Nitro cold brew and diving

[Chap77]

A total non important question I had while standing in line at the local coffee shop. If you were to get a Nitrogen infused drink could this put you are increased risk for DCS? Thanks for answering this super duper important question!

 

[JMBL]

Nitrogen infused drink ? Fear you won't find that many on the market. As a F&B professional, the only example I have ever met, face to face, so to speak, is Guinness on draft (keg connected to an N2 tank instead of CO2). It was advertised that way some years ago in France and was supposed to avoid getting the beer sour and getting a denser and 'creamier' foam. Btw, you'd be curious to know if anyone knows any other N2 drink.

As far as DCI is concerned, my highly competent and scientific opinion is : you'd get an increase risk of burping !

 

[kaylee_ann]

well, regular scuba breathing gas contains the same percentages of oxygen and nitrogen as surface air does (21/79). you don't carry residual nitrogen from said surface air. actually, you off-gas when you surface. the issues come in when you're breathing compressed gas under pressure. you'll absorb more nitrogen when you dive due to the increased pressure. take notice of how your NDL on a 50 foot dive is much longer than what it would be at 100 feet.
when you drink the nitrogen infused drink, it's not under pressure and neither are you. so the nitrogen would just circulate through your body just as surface air does, I would think. maybe not the same since you're not breathing it in, but I can't imagine it having any meaningful effect on your dive. plus the nitrogen content in that drink is probably a lot less than 79 percent.

 

[Saltwater_Parrot]

This is an interesting question. To clarify what the OP means by nitrogen-infused, they are referring to drinks that are charged with nitrogen instead of CO2 (ie a coke can with N2 gas rather than CO2).

At the surface, this would not have any effects, in my opinion. You are under normal surface conditions -- you are already saturated with nitrogen and would simply expel the gas as your body will maintain equilibrium with the environment.

If you were to somehow drink this while diving, though, I suppose it is possible. The greatest limiting factor in this case would be your stomach, though. The surface area of your stomach is a fraction of the surface area of your lungs and is not optimized for gas exchange, while your lungs are designed for efficient gas exchange. Could a few grams at most of N2, in your stomach, result in more N2 permeating into tissues? Possibly.

 

[Jcp2]

Nitrogen infused drink ? Fear you won't find that many on the market. As a F&B professional, the only example I have ever met, face to face, so to speak, is Guinness on draft (keg connected to an N2 tank instead of CO2). It was advertised that way some years ago in France and was supposed to avoid getting the beer sour and getting a denser and 'creamier' foam. Btw, you'd be curious to know if anyone knows any other N2 drink.

As far as DCI is concerned, my highly competent and scientific opinion is : you'd get an increase risk of burping !

Pepsi Nitro is new. I wouldn’t worry about nitrogen gas absorption. It makes a creamy head with a hard pour, but because nitrogen is not very soluble, tastes really flat with only tiny sense of fizz. Easy to drink quickly and no sense of burping, unlike Diet Pepsi.

 

[rongoodman]

How do you suppose the nitrogen in your drink might get from your stomach into your bloodstream? There are no alveoli in the digestive tract.

 

[Gone for diving]

I was going to say...
only if you inhale it..
If you do, you'll have other more serious problems than nitrogen absorption

 

[Mod63]

Nitrogen infused drink ? Fear you won't find that many on the market. As a F&B professional, the only example I have ever met, face to face, so to speak, is Guinness on draft (keg connected to an N2 tank instead of CO2). It was advertised that way some years ago in France and was supposed to avoid getting the beer sour and getting a denser and 'creamier' foam. Btw, you'd be curious to know if anyone knows any other N2 drink.

As far as DCI is concerned, my highly competent and scientific opinion is : you'd get an increase risk of burping !

Guinness in cans in Germany, contains a ball with N2 to make it creamy.

 

[rongoodman]

Guinness in cans in Germany, contains a ball with N2 to make it creamy.

Here in the U.S. too. The next best thing to draft.

 

[kelemvor]

There's a whole slew of nitro beers these days such as the popular boddington's, guinness, and many others. It's actually called "beergas" as it's a mixture of C02 and Nitrogen, not 100% nitrogen. There are also quite a lot of coffee and tea beverages that are sold with nitrogen carbonation. No idea if they're also using a mix or not. Some of those coffee and tea beverages are sold by big brands such as starbucks. Most beer bars will have at least a couple beergas beers as well as a couple of others. Reasonably certain the coffee and teas they have on tap are using beergas in that instance.

This post was the first time I'd heard of soda on nitro, but after a quick search it appears all the major soda brands have a nitro soda these days. lots of nitro energy drinks as well.

Beergas is normally 30/70 (co2/nitro).