First Hand Report - DIY CO2 generator via the Sugar/Yeast approach... My findings...

So after reading on the DIY C02 topic. I decided that since I already had some 5 gal. carbuoy's and rubber stopper/air locks lying around, why not try and
setup one of these DIY rigs and see if the output would be anywhere near the effort...

So at my local Costco I picked up a giant bag of sugar and they even had a 'Costco' sized thing of yeast. Just add water...

I got home and on a Thursday started the rig up. I added considerable amount of sugar and a modest amount of yeast and let it sit... I had read that you could
see activity sometimes within an hour... maybe two or three.... for me it took too long and I quit waiting/watching and went on about my day...

The next morning I wasn't impressed but there was a little bubbling going on... maybe 1 or 2 bubbles per minute. The airlock itself is a fairly large inner diameter
tube so each bubble wasn't 'tiny' by any means... it was accompanied by a nice large "glug" of the water in the trap each time it bubbled.

Being that it was purely an experiment I threw in more sugar. Quite a bit more. Then why not... here's some MORE yeast... a lot more.. 4-5 tablespoons worth at least.

Time goes by... THen the next I day I notice WOW... she's bubbling all right. A good big GLUG GLUG double-bubbling nearly every second. So, given the ability to
distribute said gas byproduct... I could see where this could potentially work for a very small space.... micro-grows that don't need to exhaust for quite some time
while the CO2 level built up... otherwise the plan container and its base would be hovering in the CO2 rich air since CO2 is heavier (right?) but it wouldn't necessarily
be saturating the air around your leaves unless allowed adequte time to build up.

The sad part... this frenzy of bubbling lasted only 3-4 days and then fizzled out.... I suspect (based on wine/beer fermenting) that the alcohol content of the water
may have gotten to a point where it was killing off the yeast... I doubt they consumed ALL of the sugar that I put in there. I don't know for sure but the facts would point to this.

Perhaps if I drained off some and added plain old water and gave her a shake it'd kick off again... If I try that I'll report it back here...

Long & short of it... If you're doing some micro/stealth grow AND have room for a big 5 gal. carbuoy... maybe it's worth the time, effort and oh yeah... STINK... For this kiddo
I'll just save my money up and look into a long-term investment in a real CO2 solution.

I suspect this is probably the truth for any of those C02 'boosters' you see out there.... Am I wrong? Is there a better DIY I should try? Or one of those blocks that looks like
spoiled cheese they have at the local hydro store? I'm thinking none will be worth it.... You can't beat a bottled source of the gas itself....

I brew beer, wine and spirits. Chances are unless the temps were right, it's just slow.

My suggestion, invert the sugars ahead of time by adding it to water at about 130f. This makes a nice syrup. Also, order packets of turbo yeasts, these yeasts can survive to around 20% or higher and also contain nutrients. I've heard standard bakers yeast goes to around 14% but I have no experience using them.

So for a recipe, it would be about 7lbs of sugars to 5 gallons of water. Just heat water to 130, add sugar, once dissolved and cooled down add the turbo yeast (70's 80 tops). The yeast prefers something like 80f but I have some fermenting at like 60 fine (but slow). You can also use a pump and air stone to aerate prior to adding the yeast, in this environment the yeast will use up the oxygen to reproduce prior to producing alcohol + co2.

I'm planning on trying something similar to this, but don't really know if it it'll be much of a boost. I don't know what the conversion is from sugar to ethanol + co2, I've heard its about 50% of the weight of the sugar.

I suppose a seed germination mat under the bottle could be used to boost temps. Add temp. regulator if you need to dial it in better.
Or if using a compatible container, aquarium heater to hold the temp. at the ideal range for the yeast strain being used...

I know I brewed beer once and on my 1st go I thought I like Honey Brown... so I'll add honey to a dark stock.
Well... I added honey but didn't reduce/substitute the amount of sugar I added. The lady at the local winery giggled
about it and gave me a pack of little white powder to add.. she said to add that, wait a day and then add yeast again
and that somehow let it do almost a secondary fermentation... it was STRONG beer to say the least.

So yeah... I was trying to stick with items available at the local stores and especially in bulk... so specialized yeast
wouldn't fit that criteria but if someone were set in their mind that they wanted to do this... I'd definitely get the best yeast you can.

Also - the carbuoy I used is a 'Better Bottle' which includes a little spigot which would make maintaining the jug of stink juice a tad bit
easier... of course a 5 gal. homer bucket from HD and a drill-bit and a spigot from online/local hydro store works just as well.

I'm convinced to use a tank-based system myself or nothing at all. I'm not into the generator thing in a home grow (extra heat and fire risks)...

Yeah honestly those tank-based systems are better for dialing things it. It's a bit more expensive, but most of the cost is a 1 time bill followed by just filling the tank. Even in the best case scenario with the fermentation route, you're still bending over backwards to keep the yeast happy with relatively little overall gain, as soon as you open up your tent you lost all of your co2.

Thought I'd follow up with this...

