By Jonathan (the husband)
Laura and I found ourselves consistently spending serious bank on sparking water products and overflowing our recycling bin with the empty cans. Settling for tap water may have been an option, but we figured there must be a more sensible way to continue consuming our delicious lightly-fruited bubbly!
Lacroix water, how I love thee.
The solution came to me when my home brewing friend and co-worker asked if I wanted to go in on an order of Cornelius kegs. These multipurpose metallic godsends are tall and slender 5-gallon kegs retired by soft drink companies in the midst of a trend toward the use of “bagged” cola syrup. They can be found for purchase on a variety of home brewing sites or on ebay for $30-$35.
Not being an expert, I took my newly ordered Cornelius keg and headed to my local Cincinnati home brewing store (shout out to Listermann’s @ http://www.listermann.com) where I was guided to purchase the requisite fittings and hose. I already had a CO2 tank for my kegerator so I split the gas line between the beer keg and the soda water. Momentarily ignoring my beer keg, the complete carbonated water system looks identical to this kit diagram which I lifted from kegconnection.com.
The setup. Image from Kegconnection.com. A place to go when you need information on kegs.
Basically you just throw 5 gallons of water in the keg, snap on the CO2 fitting and turn the gas on. Since I only have one pressure regulator and am splitting between kegs, I’ve set the pressure to a conservative 10psi so my beer doesn’t foam over on every pull. However, on a dedicated soda system I’d guess 15psi or so would be optimal. We’ve found the CO2 diffusion can be slow at 10psi. I’ve heard rolling the keg on its side can help to distribute the CO2 but I haven’t tried this. A patient person should have no problem – 3 days and the carbonation will have settled throughout.
So far we’ve only tried lime and lemon water but we couldn’t be happier with the results. This involves using one of those plastic juice squeezer things on fresh limes/lemons and dumping the concentrate into spring water. No artificial sweeteners or preservatives! The product is delicious, we’ve cut our costs nearly in a third and are using far less packaging. Not to mention the flavor possibilities are endless.
I had never even thought of making carbonated drinks at home.
Although I have pretty much cut out all canned pop and carbonated drinks from my diet anyway, this seems like a fun idea.
What a great idea! I love that you came up with this alternative. How many servings would you say each keg provides? Could you do smaller amounts of water so you could change flavors more often?
I love that you found an alternative method to get a taste you love! What a brilliant idea. I second the question Shannan had about changing the flavors…can’t wait to hear the answer, we may just be trying this project soon.
A Cornelius keg is essentially a sixth-barrel which is the equivalent of 5 gallons. That’ll provide about 53 12oz servings. You could certainly only partially fill the keg to have quicker turnover – you’d just waste a little CO2 which is a negligible expense. If you’re looking for smaller containers you may also want to experiment with 2-liter bottles. Just do an internet search for “Carbonator Cap”.
Super-cool. I, too, should consider this. I’m getting the “side-eye” from the trash man because I now have four recycling bins every week. Even though I’m recycling, which is good, I’d like to cut down on the overall amount of garbage I produce.
Great idea! Who knew?
We bought a pre-packaged carbonation system called Sodastream, and are very happy with it. One container of CO2 lasts us 4 months and they come and pick up empties and deliver refills for $25. The only way it would be cheaper and greener is if we could fill the CO2 tank ourselves somehow. We usually just drink plain carbonated water without flavor or juice added.
I like the keg idea. I’ve never made beer, but I remember someone saying that cleaning all the bottles is time consuming, but with a keg, that problem goes away.
OK. Something that is generally not understood is the following…
Suppose you have a corny keg full of properly carbonated beverage. There’s liquid in there and a head space above it. The liquid has dissolved CO2 in it and the headspace is full of CO2 under pressure. That CO2 in the head space provides the pressure that pushes your beverage out when tapping. Once you start tapping it, the headspace gets a bit larger and the pressure drops. Anybody that’s ever been to a keg party has experienced this. Some of the CO2 in the liquid will be released into the head space, reducing the liquid’s carbonation level. As you get closer to the bottom, much of the CO2 that WAS in the liquid has escaped as gas in the headspace and your liquid will be even less carbonated. The pressure in the headspace may not be sufficient to push out the beverage (you have experienced this with beer kegs at parties, I’m sure). Of course, you can put in more CO2, yes. But think of what’s happening… If your keg is half empty, you’ll have to FULLY pressurize the entire keg’s volume with CO2 in order to fully REcarbonate the smaller volume of liquid inside. That’s a LOT of CO2 – most of which is in the gassified head space that you DON’T drink and will LOSE when you open the keg to refill it with beverage.
