Better syrup attempts for sodastream

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daft

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I thought I'd make a separate topic just to list what worked and what didn't in sodastream syrup experiments. We can't really rule out failures by my amateur self, because they may work in the future with slight variations of carbonation level, brand of ingredients, and the coldness of both water and syrup (colder seems better at carbonation and combining time). Hopefully others can add or critique examples.

1) Pink Lemonade... I have mentioned this as my lucky find of a perfect easy drink. I use defrosted canned (minute maid) pink lemonade concentrate to fill most of the void above the fill line of a carbonated sodastream bottle, then tip it end over end once to mix. Amazing balance and zing... try any commercial soda after that and it will seem crude in comparison. I cut 2 slits on the bottom of the can, then widen one to allow pulp thru (rinse empty bottles well due to pulp).

2) Extra Pink Lemonade... This is a very satisfying family of drinks that lets you be creative while minimizing problems like foam backfires. Fill the upper void of bottle over half full of defrosted canned lemonade concentrate, or a lesser amount of harsh limeade. This gives an acid bite without foaming... then cautiously add something fun like grape (the usual pinking ingredient) or other rosy defrosted concentrate. Be careful... some things like orange can cause an instant foam volcano. I sometimes add concentrated flavor drops, such as cherry or amaretto. Be aware that some cheap frozen concentrates have an off taste, as if the pasteurization went overboard.

3) Breakfast Syrups... I have pretty much tamed the family of fruit syrups such as made by Smuckers. I start with about one third lemon or limeade as above. Then I slowly pour in chilled syrup like blueberry until the foam gets too high. Cap it and you will notice the cold corn based syrup doesn't mix at all. Instead of endless tipping or even shaking, I found a twisting motion of your wrist whips the stuff into solution and makes a nice translucent rose color with foamy bubbles. At least this works with the half liter bottles... the thing is you need to whip the heavy syrup out of the bulbous bottom or top.

4) Diluted fruit juice... I tried ocean sprays version of blueberry (includes some grape and apple) and half filled a liter sodastream bottle. Then fortified it with a fair amount of sugar to balance the coming carbonic acid. I then carbonated a half liter sodastream bottle (this optional size really beats the large one which lets things get old and flat) and poured it into the liter bottle. It foamed a bit maybe because wasn't chilled enough, and gave bland and undercarbonated results. Darn it, I just realized that a touch of lemon or lime would have helped. But overall I couldn't add more carb without diluting the already weak taste (I had tried this earlier)... and couldn't increase the juice without losing more carb. So it seems this gives an inferior result to blueberry syrup. Yeah, i know it could be solved by carbonating the already mixed juice, against sodastream advice.
 
Update edit... I just now changed the order to adding sweetener last, which along with LIGHT carbing eliminates most foam volcanos before you cap it:

5) Mocha Foam... Scoop coffee-chocolate (=mocha) powder to almost fill the headroom above your lightly carbed cold water. Use a dark mocha that has minimal milk products which foam too much. I used sams club cappuccino mocha powder with about 15% powdered sugar added in to balance the carbonic acid... it will float nicely without foaming as long as you haven't added sweetener first.

Then I add some liquid syrup like (a few tablespoons of dark chilled) corn syrup which will make the sugar and foam take on a much better mouthfeel etc. Shake very well, refridge, then open very slowly over a sink, with the first glass close. Tilt towards the glass as you uncap to try to aim the first (or at least the second) glop of thick, luxurious foam into the glass... it doesn't shoot out terribly fast. Don't tilt the bottle too steeply or else the liquid will flow too fast once the foam clears.
 
6) Conventional Italian Soda: This is the most obvious alternative to sodastream brand syrup, but is hard to get in my location. I finally found monin blackberry syrup and found as usual it needed more tartness for drinking or else tastes bland and candylike. Lime syrup or lemon froze concentrate didn't hit the spot, but I had great luck with several spoons of bottled lemon juice. Just fill the remainder of carbonated water bottle very slowly to avoid foam with chilled monin syrup. Then always tumble before uncapping because the syrup tends to sink. The result is very addictive. Not quite as good as the smuckers blackberry of my (3) which has more natural blackberry, but that one takes more trouble to mix the thick syrup.

