homebirch

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which way of carbonating is the best? ive seen many different ways, most commonly force carbonating with a tank of co2, yeast, and kegging. though im not really sure how kegging works. any insight/explanation to kegging?

k47k

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Natural Carb is using additional fermentables in the bottle or keg, the additional fermentation creates the carbonation.

Force Carb is using CO2 to force carbonate in the keg, you basically hook up the CO2 at a certain PSI and the beer carbs.

Force carbing allows you to get precise carbonation. Id say its better.

homebirch

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how much is a force carb rig?

homebirch

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and also what exactly is the method for force carbonation? glass or plastic bottle? sorry its a lot of questions. many thanks

HBHoss

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If you don't already have cornie kegs and a bottle of Co2 then you're best off just using a bottling bucket and adding the priming sugar to it and naturally carbonating in the bottle for 10 days.

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homebirch

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aye, i forgot to say. im actually making root and birch beer from scratch, not beer. oops.

k47k

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for soda i would do natural carbonation in PET (plastic) bottles. soda is carbonated much higher than beer and beer bottles are not recommended (they may explode)

KevinM

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I'd go for force carbonation in many instances over natural. A rig will cost about 100. More if you want a 5 gallon keg to store the soda in. 100 if you want to carbonate directly into a 2 liter bottle. Less if you want to build a few components yourself.

With natural, you have to be aware of the sugar since yeast can continue to eat the sugar so either glass or plastic can blow.
With a rig like this , it's pretty easy and takes 2 minutes to carbonate a 2 liter bottle, at approximately 8 cents per 2 liters. (I went nuts on math calculations earlier to compare costs and payback periods). If you had a soda keg, then you just use a keg instead of the bottle. I don't think I'd want to do all the shaking and I'd probably leave it a few days to force carbonate though. (Lift 5 gallons of liquid and shake for several minutes? I think I'd throw my back out again.)

Some things may be better with yeast, and some may not, I think it would largely depend on the drink. Whenever I visit some place, I just bring the tank and empty bottle and just keep filling it up. Went through 10 or so liters over this past weekend and just used some flavored syrups and maybe some chocolate syrup and ice cream for a chocolate soda/float.

homebirch

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ive been doing natural carbonation for a little bit in plastic 2-liter bottles for a little bit, but im looking for an alternative method (preferably not using yeast) because i may be starting to sell it at a local store, so i dont want to have the possibilty of it exploding in the bottles during storage and/or after it is bought. so if that plan comes through, im going to bottle it in glass bottles then cap. which is my primary reason to avoid natural carbonation.

urban_homesteader

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So a question on this.

If you carbonate using force carbonation or a corny keg or whatever can you then bottle and store it in glass bottles? If so how long will the soda stay carbonated? Anyone with experience on this? Thanks.

I'm also new to soda making and only have experience using yeast so any info on force carbonation would be great.