ms8miranda

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Revvy

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Good question...I bumped it to see if someone with experience notices....Here's some info I found online though.

ye olde fashioned ginger beer recipe and the theory of homemade soda « space wildschwein | food, drink, life

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Brew-Happy

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No experience here, but some thoughts on this.

This should be similar to making a jam or jelly, only no gelatin.

Theory 1. Process fruit in blender or chopper. Heat water to below the temp that causes pectin to be removed from fruit. Steep for some time (30min?) then strain very well.

Theory 2. Process fruit in blender or chopper. Put fruit in boiling water for at least 10mins. Strain very well and boil remaining liquid until reduced to a syrup. Use the syrup to make the soda. Will need pectin enzyme to drop haze issue. This syrup could be stored for some time in fridge and used when soda runs out.

Please pick these ideas apart. This could be the start of some fun soda making. Especially with local wild berries and such.

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Revvy

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I'm thinking Big Kahuna might have some info as well on this...I would think using fruit in meads is similar to this...

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olllllo

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As long as you can make a sweet syrup, you can make a soda.
Especially true if you can force carb. You can use your normal CO2 and a store-bought or homemade carbonator cap.

The process is slightly more complex if you bottle condition as the yeast amounts would be critical. In that case, I would recommend useing pet bottles.

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BigKahuna

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I knew my ears were ringing

The only thing I'd say about comparing it to mead, is that mead has alcohol to help extract the flavor, as well as suppress any issues with rogue bacteria.
I would vote for a potentially cloudy soda, and just add boiling sugar water to the fruit. Seal it up, then rack gently in a few days (weeks? Months? Maybe it'll clear?) and then carb as usual. Maybe it's worth your time to add regular soda concentrate to your batch. ie. Cherry soda, or fruit and ginger ale concentrate, as opposed to strait fruit drink.

Another option is to juice the fruit, and use it with sugar and boiled water.

I also contend (theory only...I've been too busy to give it a shot) that boiling water for soda will improve the quality, as it will remove most of the oxygen, and make it more shelf stable as well. This should improve the ability of the liquid to absorb co2, and give a more rounded "Clean" Flavor.

Good Luck, and I'll be watching this to see how it goes.

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ms8miranda

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Fruits have their own pectin and it will get firmly set (like hard jam) if you continue to boil/cook. I'm not sure if there is a way around this.

The Blow Leprechaun

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I haven't done this, but I'd vote for using juice, possibly up to replacing all of the water with juice and only adding limited amounts of sugar to sweeten to taste.

beertopia

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I just brewed my first batch, it is sitting in a closet fermenting beautifully. To get my wife on board I decided to try my hand a soda. Problem is she is a chiropractor and very health conscious (and 8 months pregnant). All these sodas call for so much sugar, there would be no way she would be into it. So here is what I did with inspiration from this thread.

I took 2 very ripe bartlett pears put them in a pot and mashed them up. Put them on medium heat for 5 min or so then dumped them into a screen colander and with a wooden spoon pushed through all I could. Then low boiled them for 25 min or so.

I ended up with a sweet applesauce type mixture. Transferred it to a cup and put it in the fridge to cool. Later during the superbowl while I was treating myself to the Rouge hazelnut brown I have on tap right now (awesome but $180/keg...ughh) I took a tablespoon or so and mixed it in a cup with club soda and ice. SHE LOVED IT!

Understand it was not sweet like soda. It had a strong pear flavor to start, then almost a flavored soda water taste with finish of sweet. I bet if I threw in some sugar and water during the boil I could make it alot sweeter but she preferred it that way. Another thing, I expected it all to fall to the bottom of the glass, there was some fine pulp but for the most part it didn't.

When I try on a larger scale I will let you know how it turns out.

toontz

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We make fruit "soda" for the kids by using carbonated water mixed with one to two tablespoons of frozen juice concentrate. The grocery store usually carries some concentrates with flavor combos; kiwi-strawberry, orange-mango-banana, that sort of thing. I can personalize each of their glasses of soda this way. I just keep several open juice containers in the freezer covered with a plastic baggie and rubber-banded. They love it!