Carbonating water at home

[KitchenQueen]

I'd like to try carbonated beverages at home. I'm sick of club soda with the salt taste. If I could just get plain fizzy water, I'd love it.

What's the best choice? Do they work?

I want really fizzy though. One person household. Don't need a 200 pound behemoth to store.

[cdh]

I've not been in the seltzer bottle market for a while, but I can tell you a few things I learned a while back.

1. Some metal bottles will leave a metalic taste in your fizzy water. Not very tasty. If you feel the urge to buy a metal one, do it from someplace that has a satisfaction guarantee.

2. There are at least two different and incompatible types of CO2 chargers. There are the ordinary metal capsules, and there are metal capsules with little plastic widgets on top. The latter, called Kisag chargers, are tough to find and expensive. Avoid products that use them.

3. The ordinary chargers can be quite expensive some places. Best deal I've run across, thanks to somebody here on eG who pointed it out, is at www.bestwhip.com.

Some crazy DIYers have modified 2L PET soda bottles with tire valve stems and use a regulated CO2 tank... google around and a how-to will come up.

I use 5 gallon stainless steek soda kegs to keg my homebrewed beer, and have one of them dedicated to seltzer... also gassed by a regulated CO2 tank.

What's your budget, and what sort of space restrictions have you got?

[KitchenQueen]

I've not been in the seltzer bottle market for a while, but I can tell you a few things I learned a while back.

1. Some metal bottles will leave a metalic taste in your fizzy water.  Not very tasty.  If you feel the urge to buy a metal one, do it from someplace that has a satisfaction guarantee.

2. There are at least two different and incompatible types of CO2 chargers.  There are the ordinary metal capsules, and there are metal capsules with little plastic widgets on top.  The latter, called Kisag chargers, are tough to find and expensive.  Avoid products that use them.

3. The ordinary chargers can be quite expensive some places.  Best deal I've run across, thanks to somebody here on eG who pointed it out, is at www.bestwhip.com.

Some crazy DIYers have modified 2L PET soda bottles with tire valve stems and use a regulated CO2 tank...  google around and a how-to will come up.

I use 5 gallon stainless steek soda kegs to keg my homebrewed beer, and have one of them dedicated to seltzer... also gassed by a regulated CO2 tank.

What's your budget, and what sort of space restrictions have you got?

←

Up to say 150-200 bucks? If it worked. I'm a single female .Normal home. I'd think I need something I could keep on a normal overstuffed countertop. Cause if it worked, I'd probably use it a lot. Fizzy water,lemonade, you get my drift here.

I'd think refills of CO2 wouldn't have to be frequent. Has my ignorance of this topic shown through yet? I could not modify a birdhouse, so I won't go there.

Tire valves? Get real, I'm still trying to figure what the ones on my tires are for. LOL. We're talking simpleton here.

Ballpark, 15 inches tall, 10 inches wide. Makes 30-60 glasses of non metallic tasting fizzy a month for maybe $15.00 monthly after initial investment.

Does that exist?

And thanks so much for your reply. The metallic taste comment for example.

Had I bought something like that, I would have been DELUXE peeved.

[gfron1]

Just to give you a sense. I just bought an ISI soda siphon for $57.95 and the chargers for about .75cents per cannister which makes 3-5 drinks. We do fizzy water with Armenian fruit syrups almost nightly. Much better than canned soda, but the 75 cents are going to add up I fear. However, we love our siphon. And the ISI version is very sylish so we like it on our counter.

[cdh]

If you've got $100-200 to spend, and figure you'll get a couple of glasses of fizzy a day's use out of it, I'd have to recommend going with something like what I've got:

1 5 gallon soda keg - ~$20 at Adventures in Homebrewing

1 CO2 regulator and connection kit - ~$60 at the Beverage Factory

1 5 lb CO2 tank ~$57 also at the Bev Factory (and you'll need someplace local to fill it for you... ~$10-20)

With all of that, you will be able to make 5 gallons of fizzy at a time, and the 5lb tank should last you about a year. And you could save counter space by getting a longer tap connector hose and stowing the keg and tank somewhere out of the way. Mine is down in the basement, and the hose is fed up through the hole in the floor that the fridge's ice maker line goes through. The only thing you see in the kitchen is a thin vinyl hose with a tap on it on the side of the fridge. When your fizzy runs out, you throw a bunch of ice and water into the keg, turn up the gas pressure, and give it a shaking to dissolve the CO2 into solution. Once enough gas is in there, you can turn down the pressure and enjoy.