How about these links from ebay...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SuperStart-Distillers-Yeast-1-DAP-nutrient-DADY-distill-moonshine-super-co2-/230725428104?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item35b84ea388

So there's some "super yeast" for ya... If you're dead-set to try it... And I couldn't believe this ad...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/CO-2-Crew-CO2-generator-tank-regulator-NEW-KIT-/320491493052?_trksid=p3286.m7&_trkparms=algo%3DLVI%26itu%3DUCI%26otn%3D3%26po%3DLVI%26ps%3D63%26clkid%3D5317816693310344437

Guess you can repackage shit from the Home Brew store and resell it as something else pretty damn easy.... just add some stenciling to your Homer buckets...

So, this could work well for a very small grow, eh? *rubs hands together evily* What about an open pan under the plants and trying to seal the tent bottom (or throwing pots in a clear tupperware) would that even be feasible? I'm thinking the tupperware wouldn't be worth it for the light loss but sealable clear plastic with resuable putty of some kind outside bottom of tent? And what about a sourdough or amish friendship bread type mixture, flour with the sugar so your yeast keeps alive as long as you throw away half and re-mix with feed every few days or once a week. Heck, I couldn't kill off my amish friendship bread dough when I tried to. My big concern would be the yeast introducing a pathgoen if not good quality or if something floats in during a watering, no?

i have used the baking soda/vinegar route, and used it on a pretty big room, just set a syphon with the vinegar to driip into a cup filled with baking soda. use a small airline hose and tie a loose knot , which you then adjust how loose it is in order to get a nice drip drip drip going.
I just started reading about thsese methods and tried it on my dark period so there would be no air recycling, in fact all fans turned off.
after I let it drip for about half an hour i went to check on it and athe container was almost full of vinegar, i guess my drip needs to be adjusted a little better. but instead of messing around with the syphon again i just poured a ton of baking soda into the c and got it bubbling nice and good , just to the point where it was about to foam over. then i closed the room off, sealed eververything I could and let it sit for the rest of the dark cycle. let me tell you though, I have never seen anybodys plant make that much progress in one night as these babies did. My point is that this may be makeshift and unprofessional. and unlsess your rventilation is set up for co2 then you can only do it at night when cooling isnt such a big issuse assuming you are using hid lights, but anyways back to my point. it has showed me real results, and its not hard to do, i made the whole setup for under $10 and its making a real differe nce. I am excited to try the yeast and sugar method and see how they compare. I also hear you can get a co2 sensor for $20-30, its the controllers that are expensive. It would be interesting to add this sensor to the mix and see which method really works the best, and see how much co2 we are actually making. I cant seem to find them for this price, but when reading baout these diy co2 generators, one of the replys was "now we need someone to figure out how to nake a controller out of a $30 sensor. but I cant seem to find these $30 sensors. This is the closest I have found:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/GE-SENSING-SAFEAIRE-T6603-5-CO2-SENSOR-TELAIRE-MODULE-Carbon-Dioxide-detector-/251298868113?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3a82946b91
and with some electronics knowledge you might actually be able to make a controller, but i dont think it has areadout or anything onboard.
either way I dont hink this is even close to what this guy was talkinng about. anyone know where to find these cheap sensors? not like the one li listed. just a simple device with a readout that tells what the current ppm of co2 are in the atmosphere. supposedly they exist but when I canrt find something on ebay, that makes me nervous, but maybe im just looking in the wrong direction
i have used the baking soda/vinegar route, and used it on a pretty big room, just set a syphon with the vinegar to driip into a cup filled with baking soda. use a small airline hose and tie a loose knot , which you then adjust how loose it is in order to get a nice drip drip drip going.
I just started reading about thsese methods and tried it on my dark period so there would be no air recycling, in fact all fans turned off.
after I let it drip for about half an hour i went to check on it and athe container was almost full of vinegar, i guess my drip needs to be adjusted a little better. but instead of messing around with the syphon again i just poured a ton of baking soda into the c and got it bubbling nice and good , just to the point where it was about to foam over. then i closed the room off, sealed eververything I could and let it sit for the rest of the dark cycle. let me tell you though, I have never seen anybodys plant make that much progress in one night as these babies did. My point is that this may be makeshift and unprofessional. and unlsess your rventilation is set up for co2 then you can only do it at night when cooling isnt such a big issuse assuming you are using hid lights, but anyways back to my point. it has showed me real results, and its not hard to do, i made the whole setup for under $10 and its making a real differe nce. I am excited to try the yeast and sugar method and see how they compare. I also hear you can get a co2 sensor for $20-30, its the controllers that are expensive. It would be interesting to add this sensor to the mix and see which method really works the best, and see how much co2 we are actually making. I cant seem to find them for this price, but when reading baout these diy co2 generators, one of the replys was "now we need someone to figure out how to nake a controller out of a $30 sensor. but I cant seem to find these $30 sensors. This is the closest I have found:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/GE-SENSING-SAFEAIRE-T6603-5-CO2-SENSOR-TELAIRE-MODULE-Carbon-Dioxide-detector-/251298868113?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3a82946b91
and with some electronics knowledge you might actually be able to make a controller, but i dont think it has areadout or anything onboard.
either way I dont hink this is even close to what this guy was talkinng about. anyone know where to find these cheap sensors? not like the one li listed. just a simple device with a readout that tells what the current ppm of co2 are in the atmosphere. supposedly they exist but when I canrt find something on ebay, that makes me nervous, but maybe im just looking in the wrong direction

air circulation is more important than having co2 imo. add the co2 once you have a sealed room that is dialed in.

i agree the yeast is stinky and messy. not worth the effort imo.