Well, for those on the US mainland you have an incredible array of Torani or Monin syrups http://www.moninstore.com/prod_Lines.html?indexcat=1&indexname=Monin-Gourmet-Premium-Syrups that you can get at reasonable prices, at least by ordering in volume. I sure wish I could try their desert pear, blackcurrent, etc but apparently not sold or shipped here at any price.

P.S. I have confirmed the half liter sodastream bottles have a bigger percentage of headroom and are much easier to avoid foam than their liter bottles. The reason is there is a fixed amount of vertical room to the fill line (based on injector length), but a shorter length below the fill line in the smaller bottle.
 
Daft,

Have you tried the Rio concentrates from Prairie Moon? I don't see them mentioned in your posts. I'm not sure where you live, but they ship to Alaska, Hawaii, and Canada. I just ordered some Rio concentrates myself and they haven't arrived yet, so I can't vouch for the quality. But there are some posts about them on the older pages of this forum and the general consensus about them seemed positive.

You have a lot of interesting ideas there. My challenge is that I want my soda sugar-free and also sucralose-free -- so that leaves out most of the commercial syrups. My sweetener of choice is stevia liquid extract. So I'm doing my own experiments and may post about them at a later date. But it's fun to experiment and to read about what everybody else is trying, so thanks and good luck.
 
Oh, I see http://www.prairiemoon.biz/Syrup-Concentrate-Complete-Flavor-List_c_553.html and I will await your judgement. I did try more concentrated one ounce or less flavor drop bottles from Capella and Bakto which were at first promising. But then I realized if I forgot which flavor it was, they all kind of tasted the same... I did not try Capellas special stevia line which is to flavor water http://capellaflavordrops.com/waterflavors.aspx . I will post my best use of the regular flavor drops:

7) Lemonade Twist: Fill most of the remaining space of a sodastream carbonated bottle with thawed lemonade concentrate from a can, but keep it on the weak side. Then add about 4 flavor drops of your choice from http://capellaflavordrops.com/flavordrops.aspx or the bakto line from amazon.com. Best not to use the savory creamy flavors because they have a trace of oil that won't mix, but fruit or nut or chocolate or cola flavors mix ok and give a vaguely recognizable twist to the lemonade drink.
 
Sure. The Rio concentrates should arrive today or Monday. I ordered cola, vanilla, and cream soda, so I'll let you know how those turn out. If I like them I'll probably try a bunch more -- the Rio concentrates have like 70 different flavors, so the options are almost overwhelming.

The Capella drops look very interesting. I may try some of those after I sample the Rio concentrates. Thanks for the suggestion.
 
Firefly-- i can say with confidence the cola is wonderful. I ordered 6 of the Rio concentrate and my son has been having a blast mixing different ones together for something totally new. They are worth spending the money getting in my books.
 
Kythcat -- thanks. The Rio concentrates arrived today and yes the cola was great.

I have not been using my Sodastream very long, but I can say that after trying the Sodastream syrups (OK, but full of sugar/sucralose), Kool-aid (meh) and green tea (yuck), today was a revelation. Finally some good-quality homemade soda!

The package came with a small plastic cup for measuring and a page with recipes for making and using the syrup, which I thought was a nice touch. Since I am using stevia extract I had to tweak the recipe quite a lot, and I''m still tweaking. I think it almost goes without saying that many of us will need to alter the recipe this way or that way to suit our taste. But that's half the fun.

The instructions call for making a syrup and then using the syrup to make soda by the glass. I actually quite like this. Yeah, you could say that it's an extra pain-in-the-neck step. But to me, putting the flavor in the bottle can be an even bigger pain, and the SS bottles are kind of small and don't last long anyway. I also like that when I want a glass of soda I'm not limited to flavors that have already been mixed up in a bottle. Finally, since I only put purified water in the SS bottles I don't need to wash them nearly as often. But to daft, if you still prefer mixing your soda in the bottle I'm sure with a little math and perhaps some trial-and-error you can figure out how to mix these concentrates in a bottle.

So for the flavors... the vanilla was my favorite and IMO compares favorably with store-bought soda. I'll definitely buy more of this. The cola was wonderful. I'm not what you would call a connoisseur of cola -- for me, there is Coke and then there is everything else. But for something in the "everything else" category, this was very good.

