added argon to it from
my welding tank
so I realize this isn't you know medical
grade breathable gas or whatever but
really I'm just going to have a couple
sips of this and I don't think that's
going to be a problem there's a little
oil vapor or something in there so here
I am pressure testing the vessel I got
about 50 psi in there and one really
unexpected consequence is that the
bottle doesn't stand up anymore because
the bottom is a bowed out a little bit
so I didn't actually take a careful look
at this but I suspect it had a slight
kick in so that would always sit flat on
a table and now it doesn't have that
anymore so it doesn't stand up anymore
so I'll either build another base or
just live with it or something but I'm
going to leave this amount of pressure
in here for a while and see if there's
any leaks which I don't think there are
so after filling it up with argon I put
it in the fridge and lowered the
temperature of the beer and the pressure
dropped from about you know 35 psi maybe
down to about 25 indicating that the add
that argon had gone into the solution
into the beer and I took it back out to
the garage filled it back up to 35 psi
with argon put it back in the
refrigerator and it dropped down to
maybe 30 or 32 so the liquid is
basically fully saturated with argon at
that temperature and as far as I know
the reason that Guinness is served with
a nitrogen mix is that the the nitrogen
isn't as soluble as the carbon dioxide
so when you can serve the beer at a
higher pressure using that nitrogen to
force it out of the tap without over
carbonating the beer so Guinness is
typically has a lower volume of co2
dissolved in it and you can use that
nitrogen to force it out of the tap to
churn it up and give it that nice frothy
head without you know forcing carbon
dioxide into the beer and then making it
way too foam being way too acidic one of
the tricks with carbon dioxide is that
when it hits your tongue it forms
carbonic acid or when it's in solution
when it's in water it forms carbonic
acid and that's why carbonated water
tastes different from flat water and
also why beer tastes rather nasty when
it's flat and quite good when it's
carbonated
okay so I think I will follow up by
adding some co2 to this and and argon
see we can get out of it but as it
stands argon by itself is really not
enough to make a decent beer
s
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