Home Made Co2 Tutorial

I would like to attempt the yeqast/sugar method but I read somewhere that yeast dies at 72°F. My box is in my room close to a window a/c unit and the temps have yet to exceed 72°F with the lights on. It drops to 67-68°F at night when the lights are off. Will I have a problem keeping my yeast active at these temps?

I am using 2-42 watt and 6-26 watt cfls and 2 18 inch flourecent aquarium/grow lights. I blocked my intake off a bit in an attempt to slow the air exchange with hopes of higher temps. I was able to pull 74 °F day temp but night temps are still the same as the ventilation fan goes off at lights out.

Any info appreciated. Thanks.

No, it doesn't die at all.. Cold temperatures slow it down though.. It will become dormant somewhere around 50°F, but will reactivate when it warms up.. Pushing it above 120° om the otherhand, well that might kill it..

Hi,

I was trying this method for co2 production and I put the yeast/sugar mix on a shelf on top of my ebb n flow table, it overflew and got into my table. What can I expect to happen? Does it eat my plants? I'm assuming yes since they're made of cellulose. Any ideas?

Tnx

Shouldn't be a problem, might even help..

well ive shopped just about everywhere for my grow ... but this will be the first trip to the supermarket

born2killspam said:

No, it doesn't die at all.. Cold temperatures slow it down though.. It will become dormant somewhere around 50°F, but will reactivate when it warms up.. Pushing it above 120° om the otherhand, well that might kill it..

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Actually thats partially untrue.... As the yeast turns the sugar to alcohol the alcohol then kills the yeast.... its a catch 22... Eventually most of the yeast is killed off by its own bi-product, resulting in a change of solution in order to keep the fermentation process active. Allthough there a slight amount of yeast after a month or 2 the fermenation process has nearly stopped. As the solutions alcohol content rises the amount of yeast drops.
Large or commercial grow ops cannot afford to waste time doing this so this where a co2 tank or generator would be introduced. If you have natural gas in your house ive hear of people using their pilot lights to produce co2... this is very dangerous.

Did I not mention that in this thread? Oops, it seems that all I've been repeating the last few weeks is to not waste more sugar than the yeast can hope to convert and survive..
With baker's yeast, thats about 14% abv, which translates to no more than ~25% sugar by weight..

born2killspam said:

Did I not mention that in this thread? Oops, it seems that all I've been repeating the last few weeks is to not waste more sugar than the yeast can hope to convert and survive..
With baker's yeast, thats about 14% abv, which translates to no more than ~25% sugar by weight..

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Im sure if you go through this thread you will see more posts from the both of us... repeating the same bullshit over and over to the people who dont wanna read the first 5 pages.

damn, i am definitely using this method on the next grow coming up...thanks for the information

12 Plants; ancestory unknown. (a sativa, I believe, really heady high)
soil; unknown. started with large gravel in the bottom of the pot, then a screen, like for a screen door, then a sandy and silt/clay like soil...I can see some iron pyrite like flakes, some crispy green flakes and a few whitish little balls, topped with a mulch of leaf/twig to retain warmth/moisture.
nuts; unknown, except that there are some added to the soil, so, I'm not adding any.
lights; unknown, 3 of them, 12 watts each, I think they're cfls (there is one bulb shown in one of the pics), suspended on one meter cables from the ceiling, adjustable in length from ceiling and distance from each other. at present, 24/7-I can touch a bulb without getting burned or feel much hotter than holding a womans hand!
grow room; a 4 tatami room, one tatami is about 170cmx80cm. anyway, the room is about 6x10ft. 8 ft high, you do the math, its small, probably closet size for most of you.
temp/humidity; 30 degrees celcius, 40%, constantly. I expect both to drop during flowering as fan/heater are on one timer and lights are on another.
I have a circulation fan, which is on only when the heater is on, its a small ceramic heater, no intake or exhaust fans. the door/s of this room match its width, @6ft/1.7m. I work from home and go in/out of the room many times a day/night, so get plenty of air exchange. I use a timer, exactly like most of you probably have, 24 hr w/ all those little switches.