The cream soda was my least-favorite, but still good. It had a bit of a tang that the plain vanilla lacked, which is why I didn't like it as much but maybe others would.

So now I am hooked and can't wait to try a whole bunch of new flavors.

I also found this page today which has a lot of helpful information: http://www.rodsbooks.com/sodas/

So the Rio concentrates are technically for shaved ice. Apparently there are a lot of shaved ice syrups/concentrates that work well in soda. Based on the info from that webpage, I went to the 1-800-shaved-ice site -- just to look. Turns out they're having a sale on the concentrates right now, so I got sucked in and bought three little bottles. As with Prairie Moon, the shipping charge is a bit high so I'm not sure what's up with that.

I also went to the Rio website and they make a bunch of flavors that Prairie Moon doesn't carry. But if you buy direct from Rio the concentrates are more expensive...yet some of those flavors look interesting. Yes, I am officially hooked.
 
To daft -- again, I don't know where you live but if you live in Hawaii and you like the idea of using shaved ice flavors for soda, you're in luck. Apparently there are quite a lot of shaved ice suppliers in Hawaii, including this place: http://www.shaveicesupplies.com/shave-ice-flavors-c-1.html which looks to be one of the more popular brands.

As for me, it seems to me that even the flavors that aren't good for making soda might be good in smoothies or homemade ice cream.
 
I also found this page today which has a lot of helpful information: http://www.rodsbooks.com/sodas/
That is pretty interesting, although I fail to see why he has an obsession with laboriously reducing the syrup to the compact concentration of original sodastream packets. You have the whole top of the bottle space to add syrup and may as well fill it. If you top off with corn syrup or thawed can of juice concentrate or maybe even invert sugar (I assume that is what monin, etc is based on) you will be plenty sweet, especially in the smaller bottles with greater percent headroom. If you want more compact sweetness, he fails to mention agave syrup which seems to be the only natural sugar that is more concentrated than even high fructose CS.

He also fails to see the alternative of using lemon juice instead of powdered citric acid for tartness. The citric acid, especially from natural lemon, is essential to the taste of making almost any syrup drinkable. Look at recipes for almost any soda and it is there... only kids like the alternative of liquid candy. Originally coke and a few others used phosphate acid instead, only because they couldn't get fresh lemons year round. Why go to the effort of tracking down granular citric acid, then measuring a tiny bit and worrying about foam? Some lemon juices come with oil from the zest, which can be hard to dissolve though.

I guess I will post a recent success after i switched from corn syrup to agave syrup:

8) Non fermented Root Beer: I got the cheap deal on amazon for almost a lifetime supply of Zatarains root beer extract. I shake the sediment off the bottom of extract bottle and pour the smallest droplet I can manage. Then fill much of the headspace with chilled agave syrup, cap, shake and rechill. Agave is intensely sweet, doesn't foam upon combination, yet gives just the right foam when you shake the slightly thick syrup into solution. Has a very compatible light flavor like birch beer. I suspect the flavor of zatarain extract doesn't really develop unless you ferment with yeast, but it's good enough with the pricey agave.
 
I thought i'd give a heads up that the agave syrup with root beer extract was a big win over corn syrup, and i edited my previous directions. It's expensive but almost twice as sweet as corn syrup, which cant sweeten root beer enough even if you fill sodastreams entire headspace. Nice flavor like subtle honey, although too dominating for most fruit sodas as opposed to root based. Healthy due to low glycemic index and easy to mix due to being less sticky. i wish i could find a non organic version for a price break on the large size, but...
 
Daft....what brand/color agave did you use for your successful rootbeer batch?

Have you stumbled across any 'monk fruit' products yet?
 
I used xagave which uniquely combines blue and (quite different) white agave. It looks darker than the average honey, but since their very interesting web site says lighter is better, I would assume they are light for agave. I am normally skeptical about their health claims about low glycemic, lower calorie, fiber content, rawness, and organic premium. Organic is provable to have no more vitamins, etc. and allows them to use harsh and even dangerous insect and weed agents just because they are "natural".

