Cedar Rapids Brewing Society

Does anyone know a good source locally for beer gas or straight nitro? Hawkeye Fire & Safety are telling me they won't fill a bottle, while Matheson and Airgas are telling me it's $50-$80 to swap out a 5 lb tank.

Wow, I hope there is a better source. Tons of bars here have nitro so must be doable somehow.

I think bars are pouring the CO2 N2 combo. I think it is 80% N 20% CO2.

Yep, that beer blend is exactly what I've been quoted at $50 for a 5 lb bottle.

Wow. At that rate welders would have trouble affording it. Last time I filled my blend bottle it was less than $20 for the gas.

Is there a different price for a fill rather than a swap?

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Nope, same price. Where did you get it filled? What size bottle do you have?

That seems excessive unless they need to go with a UHP or better grade to have it branded as 'food safe'.

I'm also interested as the wife has a nitro line on my to do list... eventually.

Hmm, kinda numbed about the price tag, would love to build a nitro kegerator

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A lot of bars are running what's called a blender box. The blender box takes a 100% Nitrogen tank and 100% co2 tank and blends them to the specific blend it was manufactured to be set at. Typically its 70% co2/30% Nitrogen. When using this setup they use 50lb tanks of each gas, not a blended tank. Now there are some bars that still use "beergas" which is the 75% Nitrogen/ 25% co2 blend which is bad for maintaining carbonation throughout the dispensing of the keg. The reason they are harder to get and more expensive is because they are not filled here in Cedar Rapids and brought up from Davenport (and I believe they get it from somewhere out of state). Almost all the gas providers get it from the same place. I have a 10lb tank that I got through work that was $100 through Matheson that I run my nitro line on. Just buckle up and pay the steep price if you want it.

Thanks for the good info. That's more than I care to spend so I'm probably just going to give up on my dream of a nitro tap.

Are the blenders expensive? Could you run off existing CO2 and add a nitro tank?

Yeah, they're expensive: http://rapidswholesale.com/trumix-gas-b ... panel.html

If you use enough nitro-CO2 blend it will eventually pay for itself. But that's a lot.

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Think I am off the nitro then.

FWIW, Micromatic has a nice short discussion of why blended gas is good for other beers as well. See http://www.micromatic.com/dispensing-beer-blended-gases

If I ever win the lottery I'll probably add a MM200 to my drafting system. A friend has one and I can vouch for its superiority over blended gas bottles for serving stout and other beers.

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A coworker is setting up his basement bar and decided he wanted nitro coffee so he picked up a tank online and called Hawkeye. He was told by Hawkeye to go to Praxair, they did a bottle exchange for $21 for straight nitro. Not sure what they charge if you don't already have a tank or for beer gas, but might want to check with them.