Purging with helium?

Northern Brewer General
1

I’m wanting to brew a gose. I don’t have a CO2 setup, but I do have a helium tank. Does anyone know if I can purge the headspace in my kettle with helium? I can’t seem to find any information on this, good or bad. Thanks.

2

I don’t see why that wouldn’t work. I’m no chemist but I don’t think helium is toxic. IIRC someone once made a beer using helium vs CO2.

3

Thanks, I know helium is a non-toxic inert gas, but I was wondering if it would affect the wort on a molecular level. I’m no scientist, I was just hoping someone had done the experiment before me.

4

From my understanding it is very difficult to get the helium absorbed into beer so I think you’ll be fine.

5

Thats daffy :rofl:

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6

No no no. Helium is a finite resource. It cannot be “made” like other gases or recaptured from the atmosphere. Supplies have dwindling globally and it’s an essential tool in scientific research. Once helium is gone that’s it.

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7

Seems like you’d have trouble purging with it since it’s so much lighter than air and so small it’s going to leak out.

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8

I do dive lots with. Hellium. It a inert gas. But under pressure. It creates. Bubbles in your blood stream. Miss a deco stop. You get decompression sickness. Not sure. It might. Carbobonate While kegging. Only way to find out try. You got a tank of hellium anyway. Its a the moment to most expensive. Gas to buy. The world does run out of hellium. Only russia got lots of hellium left. Solution. Run a big hose to outer space. Suck it up haha. At the dive shop we do pay for. A industrial gas tank. 400 dollars

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9

Purging with Helium will not do you much good its lighter that air.

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10

While I agree “heavier than air” is not a catch all. In the video you can see that mercury vapor which is way more heavier than air goes wherever it wants. I think the th OP’s case the tank being under pressure would be enough to purge

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11

Even though the Helium is under pressure you assume that it would replace the other gas’s. The problem is that the solubility of helium in a solution is vary low. But solubility with other gas’ is high. Being that its under pressure you would push some degree. of the other gas’s from the head space of the fermenter. But it would not create a protected lay of gas against oxygen.

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I believe this is a moot point. Evidence suggests that using Lactobacillus in aerobic environments does not result in butyric acid. Rather it’s another contaminate. With that said I purge to try to push other contaminants out of the head space.

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I’m just saying that heavier than air is a misnomer in most circumstances. Some put too much faith in gases forming layers. As one can see in that video those mercury vapors rise and do not fall even though they are heavier than air. Helium is so often used in science experiments there probably is a modified Basic room purge equation out there somewhere.
Maybe the OP could purge with pharmaceutical argon as well as an experiment.

14

HHMMM
Sneezles61

15

I have to go with the lighter than air crowd. Sounds like a waste of time and expensive gas to me.

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