But on the other hand this agave tastes like a dream (in a wholesome way) and has lingering good aftertaste and seems to settle well in your stomach. I haven't seen monk fruit extractions and normally anything that isn't sucrose or fructose rubs me strongly the wrong way. You got me thinking more about agave which I think is more compatible with brown flavors. Wish I could find a cheap good cola extract, but zat r.b. is still selling on amazon by the dozen for less than the normal price of 3. I realized agave tastes a bit like cream soda, so will post a barely successful recipe for that (by the way only my #4 here was a failure, but I have a great super simple fermented alternative posted at https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f95/my-simple-fermented-cranberry-soda-384585/ )

9) Cream Soda: Pour many spoonfuls of vanilla extract into a highly carbonated sodastream bottle of water. Then fill 70% of the remaining headspace of the bottle with chilled agave syrup (slowly if it foams a bit). Cap it and tilt bottle... you should see the syrup clinging to the side, but some energetic shaking should mix this and create an appealing foam. You have to rechill to let the pressure go back into the water a bit. The taste is as good as your extract. I use the super cheap pint bottle from Sams club, and have to keep re-reading the label to convince me it is really natural. It does the job, but I almost think artificial vanilla would taste better than this bargain Tones brand.
 
Thanks for info daft, will have to look for 'xagave'. I found Sprecher's Cream Soda at a TruValue hardware store of all places this past weekend (along with at least 50 other hard to find sodas), and I forgot how very good their soda really is. Need to stop and buy a few more bottles. Makes me want to try a blend of xagave and honey in my next cream soda.
 
By the way, these attempts are all assuming no cooking or chopping or dishes...

10) Ginger ale: I bought a tube of fresh ginger paste and chucked a spoonful into a carbonated half liter water bottle already loaded with a bit of lime syrup and a lot of agave syrup. It started a slow motion eruption from the paste, but I capped it fast and shook it a lot to mix the chilled syrup and paste pulp. Looked about the right color with a bit of appealing foam, but tasted kind of bland. Not sure if it needs more (expensive) paste or something else... may edit in changes later. My book says even a success will degrade very fast... gingersol is destroyed by acid and commercial ginger ale often has fake pepper or the like to make it pungent.

P.S. I just noticed a dozen rootbeer extracts on amazon (makes 60 gal) went from under $20 to almost double that recently... gotta snap up those deals fast, and they might become more rare with the internet tax proposal shutting down some small sellers who can't be bothered with tax paperwork for every friggen little state.

Also I tried soda with Monin passionfruit syrup with a bit of lime which was OMG heavenly. I bought Monin pomegranate (their all natural flavor variation) accidentally for $18 marked down from $22 (maybe some local mistake because it looks ten bucks on their web site) and it was a horrible foam bomb. Even after you bottle it, it all foams on the pour and gives a weak result. But drink the syrup straight in a shot glass and it packs a tasty wallop kind of like cointrou (however you spell that orange peel liquor). Reminds me a lot like the old orchard pure fruit frozen concentrate in the foaming and weak taste.
 
I thought I would make a note of something I was moved to do with my monin syrups, although I guess could apply to any syrups. I got sick of an array of part empty syrup bottles always filling the fridge, and none of the flavors exactly hit the spot. So I poured them all into each other until quite mixed into a fruit punch (each still unique). That consolidates into fewer bottles, among other things.

Now the premium one that exploded into too much foam works well in integrated mode. Now the lime tartness doesn't have to be added to each seperately. Now the light ones that needed more personality have a tint of bold ones that were overbearing. Now for this fruit genre, I always pour from the same syrup bottle, then it can be cleared out when emptied in turn. Well, I wouldn't have done this if I could buy exactly what I want from a bigger selection of Monins, but this worked well with what I had.
 
11) Lemon Colada: Sounds like a minor variation on the familiar, but WOW... it's my new favorite. I accidentally filled more than half the remaining headroom of sodastream carbonated water with thawed fresh lemonade concentrate. Then filled the remaining space with monin coconut syrup. Lemon seems a better partner than pineapple, and gives a turbo blast freshness to the coconut milky stuff. A book I have says the part that acid like lemon or carbonic plays in a drink is to blast apart elements so your senses can better pick it up in the aromatic bubbles and liquid, and it seems to work.

Later P.S... i just tried froze pineapple concentrate with coco syrup, which was no good. On another note i tried froze lemon with froze strawberry puree. The flavor is super good but foams insanely, even when poured in the glass.
 
