Cheap & safe soda making

[TT2016]

Hi,

I am looking to use my old beer & champagne bottles to make soda(I 'll put them in protective jackets). What is the minimum investment to make this economically sound compare to paying $1/L at the store?

1. What kind of adapter(s) do I need for the bottles? Can they be used as caps to store the soda? Is there any good reuseable caps to seal the air?

2. I am thinking to get a small 5/10 lb tank instead of 20 due to the price depending on whether there is rental program locally. Does it really make a lot of difference whether you get it from a beverage store vs a welding store in terms of food grade gas? Those small 8g co2 chargers are about $0.40/L and I saw people quote $0.04/L on the larger tank.

3. What other basic hardware do I need?
I saw a few awesome setups on the forum but it may be too elaborated for my use. I am guessing I need a tank, short braided tubing, clamps, basic regulator, ball lock?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Homercidal]

The basic setup for carbonating soda is making some soda (maybe 5 gallon pot?) a Co2 tank and regulator, some hose for the gas, and a keg of some sort (Ball or pin lock corny).

Once the soda is carbonated you push through the keg with CO2 and a bottling wand attached to the liquid out post is used to fill bottles. Then cap the bottles using a bench capper.

You can also use plastic soda bottles and eliminate the need for a capper.

You can also carbonate plastic bottles directly form the Co2 tank if you have a "carbonator cap" for each bottle. That's more time consuming IMO. since are dealing with a single bottle at a time (unless you connect several bottles at a time...)

In any case, once you have purchased the carbing equipment, it's pretty cheap to make your own soda. If you can appreciate the difference in flavor, it's easy to make it cheaper than buying at the store.

 

[TT2016]

Thanks for the suggestion.

I try to avoid PET bottles as they start degrading after 3 months(gets bad beyond 6 mths). Aluminum is also not a safe alternative for storing them due to the metal's connection to health issues & the acidic environment. Since stainless steel tank is gonna be expensive so I am thinking to use old beer/champagne bottles which can hold up the pressure.

I would need a co2 tank and a regulator and some tubing/valve. Since I can't find a carbonator cap for champagne/beer botttle, I probably have to make them from scratch.

I have seen a guy using a silicone stopper with silicone tubing down the bottle & a lever lock to hold the stopper down temporarily in a DIY counter pressure bottle filler setup. Silicone stopper is flexible enough to fit different bottle sizes.

1. Would blowing the CO2 directly into water at 35psi be enough to carbonate the water in a glass bottle? Once I get the seltzer, I can mix the flavoring later or I can even try to premix them.

2. I am also not sure what exactly I need to build that cap.

3. I haven't tested any of store champagne cap so I don't know how well they seal the air.

4. Another alternative is to use the EZ cap beer glass or a threaded glass bottle original for sparkling water(I don't think it is the same cap size as the 2 liter soda bottle though so the ready made carbonator cap won't fit)

Since I am thinking to make small batches at this stage, I won't need to invest in a keg either.

 

[Yooper]

Thanks for the suggestion.

I try to avoid PET bottles as they start degrading after 3 months(gets bad beyond 6 mths). Aluminum is also not a safe alternative for storing them due to the metal's connection to health issues & the acidic environment. Since stainless steel tank is gonna be expensive so I am thinking to use old beer/champagne bottles which can hold up the pressure.

I would need a co2 tank and a regulator and some tubing/valve. Since I can't find a carbonator cap for champagne/beer botttle, I probably have to make them from scratch.

I have seen a guy using a silicone stopper with silicone tubing down the bottle & a lever lock to hold the stopper down temporarily in a DIY counter pressure bottle filler setup. Silicone stopper is flexible enough to fit different bottle sizes.

1. Would blowing the CO2 directly into water at 35psi be enough to carbonate the water in a glass bottle? Once I get the seltzer, I can mix the flavoring later or I can even try to premix them.

