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posted by martyb on Wednesday June 27 2018, @04:58AM   Printer-friendly
from the sales-are...-flat? dept.

The UK’s biggest wholesaler has begun rationing beer, cider and soft drinks as rising demand amid the heatwave and England’s World Cup campaign comes up against a shortage of food-grade carbon dioxide gas (CO2) which is hitting supplies.

Booker, which supplies thousands of convenience stores including the Londis, Budgens and Premier chains, as well as restaurant chains including Wagamama and Carluccio’s, is limiting beer and soft drinks purchases to 10 cases per customer and cider to five cases. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jun/26/beer-rationed-as-uks-food-grade-carbon-dioxide-runs-low

This is a serious problem as it reads as if they're limiting stores and restaurants. Not individuals though most would not need 10 cases. Unless there was a run on beer :)

Somehow, can't we fix climate change and the beer problem at the same time?


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @07:49AM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @07:49AM (#699192)

    I was looking around at this a few weeks ago and came to the conclusion "maybe food grade has fewer impurities (other gases), or maybe it's exactly the same".

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by MostCynical on Wednesday June 27 2018, @09:37AM (1 child)

    by MostCynical (2589) on Wednesday June 27 2018, @09:37AM (#699203) Journal

    The slight difference between industrial-grade CO2 and food-grade CO2 is the type of tests that are done to qualify CO2 as beverage or beer gas-grade compared to industrial-grade. Currently, the FDA's requirement for food-grade CO2 a 99.90% purity rating. The other .09% is made up of impurities such as hydrocarbons or nitrogen. Industrial grade CO2 is 99% pure CO2, also containing impurities such as hydrocarbons or nitrogen.

    One impurity that all homebrewers should be aware of is benzene. Benzene is a no-no for homebrewers. If the CO2 that you are purchasing has high benzene levels, it will leave you and fellow drinkers with terrible headaches. When I say high levels, we are not talking about much. Benzene is usually an impurity that is referred to in PPB. The benzene level should be around 20 PPB.

    From http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/BN-Army-Blog/C02-Myths-and-Rumors [thebrewingnetwork.com]

    --
    "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
    • (Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday June 27 2018, @11:31AM

      by anubi (2828) on Wednesday June 27 2018, @11:31AM (#699237) Journal

      Thanks! I will be asking about that. I'll come back and thank you with a modpoint when I get some! :)

      --
      "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
  • (Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday June 27 2018, @09:38AM (3 children)

    by anubi (2828) on Wednesday June 27 2018, @09:38AM (#699204) Journal

    As long as those other gases were in the air anyway, I suppose I would not give much of a hoot. As long as they weren't hydrocarbons.

    Preferably not oxygen... well that tends to oxidize things.

    I don't want traces of machine and lubricating oils in my beverage. They probably aren't good for me, I would not like the way they look, floating on top my glass of drink, it would probably taste bad, too.

    I have been getting my CO2 for years from an industrial supplier, I have been told its all the same, and I have not noted making any contaminated batches of sodapop. Matter of fact, I have noted other aluminum cylinders in the system stamped with "PEPSI". Jugs look the same, but painted slightly differently. Same fittings.

    --
    "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @01:25PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @01:25PM (#699284)

      They distil at quite different temperatures, so that makes separation and purification a bit easier.

      I've worked with liquid Nitrogen (which is clear) but never with liquid Oxygen.

      They said that you have to be very careful with LOX because when it's liquid it's much more concentrated than at gas temperatures. And anything that burns or corrodes, burns with it once you manage to ignite it. Also they said that LOX is pale blue, so as long as your CO2 is not pale blue I think you're OK :-)

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @09:12PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @09:12PM (#699492)

      I don't want traces of machine and lubricating oils in my beverage. They probably aren't good for me, I would not like the way they look, floating on top my glass of drink, it would probably taste bad, too.

      I'd suggest then taking the advice I was given by an ex merchant navy sparky who spent most of the 60's and 70's drinking his way around the world 'never drink any of the beers sold in any of the port bars in South America', from his tales of woe, machine and lubricating oils would be the least of your worries, and just be thankful you're not into Scrumpy [wikipedia.org], you'd probably get mildly concerned about the fact that some of the containers used by some of the smaller farm 'labels' for shipping look suspiciously like recycled old herbicide/pesticide ones...still, it all adds to the bouquet and mystique, besides, that which does not kill us &etc...
         

      • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 28 2018, @07:42AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 28 2018, @07:42AM (#699716)

        That sounds suspiciously like the stories my Grandpa used to tell me about moonshine, Al Capone's organization, and Prohibition.

        I got the strong idea that those farmers just wanted to be left alone. Yes, a lot of 'em had stills. And what they made was used around the farm. We drank some. Made medicine and salves out of it. Made veterinary supplies with it. Jugs of fine moonshine were also used as a stock in trade... a currency ... a way of storing the essence of your corn that would hold its value for years after you made it. If you did not do something with your excess corn, it rots. But if you did not grow enough corn, your animals had nothing to eat. So the wise farmer always grew a lot more corn than he needed just for insurance everything was gonna get fed, even if you did get a bad month or so in the growing season that stunted your crop.

        But then, we had these guys show up and they wanted us to make it for them, and we got quotas. If we made several gallons for the guy, he would go away for a week or so then come back and want more. Tell that head to go take a hike? Then you wake up one morning and your barn's on fire. So you did what you had to do to make the head go away happy, so it did not make trouble for you. Once that head had laid eyes on you and your farm, either you did what the head told you to do, or you had to find some way to blow it off its mount. Trouble is the heads were far more organized than the farmers. Far more violent, too. Their leadership was based on fear. The only way to get rid of 'em was to get rid of 'em all... but the heads were all over the place and talked to each other, and you had a farm to run.

        So, we gave the head a bunch of stuff we certainly would not drink. He got ALL of the still output... well, everything but the center cut ... ( which was the purest ethanol ). We overran the still so hot that it produced copious quantities of methanol, amyl alcohols, fusel oils, etc. That's the stuff no farmer in his right mind would drink. Make you sicker than a dog. With a hangover to match the mother of all hangovers. But we made a lot of it, so as to keep the heads happy. The heads would collect our jugs, go away, bottle and sell the crap to the city folk.

        The government got wind of how bad this stuff was... and put out all sorts of warnings about it being poison. And they were not kidding.

        Good moonshine is good moonshine. There is a fine art to making this stuff. Done right, its really tasty stuff.

        But when it is made under threat of having one's barn burned down, just pure economics of production with no love or care about making a good product - nah - just doing it to make a buck, or get some head to go away without causing you yet more problems - you will get incredibly bad stuff.

        I imagine you are referring to product made under the same conditions.