12) Inca Cola: Add to carbed water some cola flavor drops (preferably kola-nut based, but I used Capella artificial superconcentrated cola) and a couple glugs of lemon juice/concentrate. Add a glug (a tablespoon or 2?) of decocainized coca extract https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f95/true-cherry-cola-407971/ and top off with a bit less than usual agave syrup. Shake hard to mix syrup and chill a bit to reabsorb co2.

Discussion: This has the essential punch of coke for me with a lighter sweetness and color. You may want to add dark corn syrup and caffeine for more conventional taste... don't add more agave which will make it too honey-like. Minimize use of coca extract which is expensive and can make you feel dizzy in quantity... probably a bad idea to use it at all if you can stand conventional concentrates, but it is what Coke uses and wimpy tasting Pepsi doesn't.
 
13) Almond Berry: I love the taste of berries, but not always drinking their juice. This adds monin almond syrup which really rounds out and compliments their flavor. You can start with a lot of frozen berry punch canned concentrate or a mixture of monin berry / red fruit syrups. Add dash of lemon or lime juice to tart up the carbonated water. Then pour in a few oz of almond syrup, cap, and tumble soda bottle.

I tried a lot of combos that didn't work, and may stop here at lucky 13... others can post their own experiments. I also posted my experiment with cheaper co2 for sodastream https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f95/cheaper-co2-attempts-sodastream-411646/ . I tried to grasp some general rules to explain, like, why coconut syrup doesn't seem to groove with berries, or almond with lemon, but vice versa works for me. I think the taste buds like tension between opposite poles... tart flirting with sweet, and one flavor competing with an opposite one.

So lemon works both for tartness and a bold flavor. Coconut syrup is a bold opposite flavor and is of course sweet. Berries are less bold, and can toy with blander almond syrup for attention. Sweet agave syrup has an assertive flavor that plays off mediciney coca leaf extract for cola. It also plays off muddy-water tasting root beer extract... best when neither component is dominant over each other. I don't know why root beer doesn't seem to need tartness. The mocha drink had a bit of sourness from the coffee, but all in all didn't benefit a lot from carbing.

Update: at the risk of being a half-liter bottle bore, another great advantage of them over the standard 1L bottle is you hardly have to shake before pouring. That bottle is narrower than the big one, but has the same size mouth. Thus the pulp, etc may get trapped at bottom of large bottle, but flows out easily when pouring the small one.
 
14) Terrible Tea: Add a modest amount of defrosted canned berry punch concentrate to cold carbed water. Not enough to let the strawberry flavor assert itself; just the fruity undercurrent which is mostly pear/grape. Add a few squirts of lemon juice or concentrate for minimal tartness. Then add some bottled flavoring drops like apricot or expresso or whatever. Since the whole concept is to not outshine the sometimes timid flavor drops, finish up with the clean taste of chilled corn syrup... as much as can fit in the bottle (it's not that sweet) with a bit of shaking room. Shake the glutinous stuff like crazy, rechill, and be amazed when it turns out better than you think (depending on the wide variety of flavor drops).
 
To daft -- again, I don't know where you live but if you live in Hawaii and you like the idea of using shaved ice flavors for soda, you're in luck. Apparently there are quite a lot of shaved ice suppliers in Hawaii, including this place: http://www.shaveicesupplies.com/shave-ice-flavors-c-1.html which looks to be one of the more popular brands.

I recall shave ice flavors seeming a bit light on real fruitiness and more like thin artificial syrup. I did try a guava breakfast syrup by "flavors of hawaii" that turned out fantastic and comes in econo sizes. Contains just guava and sugarwater (not corn syrup)... it kinds of gels up in the fridge as if the natural fruit pectin is at work, although pulp isn't apparent. I think this helps suppress foam reactions when you put it in.

I don't normally favor guava fruit or juice, but it makes an even better soda. I have their coconut syrup but haven't tried it yet. Having real fruitiness is more satisfying than the thin amounts you tend to get in highly processed Monin, etc. - that's why I like the frozen concentrates too.