2. I am also not sure what exactly I need to build that cap.

3. I haven't tested any of store champagne cap so I don't know how well they seal the air.

4. Another alternative is to use the EZ cap beer glass or a threaded glass bottle original for sparkling water(I don't think it is the same cap size as the 2 liter soda bottle though so the ready made carbonator cap won't fit)

Since I am thinking to make small batches at this stage, I won't need to invest in a keg either.

1. No, but it's enough to blow up a glass bottle sky high. Soda should be made, and either naturally carbed with yeast, or carbed in a traditional carb setup and then bottled with about 35' of beer line and a more sophisticated system than that. If you're not going to bottle, and keep it in a keg, that's pretty easy and can be done with a picnic (cobra) tap and some beer line with a keg and c02 tank in a little fridge. Bottling makes it much more difficult.

2. Those only work with plastic bottles. Glass will blow up at carbonation pressure, unless you find some very old coke bottles than can hold that kind of pressure. I don't think they will work with champagne bottles (they don't have threads for them to twist on), but champagne bottles might not blow up. Glass beer bottles WILL, as 30+ psi is far more than they can hold.

3. No idea.

4. Beer glass will blow up. Water bottles may or may not- soda is more highly carbed than bottled sparkling water.

 

[TT2016]

Thank you for bringing up the good points. I didn't think of it as bottling problem because I was checking sodastream & soda siphon at first.

I was thinking soda was just a mix of seltzer & syrup/flavoring. Then, I remember people actually use yeast & sugar to get the bubbles in the soda. If I take the first route, the pressure is probably around 40-50 psi at room temperature for the seltzer water & can be relatively stable through the regulator control.

I dig a little deeper on the bottles & psi they can handle. Regular US commercial beer bottles are for single use and they are pretty thin compare to many European beer bottles which are built for refilling. Having said that, US regular bottles can handle 3.5 vol or 50 psi at 77F according to one estimate.

EZ Cap beer bottles can handle 100 psi which was pointed out by another HBT reader who contacted the manufacturer.

Even Sparkling wine bottles can be different depending on their region. Italian & Spanish sparkling wines tend to be low(3 atm), while Champagne tend to have higher pressure(5-6 atm). The punt on the bottom also makes the bottle stronger.

There is inherent danger with using glass since you can't easily tell if the bottle have any defect. It is not unheard of even famous champagne houses have exploding bottles in their cellar. So, proper safety measures have to be followed like wrapping them in protective jacket and/or keeping them cold.

Sodastream has a glass version(crystal/penguin?) but it is a smaller bottle(20 oz), which is probably designed to handle the higher pressure during carbonation. And those are the two models with enclosures for the bottle. For the low end models, they tell you to make the soda in PET & then pour it into a glass bottle for storage if you worry about PET leaks. Obviously, you lose a lot of fizz if you do that.

I was reading an article from OSU about most beer go through pasteurization at 140F, which brings the pressure up to 88 psi. The bottles are designed to handle pressure higher than 88 but the author pointed out that doesn't mean the bottles won't explode after pasteurization and they do at every step on the line and in the truck.

Club soda is at 60 psi compare to beer at 24psi at 60F.

https://kb.osu.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/1811/68448/OSLJ_V24N3_0516.pdf

The EZ Cap bottles (100psi) seems to be stronger enough for this and it comes with the cap. I don't see any carbonator cap for non-threaded bottle so probably need to make one from scratch. And then need to check out local places to see if they have tank/regulator rental program.

Is there any way to inject a predetermined amount of co2 into the bottle so that I don't need to guess how much more pressure is needed? Or does the regulator gauge tell you?

 

[MrFoodScientist]

Is there any way to inject a predetermined amount of co2 into the bottle so that I don't need to guess how much more pressure is needed? Or does the regulator gauge tell you?

You have to think of this in terms of rate of reaction. If you were to get enough CO2 into the bottle to have it carbonated at a certain level, it doesn't dissolve immediately, so the only place it has to go is the headspace of the bottle. With this excessive CO2 in headspace in the bottle, you have now increased the pressure beyond what you need for equilibrium at the desired level of carbonation. I can't say for sure that you'll exceed the limits of the bottle, but it is a possibility.

