most efficient carbonation method?

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?

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.

how much is a force carb rig?

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

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.

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

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)

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.

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.

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.

also, how do you carbonate with a corny keg? im not really sure.

also, how do you carbonate with a corny keg? im not exactly sure.

If we look at the fact that both beer and soda can be considered an uncarbonated liquid that can/will be force carbonated, I think that https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/keg-force-carbing-methods-illustrated-73328/ and https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/we-no-need-no-stinking-beer-gun-24678/ (both stickys in the beer bottling/kegging forum) may be pretty similar.
They say to carbonate a corny keg you can pressurize and shake, and leave for a while, overpressurize and shake, or let sit at a normal pressure for a long time. (condensed).
I think bottling beer will be slightly different than bottling from a soda keg, but I don't think much if you do the purge&cap they mention. Anyone give that a try with soda yet?

I still only need at most 2 liters at a time (and I shake so it's done within a minute or two). Heck, I use a small 12 ounce sparkling water bottle and force carbonate some water and then add syrup in the morning and bring that to work sometimes. (Trying out the Rainbow Inc cola extract made into a syrup, but not liking it that much compared to sonoma brand syrup's taste.)
I do plan, eventually, to do the keg thing for soda water and I'm sure some people have talked about that in the other threads too. Somehow I remember something about not washing as much.

Properly capped bottled soda should last for months. Just keep things clean and sanitary and get a good seal on the caps. As mentioned elsewhere, soda is typically carb'd to higher presures up to 25psi depending on the drink, so regular beer bottles may not handle your carb pressure.

The entertaining part about the beer bottle problem will be that they won't blow right away... it'll take time for pressure to build as the CO2 leaves solution, then boom - homemade pepsi all over the counter...

Better off using plastic... that's practically indestructible and easy to come by.

Agreed on not using beer bottles, I don't know if it can take the 30 or so psi. (Even for my plastic 2 liter or 12oz bottles I use in a day I'm charging up to 40 to get an equivalency of 30). Or if you can find a source for proper glass soda bottles. I did a quick search but didn't find any sources for new bottles. Maybe I'll just start collecting a few glass soda bottles. I know they still produce them at least. Coke puts some out once a year. The procedure for filling from a keg should be approximate I would think though. I should give it a try, even if I have to stick the keg outside to chill first.

im confused...are you carbonating the soda in the corney keg, then bottling it?

1) force carbonate in a plastic 2 liter bottle
2) just force carbonate a Corney keg
2.5) Fill glass bottles from Corney Keg & cap.

I think it'd be just for experimentation on my end, eventually, or perhaps we'll get info from others who have tried this. This was the way they did it back before they had the rotary automatic filling/capping machines they have today. (Ok, well, according to files.asme.org/asmeorg/communities/history/landmarks/5524.pdf they added syrup, then carbonated water, then capped.) I really don't have that much use for bottling my soda in glass other than for the novelty of it.

thank you kevinm. another question...will the bottles hold the soda after filling them with the already carbonated soda?

Actually, I've been hoping someone who has done this will chime in because I haven't done any analytical trials on this situation.

According to the beer thread, it would seem that it does.
Also, when I charged two 2-liter bottles using the connector and then opened and closed it with a regular bottle cap (plastic twist on), it seemed to keep enough carbonation for a day or two. I charged a plastic 2 liter bottle, opened it which released some pressure (but didn't pour anything out) then twisted on it's original cap.
Ideally, the liquid is charged high enough that when opening and releasing the pressure to do the real seal (or filling), then the liquid will release some co2 and then stabilize at the wanted pressure/carbonation.
The problem is, I don't know what pressure this would be, or what temperature would be desired. (From what I gather, the keg would be around 32 degrees F, about freezing, to maintain as much carbonation in the liquid so it won't relese the gas till later.)
After filling the sealed bottle should hold the soda and carbonation without exploding. There is of course the issue about the pressure rating of the bottle and wether soda bottle glass is structurally more stable than a beer bottle, or if they're the same, or not. (plastic already seems to be able to hold a higher rating, or perhaps it's just less of a catistrophic failure than a glass bottle would be if there is a rupture. I don't really know. My packaging degree fails me at this time, not that I ever studied.)

Glass soda bottles are a lot thicker than beer bottles usually. Pick up some glass bottled Coca-Cola and you will see the difference. Those things are tanks.

As long as you get a good fill and leave only a small head room you don't have to worry about getting the perfect temp-pressure combo. Fill it and cap it relatively quickly and it will be plenty carb'd. I just fill bottles at serving pressure and temperature from my keggerator regularly. Try it on a dozen bottles and let them sit for a week or two to see the results.

Good to know and have confirmation on that. Thanks Lakewood. I thought that might be the case, but I can't say I've seen a glass soda bottle lately, other than an 11.5 oz naturally feremented Cascal bottle which were non-twist crown caps at the time I was drinking them and I only saved two of those bottles. (Which are currently full of cider)
I was mentally trying to picture glass coke bottles and thought they had thicker but we all know how well we skew things we remember from childhood. Everything seems smaller as an adult.
edit: Curious, I've been trying to find hydrostatic tests done on glass bottles and I'm finding various references that the wall thickness of soda bottles and beer bottles are both approximately 2.0mm give or take a few mm. Odd. I've been trying to find enough information about burst tests. One gave a coronoa thickness of 2mm but didn't give the glass coke bottle thickness, another about "glass soda bottles" gave a 1.7 mm average width.
One forum had links that I didn't bother registering to see http://www.homegardenguides.com/gar...da-bottle-explode-home-co2-carbonation-3.html which notes that various burst tests on some coke bottles. I couldn't find a comparison though.
I guess it's a bit difficult too because of manufacturing differences, wall thickness and so on.

Yeah, I hadn't had a coke from a glass bottle since I was a kid but they started selling them at Costco a few years back and my wife and I when on a nostalgia trip for a bit. Now they even carry them at Home Depot of all places, go figure.

Most of my soda is bottled into glass Mexican Coke bottles (force-carbed in a keg and then bottled via a CPBF), but I also have some recipes I naturally carbonate in plastic bottles. Coke bottles are indeed thicker than normal glass bottles, and the hole is even a different size (had to buy a different stopper for use with my CPBF).

It's hard to say which method is 'more efficient'. Using a counter-pressure bottle filler (or equivalent) for force carbing takes more effort than just pouring uncarbonated liquid into plastic bottles and pitching yeast or lactobacteria starter, but with natural carb you have to constantly check the levels and refrigerate / relieve pressure if they're getting too hard.

Force carbing gives you a more consistent carbonation level, but bottle conditioning allows you to pour out only a little bit of soda at a time and have the carbonation levels replenished by the yeast/bacteria.

Flavor-wise, it's a lot easier to control exactly what flavor profile you get with force carbonation, but it's possible to get a lot more complexity out of a fermented beverage than a non-fermented one, even when you're talking about such minute amounts of fermentation taking place.

Generally speaking, I save natural carbonation for when I want the specific flavor that yeast / lactobacteria provide.

Good to know about the bottles.
Interesting point about the yeast carbonation, but that makes sense. Also, Those of us with c02 tanks are fortunate enough that we can replenish the co2 as well, but we still have to use our tanks for it. But it's better than before when we'd open a storebought soda, seal it and have it flat the next day.

I certainly agree that yeast has a type of flavor, but I"m curious, what types of sodas do you feel go better with yeast for that particular yeast/lactobacillic flavor?