been reading about the co2, decided to go with just under 2 litters water, a cup of sugar, and a few squirts, one squirt if you pee hard, of my own piss. yes, my own piss! takes a few days to activate, but its working fine. there is literally no odor in the beginning, slight odor after about 8 days. smells like very sour lemonade. I could see a dramatic improvement, much fuller and greener. nothing special, 2 litter bottle, (if you use a ginger ale bottle, it will still look like there is ginger ale in it, lol) water, sugar, pee (a few cc's). no cap, no tubes, no heat, no yeast, shaken (with cap on!), set on the growing table. it will be a clear, ginger color at first, nearly odorless, then turn a cloudy white, thats when it will start to have an odor, as I described above.

time of usefullness, unknown, lol. I started a second one just now and I'll flush the first one in 2 wks or when/if the odor gets too strong, so I'll always have 2 going. I'm not worried about the settling as the fan should always keep it mixed.

cost; whatever sugar costs! and I seldom use it anyway
total cost; about 100 USD!

sorry, there are no pics of the unhealthy, dying plants. I couldn't bear it!

in short, add co2, anyway you can. an increase in growth rate or yield is still an increase at any percentage!

see my grow journal here: https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/124812-1st-grow.html#post1533784

nice just made my little co2 setup thanks for the Thread, but i noticed that my bubbles were going down so i shaked it up and talk about a valcano hahaha got every were..... DONT SHAKE IT UP AROUND YOUR GROW AREA!!!!!.......i got it all cleaned up i think anyways, is that normal if you shake it up to much or what caused that should i take it out of the room and make another one ?? hahaha i dont believe you can give a plant to much co2 but maybe?

The yeast will clump up and rise/fall if you're looking through a clear wall.. And yea there is a lot of CO2 in there ready to be released.. Its good to stir it up once in a while, but be careful..

skunkushybrid said:

The more sugar and yeast you use the longer it lasts.

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eventually, you will need to start over. the yeast consumes teh sugar and produces alcohol. when the alcohol reaches a certain level its lethal to the yeast. your better off starting with fresh water, yeast, and sugar every time.

and dont get it in your rez!!! you dont want these girls to end up with a yeast infection either.

well i noticed that when i shake it up it goes nuts foams up or bubbles up to the cap then place it in between my plants and with in a hour or so there are no more bubbles im guessing i should switch out the yeast and sugar........ but i was worried i saw some brown color on one of the leaves that was closes to the co2 so i took it out for now untell i get some feedback.........wouldnt think that the c02 could do somthing like brown the leaves but maybe if anybody can let me know

maybe some of the foam got on the leaf. otherwise it wasnt the CO2

Basically what happens when it completely ferments all sugar available is:
a)Virtually no more bubbles..
b)Does not taste sweet at all.. Quite dry, maybe medicine-like, or cidery, but not sweet..
c)The solution will begin to clear.. The yeast will settle to the bottom, and when completely settled the wash can be syphoned off..
If all those conditions don't occur then your fermentation is stuck for some reason and you need to give it some new yeast, or more water, or both.. Sometimes just stirring in some O2 is enough to kick it back into action..
The yeast left at the bottom are perfectly capable of innoculating the next batch until its disgustingly contaminated.. That shouldn't happen for 3-4 runs minimum unless you're a real slob.. Many recipes prefer atleast part of the yeast population to be from leftovers.. Also, the survivors are the cells that can tolerate higher etoh levels if you want to look at it from a breeding POV.. If you want a more perpetual system you should go with aerobic yeast respiration.. Rather than producing alcohol, you're reproducing yeast, and 3x as much CO2 from the sugar added, and it can be perpetually added.. With this method though its crucial you feed the yeast a balanced nutritious diet of NPK and micros along with the sugar otherwise they will quickly end up too mutated to reproduce..
I make yeast starters in a homemade Pasteur flask with a filtered air-stone like this, then innoculate larger fermentations (~50Gal) with a few gallons of the starter..

the tutorial was awesome but I still have a few questions. How many plants should a 2 liter bottle feed? Should I buy a co2 meter to try and regulate the co2. I also have an outside exhaust system, how will it effect this type of co2 emission?

Ideally you'd want several 2L bottles with staggered start times to achieve any kind of equilibrium.. If you care about numbers details alot you should really get a burner/tanks..
1 2L bottle with ~1lb of sugar should make about 70000L of ideal plant air..

this may be a silly question but.. If I were to.. say blow a lot of smoke into my grow room, would that explain my leaves having yellow dry spots?