CO2 lines freezing - Vaporizer or heater?

[guybehindawall]

Good afternoon,

We recently upgraded our brewery's secondary regulators to a higher flow model, and it's causing freezing issues with our 350# microbulk system (actual snow forming on the regulators and hoses). I've been reading about solutions for this, and it seems like the two most viable options are installing a vaporizer between the tank and the secondary regs, or installing an inline heater on the tank. I'm kind of leaning towards the heater since it'd be a one-time purchase instead of a rental from our gas supplier, but I'd just like to get feedback from people who have had to solve this problem before.

In a way, I'm wondering if anyone has had any *bad* experiences with vaporizers and/or CO2 heaters that I might want to avoid.

Thanks!

[Coolhand]

Hey Guybehindawall,

As a third option, you might look at doing a surge tank. We currently run about 1,500 BBL/Year off a similar sized CO2 system and were having (expected, I suppose) regulators freeze up as well. We did add a heated regulator but the real difference came when we plumbed in a 60 gallon, 200 psi surge tank. Now when our keg cleaner calls for CO2 purges, etc, it can draw on that tank without pulling liquid through the regulator.

Justin

[Dheeraj]

What is your gas consumption per minute? Check your carbonation gas demand + Keg purging + Tank purging gas demands. I guess your gas lines are very small to handle a huge amount of gas demand. Ask your gas technician to design the line as per the demand. A bigger diameter line could help.

Thanks

[TGTimm]

Yes, a vaporizer between the tank and your primary reg. We run two 750 lb Dewars and it works great.

When it's extremely cold outside--sub-zero F--and we're using a LOT of CO2, I have had to put a small space heater on the vaporizer. This rarely happens.