So if it would let me edit: (3) Add chilled lemon juice drops into chilled carbed sodastream water. Shake chilled guava syrup, and glop into most of remaining headspace. Cap and shake the daylights out of it until gel breaks up, then rechill and let carb reabsorb. Later uncap slowly because the gel breakup may have had an internal foaming effect.

Also I tried every flavor of a canned frozen concentrate line called something like Hawaii's Own. I think I mentioned foaming on initial attempts. About the 5th and last flavor was the only one that didn't trigger excessive foaming from coarse pulp... I think it is called Paradise Punch which is pretty good. I forget if it needs lemon added for tartness.
 
I found frozen concentrate cans of cran rasberry, which is excellent carbonated
 
Looks like I made a big step in making high foaming syrups workable with sodastream. I found if you tilt the bottle (80% full of cold carbed water of course) and pour the syrup against the inside of the neck... almost no foaming! After a cap, shake, and rechill... be careful opening and pouring because there will be a delayed effect foam... kind of nice head on the glass actually.

So many syrups weren't workable due to explosive foam, but the trick is to run it down stuck to the inside surface of the bottle. I got breakfast syrup (blueberry) to work better, now will try more tricky types that werent feasible at all. Also will pour everything else in this way, such as lemon juice and agave.
 
cherry Dr pepper! Eureka! The oh-so-hard to replicate essence of Dr Pepper is in fact easy in the sodastream system. Just fill the remaining headroom of a carbed bottle of cold water with 1/4 black cherry concentrate and 3/4 agave syrup. It comes out tasting sort of in between Dr Pepper and cherry Dr pepper... yowzaa!

It amazed me that this worked because if I average out the two tastes in my head it seems bleh, but the two seem to interact in some complex way for your taste buds. I used xagave which is a mild blend of both blue and white agave. The black cherry concentrate was pure, with no additives or sweetener, and seems widely available pretty cheaply due to use for medicinal purposes. It wasn't super fruity tasting, but almost prunish with tart and sweet elements.

Under the same principle, I tried substituting blackcurrent concenetrate with agave... yuck. And I tried substituting corn syrup for agave, and it was bad the same day but a bearable the next day when the jellyfish of corn syrup mixed better.

P.S. maybe some of you didn't like commercial canned cherry dr pepper, but I find it grows on you if you keep chugging it... unlike almost any canned soda it has no annoying overtones from repeated drinking. The drink above also is distinct from Safeway's Refreshe black cherry soda which is kiddie sweet. However the above creation is like neither of these, but a very wholesome natural feeling taste more akin to straight Dr pepper.
 
Cranberry Colada: A splash of monin coconut syrup added to canned frozen cranberry concentrate takes the edge off the cran tartness, now bolstered by carbonic acid from the bubbly water. The 2 flavors blend really well also.

Comments: now I see the principle at work, where coconut smoothes out the very tart, like lemonade. I had tried adding cran to lemonade, but it was way too tart. Cran by itself added to bitter carbed water was too tart... but together a cran colada is better than a lemon colada, which is better than a pina colada.
 
I tried substituting blackcurrent concenetrate with agave... yuck.

I meant substituting blackcurrent concentrate FOR agave, not WITH. Anyway I tried all three for quite happy results tasting something like boysenberry: Agave + Blackcherry + Blackcurrent = fireberry (can't think of a good term to capture it's smoldering kick).

This isn't just some toying around with flavors, like you might try straw-raspberry or something, but is a very specific solution for problems. The black cherry typically is pure concentrated black cherries, so it's tartness cancels out it's sweetness and although wholesome it will be overpowered by carbonic bitterness. Usually I drown it in agave, but that is recently becoming insanely expensive due to the premium tequila craze absorbing supply.

So it made more economic sense to substitute part of the expensive agave with luxurious blackcurrent. I can only get that concentrate by airmail in the ridiculous british bottle which won't seal after you open it, and is fiddly to open and close anyway. But it is a real treat because growing blackcurrent has been until recently unjustifiably banned in most US states.

The british ribena concentrate is quite sweet and kind of one-note where (like the black cherry concentrate) folks don't consume it for the taste but for medicinal qualities. In another thread I found I had to mix it with ginger ale to fully appreciate it, but here you can get the fantastic blackcurrent taste without acrid side effects by mixing with blackcherry and agave.
 
