canning line regulator freezing up?

[wholehop]

Our high flow co2 regulator freezes when canning.
What do people do to eliminate this?
We have a 230 liter tank?
Any ideas would be appreciated
Thanks

[rdcpro]

Use an vaporizer. I don't know what regulator you have, but some have a small evaporator on the regulator itself, but in your case you may need something bigger.

Your CO2 supplier should be able to hook you up. A winery I used to do work for had these nice vaporizers that mounted on the VGL, and when they would start to freeze up, they would dribble water over it. A VGL bulk tank also has a vaporizer built into the vacuum jacket, and you sometimes see the tank freeze up. With a vaporizer, you pull liquid from the bulk tank.

Regards,
Mike Sharp

[TGTimm]

Are you sure you're drawing gas, and not liquid CO2? Ask your gas supplier to check your tank and be sure it's feeding gaseous CO2.

In high-draw situations freezing is a problem. Either use a vaporizer, as suggested above, or look into a heated regulator.

Another option is a "surge tank" or accumulator, which is connected to the gas tank via a higher-pressure primary regulator (we run around 125 psi), then feeds your equipment via a high-flow, low pressure (at the requirements of your machine) secondary regulator. This system works particularly well when the gas demand is periodic, as it allows the surge tank to refill between bursts of high-volume gas demand.


Here's an example of a surge tank set up:



This one is for air for our keg washer. The high-pressure air from the main enters via the red line, the low-pressure, high-flow regulator is on top to the left, feeding the keg washer via the 3/4" braided line. The other reg feeds the control system at a higher pressure. The tank is just a used (but inspected) 30-gallon compressor reservoir.

[ModernLover]

I have a very similar problem when we can. Also we do not have enough headspace at the beginning of the canning run so our pressure to the canner fluctuates.
We have 50lb co2 tanks and do not have the room for a bulk co2 tank.
What I was thinking is we hook up our 40 gallon hop back which can hold pressure in between our co2 tank and uni-tank.

[TGTimm]

If your hop-back is filled with gas at the same pressure your canning line is using, you'll gain very little. The idea behind the set-up above is that it draws a small amount of high-pressure gas to deliver a lot of low-pressure gas.

If you're using 50lb cans to run your bottling line, it's probably time to look at a larger system, with Dewars or bulk tanks, a vaporizer, a regulated high-pressure mainline, and 2ndary regulators at the points of use.

[wholehop]

Thanks!

Thank you all for your input. Going to try a heated regulator.
I will keep you posted
Thanks Mike

[rdcpro]

Thank you all for your input. Going to try a heated regulator.
I will keep you posted
Thanks Mike

I had assumed the OP (wholehop) was using cryogenic liquid CO2 from a dewar (230 liter VGL or similar size) since he said he had a 230 liter tank. A heated regulator may help here, unless the flow exceeds the capacity of the regulator. There's a pressure build circuit on VGLs that can be tweaked, if you're drawing gas. It's been a long time, and I don't remember the details, but there's tweaking you can do. The gas supplier can explain it or set it up correctly. If that doesn't get it, a small vaporizer is probably the best solution.

For ModernLover's problem, I'm not sure the heated regulator will help, but it might. At some point, the vapor pressure in the CO2 cylinder may go low enough that you won't get sufficient pressure even with a heated regulator. I'm not sure, though--I've never run into this particular issue before--we always used bulk CO2 (and other gases) from dewars or larger bulk tanks. I think I've seen bottle heaters before (they wrap around the tank), but it's been so long, I'm not sure.

Timm's right--it's time to buy it in a VGL-sized dewar. Probably be a lot cheaper, too. For example, the 230-VGL has a water volume of 240 liters, and doesn't take up a lot more room than a cylinder, but holds way more gas. You'll want a special hand truck for VGLs if you need to move it around. They're freaking heavy. It's tempting to tip and roll it like you do with a cylinder, but that's dangerous with a VGL. Best to have your gas supplier deliver it to it's resting place.

Mike