That setup will be much more easy and economical than a countertop setup. The ISI costs you $60 upfront, and then $.75 per quart... the keg way costs $150 upfront, but that cost covers the first 100+ gallons.

Edited January 18, 2007 by cdh (log)

[mhjoseph]

Check out www.sodaclub.com. We have one and use it almost daily. The flavorings I don't think are that great but I think they send you a sampler so you can decide for yourself.

[cdh]

That sodaclub equipment does look good. It does, however, appear to be a proprietary system, so you're dependent upon their future wellbeing in order to keep using the equipment. If they stop selling CO2 refills, you'd be out of luck. (A situation I found myself in when I bought a metal soda bottle from Williams Sonoma that requires Kisag charges... and then WS stopped stocking them and I couldn't find them anywhere else.... it made awful metallic soda, so not much loss... but frustrating nonetheless.)

Edited January 18, 2007 by cdh (log)

[lindag]

Could it be possible to 're-fizz' carbonated liquids using a device such as the Soda Stream?

[cdh]

Could it be possible to 're-fizz' carbonated liquids using a device such as the Soda Stream?

It is certainly possible.  Put the flat stuff in the fridge to get cold, hit it with CO2 and shake the heck out of it.  Put it back in the fridge to settle down and you'll have re-fizzed your flat stuff.

[rotuts]

what you really want is a PrueFizz

 

there is a thread on this.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Mastrad-A01900-Purefizz-Soda-Maker/dp/B00FKVRY1M%3Fpsc%3D1%26SubscriptionId%3DAKIAJFZBGQRZWHATUQKA%26tag%3Dthebespro09-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3DB00FKVRY1M/

 

a bazillion times better than SodaStream

 

works best for white wine !

 

this is known now as M.R.

 

methode rotuts

 

 

Edited July 31, 2015 by rotuts (log)

[lindag]

what you really want is a PrueFizz

 

there is a thread on this.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Mastrad-A01900-Purefizz-Soda-Maker/dp/B00FKVRY1M%3Fpsc%3D1%26SubscriptionId%3DAKIAJFZBGQRZWHATUQKA%26tag%3Dthebespro09-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3DB00FKVRY1M/

 

a bazillion times better than SodaStream

 

works best for white wine !

 

this is known now as M.R.

 

methode rotuts

 

 

Are you serious about this?  I actually have a soda siphon in the closet that I've never used.  Do you know if it can be used somehow to make tonic water?

I will definitely dig mine out and try it with a few different things; this could be the beginning of something big!!! 

[rotuts]

if you go through the fizz thread   ( sorry I can't find it )

 

it discussed SodaStream and others and I commented on the PureFizz which I love.

 

I Fizz'd up some Tj's lowest shelf dry white  ( its moved up one shelf to shelf # 3  [ed.: #4 is the lowest self]  I wonder why -- maybe volume purchase's 

 

by somebody ? )

 

that that was walled Methode Rotuts   ( not by me BTW ) and has a splinter thead.

 

some where on those thirds I think there was a ref. to making you own 'tonic' i.e. quinine water.

 

can't be that difficult.

 

you might look here :

 

making your own tonic water

Edited July 31, 2015 by rotuts (log)

[SLB]

cdh, thanks so much for the re-fizz instruction.  This is great!

[cdh]

Yup.  Colder liquids can dissolve more CO2, so get it as cold as you can without freezing it.   Make sure your bottle matches the amount of liquid you want to refizz...  you'll not get good results with 4 oz of liquid at the bottom of a 32oz bottle that is already full of air.  Get the air out or get a  smaller bottle.  Dunno if you can do that with a SodaStream... I can with my CO2 tank and standard carbonator cap that screws onto the usual size bottle opening...

[weedy]

I do it in the ISI whipper with co2 cartridges.

No need for another device.

[cdh]

The ISI issue is the bottle size matching thing, just like the sodastream.  With carbonator caps or other such things, you can pick smaller bottles, or squeeze the air out and make sure that the headspace is almost all CO2.  Dunno what size ISI you've got, but I'd wager you've seen better results when the chamber is mostly full, and worse results when more air than liquid is in there.