I like to explain it to people this way. If you dumped 1 glass of carbonated beverage into an entire submarine and attempted to carbonate that liquid by forcing CO2 under pressure into the submarine, it might require half-a-million pounds of CO2 just to pressurize the submarine up to 60PSI in order for the itsy bitsy glass of liquid you have in there to become fully carbonated. And when you’re done, your glass of fully carbonated liquid will only have 4 tiny grams of CO2 in it. There is NO way to escape that. So why would you pour a glass of water into a submarine and fill the entire submarine with co2 under pressure to carbonate it? You wouldn’t.
Kegs are no different. They’re just smaller submarines. You will have to add CO2 to your keg continuously until the last drop is drank. If you don’t, your liquid will become less, and less, and less carbonated each time you tap your keg. A physical law and a scientific fact. That’s why 2-liter bottles with “miniature taps” installed on them do not keep your beverage from going flat. Even though you don’t have to crack the lid on your 2-liter bottle to get a glass of beverage from it, the pressure in the head space gets “used up” each time U tap-a-glass. Eventually, there won’t be enough pressure in there to push the last bit out. And, even if it does, that last little bit will be flat as a pancake.
Most people don’t understand that principal going in. The way they learn about it is this: They continue to tap the keg until they notice (1)their beverage is starting to taste a little flat or (2) their beverage flow slows to a bare trickle out-a-the tap. The way they fix that is, of course, to put more CO2 in the corny. So they do. If they bother keeping records, they’ll realize after all is said ‘n done, that they have used about twice the CO2 that was needed to fully carbonate the amount of liquid in the keg the first time.
Now, having said that, CO2 in bulk tanks is fairly cheap and even though you double up on it by using twice the required amount, you are likely still saving money. A 5# tank refill for you probably costs about $20. That will carbonate 283 liters of soft drinks. That means your CO2 cost is 7.1 cents per liter the first time you carbonate your newly prepared & kegged beverage. So, instead, your drinks CO2 cost will be 14.2 cents per liter in a kegging operation. Why? Because it takes the same amount of CO2 to carbonate the water in a keg FULL of water as it does to carbonate 1 cup of water in the bottom of a keg. Scientific fact.
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One option not mentioned above may provide an opportunity to experiment with home carbonation recipes & such is the Fizz Giz (www.FizzGiz.com). For a smaller cash commitment, you can buy a handheld portable gadget that will let you carbonate any beverage you like. Under thirty bucks at last check, the Fizz Giz lets you carbonate fun fizzy drinks right in the bottle. You can even make the old “Brownie” – many of you will remember it. This generation’s Brownie is the YooHoo. Personally, I don’t think it holds a candle.
You can do single serving sized 12oz drinks or 2 & 3 liter bulk sized bottles. Sometimes I’ve bought commercial syrups, but I’d rather make my own from scratch. I enjoy carbonating apple juice & white grape juice and sometimes I fizz up an inexpensive wine for a bubblicious experience.
BTW, check this out, carbonating your milk (lightly) can give you up to a 90d shelf life in the fridge. You don’t have to carbonate it much – not enough to taste it in a glass of milk, for instance. Check out Purdue University studies on the subject… http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/96/1.18.96/milk.html
[...] Something is wrong with our water carbonation system. Our fizzy water tastes terrible. At first we thought it was because the tank was contaminated, so we got rid of a batch, scrubbed down the inside of the keg, and made a new batch. That tasted terrible too, and it gets progressively more terrible tasting the longer it sits. We’re think it may have to do with the fact that we’re using tap water here. That means jugs of the filtered stuff will be part of the next experiment. It’s kind of a bummer to not have the fizzy water on tap at home. I love that stuff. If you’ve got any ideas on what could be wrong, please let me know. If you’d like to check out the process for making it, see this old post on the subject. [...]
Hey Variety Pack – Something is wrong with our water carbonation system… Filter your water with a Brita filter. Carbonate your water with a Fizz Giz co2 dispenser and common soda bottles capped with Fizz Giz caps. There’s your answer. It will always be good. A soda maker home carbonation system is only as good as what you put it it.