Sparkling Water

[Will_the-new-brewer]

My apologies for posting here, but I am not sure where else to put it or go for the answer.

Now that I am getting into kegging, my wife is very interested in carbonating our own water. I did it with some store-bought water that we get and it was okay (she liked it, but I didn't care for it). I know she likes S.Pelligrino so I did some quick searching online and found this:

Type Sparkling Tonic
pH 5.6
Calcium (Ca) 164
Chloride (Cl) 49.4
Bicarbonate (HCO3) 243
Fluoride (F) 0.5
Lithium (Li) 0.2
Magnesium (Mg) 49.5
Nitrate (NO3) 2.9
Potassium (K) 2.2
Silica (SiO2) 7.1
Sodium (Na) 31.2
Strontium (Sr) 2.7
Sulfate (SO4) 402
TDS 854

With this information, my next step is to try to make something similar to it using distilled water. If I did the rest of my searching right (1 ppm = 1 mg/liter), I should have something like this:

grams/gal
Calcium - 0.62
Chloride - 0.19
Bicarbonate - 0.92
Magnesium - 0.19
Sodium - 0.12
Sulfate - 1.52

I am only 1 year into homebrewing and only 1 brew into using salts so I am in way over my head on this. I am trying to figure out how to do this with the tools I have BeerSmith and Bru'N'Water, but again...I am new and not sure what I am looking at. Any guidance you guys can give me would be greatly appreciated.

 

[HopsNTails]

My apologies for posting here, but I am not sure where else to put it or go for the answer.

Now that I am getting into kegging, my wife is very interested in carbonating our own water. I did it with some store-bought water that we get and it was okay (she liked it, but I didn't care for it). I know she likes S.Pelligrino so I did some quick searching online and found this:

Type Sparkling Tonic
pH 5.6
Calcium (Ca) 164
Chloride (Cl) 49.4
Bicarbonate (HCO3) 243
Fluoride (F) 0.5
Lithium (Li) 0.2
Magnesium (Mg) 49.5
Nitrate (NO3) 2.9
Potassium (K) 2.2
Silica (SiO2) 7.1
Sodium (Na) 31.2
Strontium (Sr) 2.7
Sulfate (SO4) 402
TDS 854

With this information, my next step is to try to make something similar to it using distilled water. If I did the rest of my searching right (1 ppm = 1 mg/liter), I should have something like this:

grams/gal
Calcium - 0.62
Chloride - 0.19
Bicarbonate - 0.92
Magnesium - 0.19
Sodium - 0.12
Sulfate - 1.52

I am only 1 year into homebrewing and only 1 brew into using salts so I am in way over my head on this. I am trying to figure out how to do this with the tools I have BeerSmith and Bru'N'Water, but again...I am new and not sure what I am looking at. Any guidance you guys can give me would be greatly appreciated.

I'd reccomend a brita filter and a soda stream. My wife used to be big on peligrino and this seems to do the trick for her!

 

[50calshooter]

That looks like a whole list of stuff I do not want to drink. I carbonate our tap water. Taste great. Do both and givde her a blind taste test. Bet she can't tell. Make it a triangle test two of one and one of the other to see if she can ID the odd sample. Bet not.

 

[Will_the-new-brewer]

That looks like a whole list of stuff I do not want to drink. I carbonate our tap water. Taste great. Do both and givde her a blind taste test. Bet she can't tell. Make it a triangle test two of one and one of the other to see if she can ID the odd sample. Bet not.

Our water is disgusting which is why I brew with store-bought/filtered water. She was okay with that carbonated, but I didn't care for it. I've tasted some really good water and not dead-set on making S.Pellegrino exactly...just want good-tasting carbonated water.

 

[Loud Brewing]

DO NOT BUY A SODA STREAM... especially if you already have a c02 tank. Just get a carb cap off amazon for $10, they work perfectly. We dont like mineral water, so we use RO water and a shot of lemon juice or food grade concentrate and it comes out just like LaCroix

 

[Will_the-new-brewer]

DO NOT BUY A SODA STREAM... especially if you already have a c02 tank. Just get a carb cap off amazon for $10, they work perfectly. We dont like mineral water, so we use RO water and a shot of lemon juice or food grade concentrate and it comes out just like LaCroix

AWESOME! I will try that. We drink LaCroix right now. It is worth the $10 to try it. I assume it will work fine with distilled water as well.

 

[Loud Brewing]

AWESOME! I will try that. We drink LaCroix right now. It is worth the $10 to try it. I assume it will work fine with distilled water as well.

Use distilled/RO water and flavoring if you feel like it, fill standard plastic soda bottle up to 1-2" below neck. Squeeze bottle to remove excess oxygen. Screw on carb cap while squeezing bottle. Set regulator to 25 psi and connect tank to carb cap. Shake vigorously for 1 minute. Boom LaCroix! Enjoy!

 

[HopsNTails]

DO NOT BUY A SODA STREAM... especially if you already have a c02 tank. Just get a carb cap off amazon for $10, they work perfectly. We dont like mineral water, so we use RO water and a shot of lemon juice or food grade concentrate and it comes out just like LaCroix

Why the aggression toward a soda stream? It is much more convenient than hooking a carb cap up to a soda bottle, connecting to a co2 tank (probably not in the kitchen),and shaking for 25 seconds.

 

[November]

https://blog.khymos.org/2012/01/04/mineral-waters-a-la-carte/

This blog has a spreadsheet that will help you calculate additions to clone your favorite brand. I've used it with fairly good results. I got tired of measuring it out and when I got my water report, I found my tap water wasn't too far off, so I usually just use tap now sometimes with a touch of gypsum.

I've also taken to adding about 3mL of lemon oil to the 5 gal keg during the summer. Adds a nice flavor without being overwhelming.

Good luck.

 

[deadwolfbones]

Why the aggression toward a soda stream? It is much more convenient than hooking a carb cap up to a soda bottle, connecting to a co2 tank (probably not in the kitchen),and shaking for 25 seconds.

It's just very expensive per liter compared to carbing from a homebrew 5-20lb CO2 canister. Some people like to pinch every penny. And if you already have a kegging setup with enough taps, there's not really any reason not to devote one of them to seltzer.

 

[Carolina_Matt]

I bought a carb cap last month in order to clean my beer line with a pump. It never occurred to me that I can also use it for its intended purpose - to carbonate a drink container. I'll have to give that a shot with one of my sodastream bottles.

I had used a sodastream for the last few years, but decided to put a seltzer tap on my kegerator about a month ago. I just fill it up with tap water, hook it up to serving pressure (about 10 psi - the same as my beer) and it's pretty carbonated about 2 days later. If I put about an ounce of orange juice in my cup, then top it off with seltzer, it tastes fantastic.

 

[Loud Brewing]

Why the aggression toward a soda stream? It is much more convenient than hooking a carb cap up to a soda bottle, connecting to a co2 tank (probably not in the kitchen),and shaking for 25 seconds.

No aggression, its just a huge ripoff. Sodastream costs $50 and then the tiny tanks cost $40 and you are limited to what size and shape bottle you can use. And not to mention they are very cheaply made and will break easily with no replacement parts.
If you dont want to shake using a carb cap, simply get the carb cap set on amazon that comes with the carb stone also.

 

[Valve1138]

We carbonate our filtered well water, and it tastes great.

All we have is a softener, UV, and sediment filters.

We'll juice, lemons, limes, blood oranges, whatever, strain it, and pour 2 to 4 cups in a 5 gallon keg. Gas it up to 14 psi.

We'll also do a ginger and honey extract. Just steep them in hot water for 10 minutes, and strain it into your keg.