In article , Elmo wrote:
On Tue, 6 Apr 2010 00:39:48 -0400, Wild_Bill wrote:

http://www.truetex.com/carbonation.htm

Indeed! That Richard J. Kinch treatise, titled " Carbonating at Home with
Improvised Equipment" was what gave me the idea to build my own carbonator.
He delved into the SCIENCE of it all; which gave me courage!

But even that wonderful tutorial missed out on a few points. For example,
"infusion" and not "flow" are what he should have used to describe how you
get 4 liters of CO2 into a 1 liter bottle of Orange Juice in a closed
system.

Also, he didn't describe some technical points, some of which are listed in
this CO2 Dynamics web site
(http://www.warpig.com/paintball/tech...dynamics.shtml)
such as a "full" tank contains only about 34% liquid CO2.

But most surprising (to me), was the statement that the pressure of a co2
tank has nothing to do with the amount of co2 in the tank; the pressure (as
long as there is "some" liquid in it) is always dependent solely upon the
temperature.

"At room temperature (70°F) it's about 853 psi."

So, with my new carbon dioxide tank, I'm not sure how I tell how much co2
is left in the tank. Does anyone know how you tell when it's getting low?

With a little personal experience, you can tell by the weight of the
tank.

And once the liquid is completely gone and the pressure starts dropping,
you probably have a few days of usefulness remaining. A few liters of CO2
at 800 PSI is enough to carbonate 10's of liters of soda before the
pressure in the tank drops to the 100-120 PSI or so used for carbonation.

- Don Klipstein )