Been Looking at the bag in a box syrups lately and did some searching and some reading, I have already made some rainbow rootbeer (family says it has a"diet" taste) and looking at possibly getting a couple of 1 gallon boxes of actual Diet Dr. Pepper and a cream soda...

Was wondering if anyone has recently used these bag in a box syrups and what the good and bad are with using them.

Thanks in advance.
 
Sodastream bottles don't have enough room for the amount of concentrate recommended from bag in the box (1/5?). I think this may be designed specifically to prevent people from straying from their syrup. In fact, it can be hard to get any corn syrup based flavoring to work due to this, except perhaps in their smaller bottles and with HF version of CS.

It can be overcome, but is hardly worth it once you find your own even better syrups. Their gimmick is that the carbonator only works with the bottle about 85% full of water (a little less with their very much recommended optional half liter sodastream bottles). You could then pour some water out to make room for extra syrup, but that ups the co2 costs.
 
Sodastream bottles don't have enough room for the amount of concentrate recommended from bag in the box (1/5?). I think this may be designed specifically to prevent people from straying from their syrup. In fact, it can be hard to get any corn syrup based flavoring to work due to this, except perhaps in their smaller bottles and with HF version of CS.

It can be overcome, but is hardly worth it once you find your own even better syrups. Their gimmick is that the carbonator only works with the bottle about 85% full of water (a little less with their very much recommended optional half liter sodastream bottles). You could then pour some water out to make room for extra syrup, but that ups the co2 costs.

I know what you mean about making syrups, I have done this with a Rainbow Rootbeer Extract 20 ounces of spring water 2 and half cups of sugar in the raw, 2 teaspoons of vanilla and one ounce of the extract into a quart bottle. Kids tried it said it wasn't vanilla'y enough added a little more vanilla, but it takes about one and half capful's of the syrup in the half liter bottle to make it any good.

What we have been doing in making the carbed water using soda stream then pouring it into a very large glass...and then slowly pouring in the syrup and mixing it up with a spoon. Kids have said it's better but still has a "diet " twang to it...

My wife really likes Diet Dr. Pepper and I found a one gallon box and was going to give that a whirl, the reviews on the site have said it takes more syrup when using the soda stream seeing how we generally don't mix in the bottle I am ok with using a little more.

I still want to give some of the prairie moon and pittsburgh soda syrups a go as well. :rockin:
 
Ok ordered from syrup supply got a one gallon bag in box of diet dr pepper it takes more syrup but it definitely tastes better than what the dr pete stuff is and the mrs says it works for her as well and she's the toughest one to deal with. It is pricier but for us it's well worth it will be trying the other bag in box syrups as well



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Cocktail flavor experiments:

Mr. & Mrs. T's Mai Tai Mixer: Works pretty well with NO foam side effects when added. A bit weak, so you have to max top off one of the HALF liter sodastream bottles which have more percent empty space at the top. Nice adult citrus flavor that isn't oversweetened... I have no idea or interest if it resembles a real Mai Tai. In the pre-holiday sale I also got their Pina Colada mix which I fear will create a foam bomb due to the cocomilk.

Sodastream Cosmopolitan syrup: Actually it might be another similar cocktail mixer, NOT intended for alcohol like their newly announced product. I had a BBB coupon and they had stopped carrying Sodastream natural flavor cola (are they insane, cola is the most popular flavor but the non natural flavors taste putrid!). So I tried something like Cosmopolitan mix from a red bottle and it was very good, aside from the fact it was a mix of natural and not... with the usual off flavors. I hesitate to use the term natural which has no legal or logical meaning, but in the case of Sodastream they use ghastly tasting artificial sweeteners in their non-natural.
EDIT-> best when combined with min maid fruit/berry punch concentrate.
 
Mr & Mrs T Pina Colada Mix: Decadently creamy and bubbly, yet it doesn't turn to a foam bomb! Strongish flavor, so might work even in the liter sodastream bottle. These don't foam due to scarcity of any natural particulate, so maybe best to round out the flavor with some real cherry juice or whatever is on hand.

Edit Addendum: Mix P-C with sodastream Cola syrup! It's just perfect because the edgy acid/tannin of cola plays off the thick coco syrup. Just like a coke is esp satisfying cutting thru aftermath of an oily meal.
 
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