Lots of questions

[BrianGT]

First, thank you all so much for a wonderful forum. I hope my questions aren't offensive since they have probably been asked a million times.

We are "hoping" to start a bottled soda business here in Tennessee. I am a marketer not a soda maker. My partner is a recently retired, disabled military vet. This will be his first gig as a civilian. We understand this will take some time to get rolling but have some key components in place already. What we don't have is know how.

I have purchased 4 corny kegs and plan to grab some CO2. We already make 55 gallon drums of simple syrup for another business I own. As far as I can tell we simply add the simple syrup with flavor and filtered water into the corny keg. We then "force" carbonate. (I may have the terminology wrong), and bottle. I realize this is an oversimplification.

Is there anyone out there who knows of a video just about soda making. Everything seems to be all about beer. Any help is appreciated and would even consider hiring a consultant to avoid expensive missteps.

Thank you all in advance!

 

[mredge73]

Assuming that you start on a very small scale:

It is pretty much as you described and it sounds like you have a handle on making the syrup.
When carbonating you will need 5+ volumes for soda, twice that of most beers.

Slow carbonation is simple and has the best overall results but takes roughly 5 days and sometimes longer.
If you are carbonating at room temp you need a high pressure regulator as you will need nearly 60psi.
At near freezing that pressure needs to be set somewhere around 30psi.

There are much faster methods like "burst carbonating" and "crank and shake" but your results will likely suffer as these methods are not as reliable/repeatable.
Soda fountains use motor driven carbonators to burst carbonate on demand, if you get a decent one you should be able to fast carbonate reliability.

Bottling will be tricky, you will need a counter pressure bottling tool with flow control. The bottles and soda will need to be very cold, slightly below freezing preferably.

If you want to do this commercially you will need to expect to invest heavily in refrigeration equipment and an automatic bottling machine.
The carbonation side is simple and low cost in comparison.

 

[BrianGT]

Thank you so much!!

So we can't bottle and expect good results at room temp?

 

[Homercidal]

Mass producing soda is not much like making it for home use. I'm guessing you will want much bigger equipment and should probably look into small-batch professional carbing and bottling equipment.

 

[mredge73]

Right, hard to judge the scale of your operation.
Assumed that it would be pretty small as you only have 20 gallons of kegs to start with.
In a homebrew situation you would hold the mixed soda in the kegs; in a larger operation you could use them to hold syrup.

To answer your bottling question, CO2 absorption is temperature dependent so the bottles will need to be chilled and the soda will need to be chilled. The big systems use jacketed lines/tanks.
Soda fountains found in every restaurant/bar carbonate water at room temp with a carbonator, then the lines are run through the ice bucket with the syrup lines. The syrup and seltzer are mixed at the fountain head at freezing temperatures to keep the CO2 from escaping. If the ice bucket runs low, it will pour flat soda.

 

[BrianGT]

So in short I can make my syrup in corny kegs and sell them to restaurants who have the fountains in place? No issues with cold there. But bottling is the main deal with temps.

We expect to spend $40-$100k to start. I bought the corny kegs to do some practicing. I have the ability to construct walk in freezers.

 

[BrianGT]

Homer--do you know of a good place for such equipment ?

 

[Homercidal]

Homer--do you know of a good place for such equipment ?

Not a clue. I'd ask around some of the craft soda shops, or do a Google Search.

Homebrew soda process just has to be way more involved than with production packaging. Of course, production packaging probably has WAY more sanitation and licensing stuff to do.

 

[kristiismean]

it's a lot easier to carbonate water than it is to carbonate water and syrup.

the factories that bottle (like coke) do not carbonate the syrup, it's separate until the filler head.

-I am pretty sure, do some research to confirm

 

[BrianGT]

What's funny is I asked an equipment manufacturer if this industry was open to sharing info or very closed. He commented that it was incredibly open. I have emailed over 20 craft soda makers and no one will respond. Even though we are no where near one another geographically.

 

[kristiismean]

http://www.used--equipment.com/fillerfillingequipment.html?gclid=CKjxtPnv59MCFYF-fgodq1EIsg

lots of used equipment there. keep in mind, most of it will need to be fitted to your specifications for it to be used.

maheen is another company that may be helpful in getting answers, since they would be the one to sell you the equipment, they may be the most helpful.

there is also an "undercover boss" episode for fizz pop (or something like that) where there are tons of video etc of their bottling line.

 

[BrianGT]

Thanks Kristi! You don't seem so mean

 

[kristiismean]

Kristi is my wife..... I'm Dan. 😁

 

[BrianGT]

I should have known. LOL.
I watched that Undercover Boss and it's a bit more than we plan to start with. I spoke to some fillers today and surprisingly they were soda dumb and beer smart. I'll keep looking. Thanks again.