Hi guys,
My husband's the head brewer at a new micro here in lower Alabama, and on top of being a kid-friendly taproom, we've got a lot of folks who come in looking for something beyond beer. As a result, we're hoping to add a soda or two to our repertoire, preferably rotating seasonally using locally-sourced ingredients. We've got an abundance of berry farms around us and strawberries are just coming in season, so I naturally gravitated to that first.
So far I've just been experimenting at home and adding club soda or seltzer on a per-glass basis, but we've got all the necessary equipment to keg the beer with no issue. However, I'm hesitant for a few reasons.
(1) I've read that the lines/o-rings continue tasting like root beer when you run it through them. Does that mean that every time I switch the flavor of a soda, I'll need to switch the o-rings and tubing as well?
(2) I'm using fresh strawberries juiced with my Breville juicer. Has anyone else juiced fresh strawberries for a soda? Do you have any issues with the color fading over time? I'm not expecting this to last a huge time period, but I also have no way of knowing if it will last one day or 5 months. I'm guessing it will last about a month, but I could be way off either direction.
(3) Do you have better, worse, or the exact same results keeping syrup separate from a keg? I have been considering getting a few cute syrup bottles, either pourable or pumpable, and just keeping a keg of carbonated water behind the bar. Hmmm... in fact, if I do it that way, I guess I could then actually hook that carbonated water directly to our keg system and not have to worry about the flavors in the hoses. Anyway, would it ruin the experience of it being a homemade soda if you see it's just a simple syrup and carbonated water, or would it be more like a soda jerk experience? Have you had any issues with getting the syrup and water to stay mixed in either scenario?
Any tips are appreciated. I'm wanting this process to go as smoothly as possible so the partners are enthusiastic about it working easily in our taproom in the future.
Thanks!
Amy Murphy
My husband's the head brewer at a new micro here in lower Alabama, and on top of being a kid-friendly taproom, we've got a lot of folks who come in looking for something beyond beer. As a result, we're hoping to add a soda or two to our repertoire, preferably rotating seasonally using locally-sourced ingredients. We've got an abundance of berry farms around us and strawberries are just coming in season, so I naturally gravitated to that first.
So far I've just been experimenting at home and adding club soda or seltzer on a per-glass basis, but we've got all the necessary equipment to keg the beer with no issue. However, I'm hesitant for a few reasons.
(1) I've read that the lines/o-rings continue tasting like root beer when you run it through them. Does that mean that every time I switch the flavor of a soda, I'll need to switch the o-rings and tubing as well?
(2) I'm using fresh strawberries juiced with my Breville juicer. Has anyone else juiced fresh strawberries for a soda? Do you have any issues with the color fading over time? I'm not expecting this to last a huge time period, but I also have no way of knowing if it will last one day or 5 months. I'm guessing it will last about a month, but I could be way off either direction.
(3) Do you have better, worse, or the exact same results keeping syrup separate from a keg? I have been considering getting a few cute syrup bottles, either pourable or pumpable, and just keeping a keg of carbonated water behind the bar. Hmmm... in fact, if I do it that way, I guess I could then actually hook that carbonated water directly to our keg system and not have to worry about the flavors in the hoses. Anyway, would it ruin the experience of it being a homemade soda if you see it's just a simple syrup and carbonated water, or would it be more like a soda jerk experience? Have you had any issues with getting the syrup and water to stay mixed in either scenario?
Any tips are appreciated. I'm wanting this process to go as smoothly as possible so the partners are enthusiastic about it working easily in our taproom in the future.
Thanks!
Amy Murphy