Put another way, if you wanted to carbonate a 2L bottle to 4 volumes, (and 1 volume of carbonation is about 2g/L), then you would need 16g of CO2. You could theoretically weigh out 12g of dry ice, drop it in a bottle, seal it up, and let it carbonate. But I think that anyone would advise you that would be a bad idea.

 

[z-bob]

I haven't done it in a while, but I used to carbonate apple juice for the kids. I made a carbonator cap for 1L and 2L soda bottles using a regular cap and a metal truck tire Schrader valve. I'd chill the juice and pressurize it to 60 PSI, then shake it (with the line still attached) to get the CO2 to dissolve faster.

 

[CRZ]

^^^^ This!
I started out with a carbonator cap. It worked good but like mentioned it's kinda a pain to keep making. The problem is the co2 gets put into the liquid but easily leaves also. You can't just carb a bunch of bottles up and store them for when you want them. They will be mostly flat. It works good if you carb up and drink after.

 

[TT2016]

You have to think of this in terms of rate of reaction. If you were to get enough CO2 into the bottle to have it carbonated at a certain level, it doesn't dissolve immediately, so the only place it has to go is the headspace of the bottle. With this excessive CO2 in headspace in the bottle, you have now increased the pressure beyond what you need for equilibrium at the desired level of carbonation. I can't say for sure that you'll exceed the limits of the bottle, but it is a possibility.

I see what you mean. During the carbonation phase, there is a surge in bottle pressure which may break the bottle, unless you have a safety valve in the bottle like a siphon. But generic glass bottles are not going to have safety valve.

You may be able to reduce the built up by pumping gas into the water slowly. Shake & pump so more gas dissolves in the water.

Another thing is to use enclosure to protect yourself, which is the approach Sodastream used with the 2 glass models.

Put another way, if you wanted to carbonate a 2L bottle to 4 volumes, (and 1 volume of carbonation is about 2g/L), then you would need 16g of CO2. You could theoretically weigh out 12g of dry ice, drop it in a bottle, seal it up, and let it carbonate. But I think that anyone would advise you that would be a bad idea.

I have actually seen a youtube video with a guy measuring dry ice & scooping it into his sodastream tank. (He unscrewed the top)

 

[TT2016]

How about using stainless steel bottles instead of glass since it is rather unpleasant to keep thinking about when that glass bottles may explode? Besides, the stainless steel bottles are getting cheaper nowadays even for the double walled ones. They come with threaded cap too. I need to make a carbonator cap that fits the bottle, perhaps using silicone top & stainless steel valve to fit the threaded cap?

Where can you get a stainless steel valve? I am worried about brass after reading all the lead leaking.

 

[daft]

I try to avoid PET bottles as they start degrading after 3 months(gets bad beyond 6 mths).

How about sodastream plastic half liter bottles? I ordered a bunch from ebay, and they were airmailed direct from Israel with colorful P.O. stamps. After some years their rugged thick plastic still looks brand new. I did upgrade to their sturdier new generation caps. Maybe worth a try before the extreme stainless steel alternative; you did name this topic as "cheap".

 

[rodolfof1]

You have to think of this in terms of rate of reaction. If you were to get enough CO2 into the bottle to have it carbonated at a certain level, it doesn't dissolve immediately, so the only place it has to go is the headspace of the bottle. With this excessive CO2 in headspace in the bottle, you have now increased the pressure beyond what you need for equilibrium at the desired level of carbonation. I can't say for sure that you'll exceed the limits of the bottle, but it is a possibility.

Put another way, if you wanted to carbonate a 2L bottle to 4 volumes, (and 1 volume of carbonation is about 2g/L), then you would need 16g of CO2. You could theoretically weigh out 12g of dry ice, drop it in a bottle, seal it up, and let it carbonate. But I think that anyone would advise you that would be a bad idea.

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