# Yeast Co2 - with a difference



## beeky (11 Dec 2007)

Hi all,

I bought a dennerle CO2 bio-line (I think it's called) kit which is a bottle of sugar gel, a capsule of yeast, a 'Topper' (CO2 diffuser), bubble counter, insulated box and some tubing. So far, I'm not impressed. The gel is supposed to keep the CO2 production fairly constant and longer lasting than the normal mix. They claim a month. It took 3 days for my first bubbles to appear and the rate is about 1 bubble every minute. The CO2 collects in the 'Topper' which is just a box that water flows around and 'absorbs' the CO2.

Anyway, the point of the post was I was wondering whether I could make up my own gel, bearing in mind the official bottles cost just over a fiver. I found some links on the net where people have done exactly that, but without any views on whether it worked or not.

I then had a eureka moment. Could I make up a gelatine mixture and intead of adding the whole lot to the bottle, put it in an ice cube tray and add a couple of cubes every few days?

Am I barking?


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## Matt Holbrook-Bull (11 Dec 2007)

doesnt sound like their magic gel is any better than the good old sugar/water/yeast mixes weve all done, infact, sounds a bit slower to start as you cant use a yeast starter in it.

dont see any reason why you coudlnt make your own gel, but id use a pectin base, rather than gelatin.. not sure how the animal product based gelatin would react in the yeast, might go extremely yukky


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## beeky (11 Dec 2007)

I see what you mean, good idea.


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## Mr G (31 Dec 2007)

Some time ago I did try a gelatine based yeast CO2 method and it seemed to work ok.  The mix produced co2 bubbles at a lower rate than the usual method, but it did last for a few weeks.  The main problem was the mess that was left in the bottles at the end.  Thankfully I was using disposable 'pop' bottles so I just threw them away at the end.

I don't have the recipe for it anymore as it was about 18months ago and I don't use yeast based systems anymore ........ it does work, however I found the normal yeast/sugar/water method gave me higher CO2 rates and even the weekly mixture changes were far less bother than mixing up the gelatin each time.

Al


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