Edited August 3, 2015 by cdh (log)

[JoNorvelleWalker]

The ISI issue is the bottle size matching thing, just like the sodastream.  With carbonator caps or other such things, you can pick smaller bottles, or squeeze the air out and make sure that the headspace is almost all CO2.  Dunno what size ISI you've got, but I'd wager you've seen better results when the chamber is mostly full, and worse results when more air than liquid is in there.

 

MC says to vent the headspace.  Dave Arnold says to leave a lot of room.  Neither is really necessary for good results I've found.  Hic.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I do it in the ISI whipper with co2 cartridges.

No need for another device.

 

There are other gasses.

[Deephaven]

I could not find a thread on carbonating water.  It is the drink of choice in our house.  We are about to remodel our kitchen and I’d like to have carbonated water on tap.  Currently we have what I refer to as a redneck soda stream.  It consists of taking 2L bottles of ¾ full water and putting them in the fridge until they are cold.  Squeezing the air out and injecting 60psi/4bar of CO2 into the bottles and shaking them.

 

This is the current setup.  I ran a copper tube into the basement where I have a 20lb C02 container.  There is a pressure gauge and ball valve under the sink.  I started with a shrader valve screwed into a pop top, but someone else on Amazon invented a better widget for that.

 

 

 

This makes extremely carbonated water.  I am addicted to the carbonation level and water like San Pellegrino with it’s minimal bubbles is just not exciting to me.

 

There seem to be a few different methods of having cold carbonated water on tap.

-A carbonator running into a cold plate in an icemaker

-Compact remote chiller

-A cornelius keg in a fridge

 

In our current design we do have a place for the icemaker/cold plate and had contemplated that as a solution, but wondering what you all think or have experience with?

Edited August 15, 2023 by Deephaven
Picture link fail (log)

[weinoo]

I have experience with these...

 

[gfweb]

And there is, of course, Methode rotuts

[Raamo]

Well at tons of resturants they must use a ton of carbonated water to mix with syrup to get soda....

 

Can you carbinate it then get it cold, or do you need to carbonate the cold water.

 

My wife does this the soda stream way - cold water then carbonate it.

[Deephaven]

Water that is warm and carbonated looses it's carbonation nearly instantly when exposed to air.  Most carbonator setups I've seen have the cooling after the carbonator pump so I assumed that is what I would do.

 

[btbyrd]

I used to have a similar system to your "redneck SodaStream," a 10lb tank with pressure gauge and ball value that used a Liquid Bread carbonator cap to carbonate in 2L soda bottles. Though the carbonation it provided was excellent and the CO2 was inexpensive, the setup was ugly and ungainly in use. So I'm back to using a SodaStream to carbonate water and a DrinkMate to carbonate everything else. I've been force carbonating a lot of gin and tonics this summer (along with a lot of cheap white wine). The cost of the CO2 sucks, but the results are good enough and it looks good on the counter.

 

If I do ever go the full "on tap" route, I think the coldplate in the freezer is probably what I'd do. Mostly because I'm not familiar with remote chillers and because I'm not nuts about the look of the "keg in the fridge" setup. But ice machines are big, loud, unreliable, and often heat up your kitchen. And it seems kind of excessive, but if you've got the desire and budget, I guess it's the thing to do (especially if you're already going through the trouble of a remodel).

 

For people who aren't already hip to this kind of thing, Dave Arnold has a good, very lengthy overview of his home seltzer tap rig. Let's all agree to forgive him for that COVID19 mustache.

 

 

[cdh]

For your setup, I might consider one of these. (eG-friendly Amazon.com link)  I've got one and it is wonderful for keeping fizzy things fizzy... open a liter of tonic and make a drink.  Screw on a Fizzgiz cap and squeeze the air out of the bottle, then hit the cap with the CO2 injector and repressurize the bottle and its contents... toss the bottle in the fridge and it acts like it was never opened.  You've got the passage from basement to kitchen already set up, so keeping your tank in the cellar and having the carbonator in the kitchen should work.  And the Fizzgiz tubing is tiny, so not a space consuming ugly thing...