Another soda water question
 

I hope this is the correct place to post this question; if not, my apologies. I am looking to carbonate water to mix with syrups to make sodas (as they do here: ). I plan on building a keezer with just the one tap (for now).

I have done some research and see that many people do keep a keg of water on tap, but it appears ancillary to their beer set-up. I am wondering if anyone has any water-specific suggestions (temp, pressure, hose length, etc...) or can recommend threads I should read.

I'll be making syrups from scratch, especially cola and rootbeer (safrole carcinogens be d@3ned!). I have compiled a good list of promising syrup recipes, but have not yet made any. I will share them as soon as I have some first-hand insight to offer.

Many thanks.

I use 90 PSI into a carbonator. The carbonator is connected to a charcoal filter, and then into the Gas in post of a keg which is in the fridge. The liquid out line goes to my tap through a micromatic adjustable flow restrictor on a perlick faucet. I can give you more details at some point, but just getting off a shift.

I did mine this way because I got tired of using a ton of CO2 to make seltzer and having to fill it up all the time (wife drinks a lot). Now it just flows. My only issue is that when the warmer seltzer in the carbonator hits the cold in the keg it causes a little gas out... not super noticeable... but it is a flaw with my design.

Largely depending on your expected volume of soda making; The best options are generally a: Carbonator cap and 2-liter, 1-liter or 16oz soda bottle. Fill with water and charge with co2. B: Fill a 2.5 or 5 gallon keg with water, carbonate with co2, dispense with tap and line. C: Get an in-line carbonator, hook it up to the water supply and either make it continuously fill a keg, or D with the carbonator, run a chill plate that you constantly have to keep adding ice to but can't keep in a freezer, and dispense.


While I'd like an inline, I live in an apartment and I can't run a line so I use a keg that I have to fill every so often. I carb at 40psi and dispense at the same. I use 40 because I'm not carbing water on the flow using an inline carbonator. I try to keep mine at 36 degrees in a keezer, even though my beer is in there too. I mostly drink soda, wine and mixed drinks. Currently, I use a 525ss perlick because I got them cheap. I plan on getting a 5th arm at some point for the soda.

The guy who makes and sells the Extinct Acid Phosphate mentions that a soda arm with dual control will run around 250-400 (haven't checked the price myself), that some less expensive faucets are available, but the most reasonable priced faucet will be a dual stream control beer faucet such as a stout or creamer faucet, unless you can find a used soda arm.

I appreciate your responses to my question. I am going to go the carbonator cap route to begin but I really have it in my mind to have a little keezer in the kitchen.

I use Carbonator caps with 1 - 3 liter plastic bottles to keep a supply of carbonated water on hand. I just keep a few in my beer storage cooler. I put them under 50PSI of pressure at about 50F, give them an good good initial shake to speed up absorption, and then bring the pressure back up to 50PSI. Chilling them first helps with quicker absorption. Loosening the cap a bit and squeezing out the trapped air before carbonating helps too. I leave a few inches of head space so that I can put more CO2 volume in the bottle.

When I remove a bottle for use, I take off the Carbonator cap and replace it with a regular cap. This way the Carbonator cap is available to start the next bottle. I have 3 Carbonator caps so I can keep ahead of our usage.

The Carbonator caps are relatively spendy, but are a good product.

Agreed. The caps are pretty nice, especially for small amounts. Also, if you have a small travel tank, its easy to bring it around. I have a 2.5 pound tank I started with and a cap or two.