Question on a replacement of baking soda in DIY CO2

[gu2high]

I have read that the baking soda is to buffer the acid solution in a DIY CO2 bottle. Can I just add a handful of crushed coral instead? I guess it will buffer the acid solution too and it can be re-used. Has anyone tried it?

Also, people use cooked rice to make alcohol. I guess I can use it to produce CO2 and it maybe cheaper than sugar.

 

[Purrbox]

It's very easy to add too much baking soda to a DIY CO2 generator and kill the yeast. Since the crushed coral gives you much less control over the amount of buffering you are adding, it becomes much easier to kill the yeast by mistake. The other factor that would make this more difficult is that the crushed coral will slowly be disolved reducing it's buffering capability. Not to say you couldn't use crushed coral, just some factors that should be taken into consideration.