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Boston area Co2 refills?
I recently updated to a kegging system and couldnt be more excited. There is one issue... I am having some trouble locating a place that will fill my tank with food grade Co2 in the area. The brew store in Cambridge will swap your tank out with one of their for $25, but I think that is insanely expensive.
Where do you Boston guys fill your tanks?
I am not from Boston, but I go to Abco, a local industrial gas supply. But it's about the same deal. Swap 5# tanks for about 20 bucks.
$25 Bucks for CO2 and "rental" of the Gas Bottle is actually fairly cheap .
Ive seen where you have to pay a deposit of $100 or More on the Bottle and then a monthly rental on the Bottles as well as paying for the Co2 .
Well, I purchased my own 5# bottle, so all I need is the gas. I don't want to swap out my nice new bottle for some old grungy thing and pay a deposit for a rental. Maybe I am asking for too much?
BrewRob wrote:
Well, I purchased my own 5# bottle, so all I need is the gas.
Well that was your first mistake.
When I first started kegging 7 years ago, I was suckered into the new tank as part of the homebrew kegging package. I couldn't find a convenient location for fills, only swaps. I live north of the city in Chelmsford MA.
Maybe if you look around in and around the city you'll find someone that does fills.
I'd check with welding supply shops and fire suppression shops.
I eventually just gave up my new tank (for free) into the swap program for the cost of the fill $7. The bottles I get on swap are usually just as "nice" looking as what my new tank was.
The other factor here is that eventually someone will make a judgement call on your tanks "validation" and they won't refill it. That should be years from now though. However, when that day comes you'll probably just want to get into the swap program. Eventually, you'll want to tanks as well. That's what I do, so I always have a full one. I find the swap program just easier.
I ended up buying the tank because it came as a really inexpensive package deal (http://www.homebrewing.org/Homebrew-Keg … 21-69.html). To add a bottle it was an extra $20 on the website as opposed to $100 at my LHBS for a full 5#. In total, with some upgrades and shipping, my kit came to about $125. My LHBS wanted $220 for the same EXACT setup I just purchased!
i searched a few other forums and found some good Boston area options for Co2 fills (not swaps) including a Fire Suppression place and a welding supply place in Watertown. Both these folks will fill your own 5# tank for under $15.
go to The Boston Wort Processors wiki page for a regularly updated list of CO2 dealers in the Boston area.
If you're wanting to hang with a bunch of beer and brewing geeks, check out the Wort's homebrew club webpage.
Yup that was a shameless plug,,, 
This may sound odd, but I work in the retail lumber business. Unfortunately about 2 hrs from Boston. But, there is a fairly new product on the market called a jac-pak. It is a personal portable 'compressor' to run nail guns for small jobs. The kit comes with a regulator and a co2 tank, like for a paint ball gun. We actually re-fill them. We charge like $3.50 for a 20 ounce. And yes I checked, it is food grade co2. I do not have a keg system, yet. (still waiting on Santa) But when I do, I will fill right here at work.
So, my long winded point is, most of your local yards may carry the jac-pak, and may have gotten into re-filling them.
Good Luck!
Interesting about the Jac Pac. I did a quick google search and it didn't return much in general... nothing in the area that was immediately obvious to me.
Great to hear about a local brew club. When is the next meeting?
1n1m3g wrote:
go to The Boston Wort Processors wiki page for a regularly updated list of CO2 dealers in the Boston area.
If you're wanting to hang with a bunch of beer and brewing geeks, check out the Wort's homebrew club webpage.
Yup that was a shameless plug,,,
Yeah, but it's a good shameless plug....
ricka182 wrote:
1n1m3g wrote:
go to The Boston Wort Processors wiki page for a regularly updated list of CO2 dealers in the Boston area.
If you're wanting to hang with a bunch of beer and brewing geeks, check out the Wort's homebrew club webpage.
Yup that was a shameless plug,,,Yeah, but it's a good shameless plug....
So good in fact I went to the website. I may have to go to a meeting eventually.
Unfortunately, the Worts already had their December meeting...thank you Sam Adams!
Not sure of the date just yet for the January meeting, but it's usually a weeknight evening. It will probably be held in the Concord area, but details are still being finalized.
DT
First of all, what is food grade co2? second of all, I went to a hobby shop, and they told me they would fill any size bottle with their co2 for 5 bucks, it's the co2 they use for the paint ball guns. Is there a difference between these two co2's?
As far as I know it is not the actual gas that is food grade - it is the container. Food grade co2 goes into bottles that are glass lined, and is used for soda, beer etc. Industrial grade goes into bottles that are not lined, and there is the possibility of rust forming and contaminating the food. Kind of like if you were to open a canned food and eat it, and the inside of the can had rust on it.
bruguru wrote:
First of all, what is food grade co2? second of all, I went to a hobby shop, and they told me they would fill any size bottle with their co2 for 5 bucks, it's the co2 they use for the paint ball guns. Is there a difference between these two co2's?
OK so where is this place at? I went to a paintball store and they wanted $35 to fill my 5# tank...
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