CO2 Tank Comparison

The numbers below are approximations, there are several factors that affect the amount of CO2 is used up when serving beer. For instance, if you fill a 4L Tallboy Keg at a brewery, depending on how they fill it they will do a good job of preserving the carbonation or they won't and you will have to add it back in.

If you want to serve the whole keg at a dinner party in a single evening, that will be no problem at all. But if you put one liter back in the fridge and leave the regulator set to around 10 psi you’re going to fill a mostly empty get with all your gas. I personally find it better to turn the regulator off and just let the beer go slightly flat. It will still be perfectly fresh, just not as bubbly. There is no sense using up an extra cartridge for that little bit of beer.

Now if you have a 5 or 10 liter keg you might want to hook up to a larger tank. Here are rough estimates of the amount of beer you can serve with each size tank.

		Size in ounces	Size in grams	Liters of beer if just dispensing	Liters of beer if force carbonating
	Cartridge	0.5	16	5	1
	SodaStream	14.5	410	80	28
	Paintball	12	340	75	25
	Paintball	20	567	100	33
	Paintball	24	680	150	50
	2.5 lb	40	1130	300	100
	5 lb	80	2270	600	200
	10 lb	160	4540	1200	400