Rio soda syrups

Recently I picked up some rio soda syrups to try making some different flavors. I am running into a problem with the resulting beverage feeling weak in flavor. It seems that I have to add 5 times more syrup to get the flavor. Leaving me to wonder if my syrup is wrong or if my syrup to water is off

I am using
20 oz water
2.5 cups or 1.5 lbs sugar
And most recently either 1 to 3 oz of concentrate

In a 16 oz glass I need to add 8 or more tablespoons of syrup to get any flavor even then it feels week.

Any ideas or suggestions appreciated!!

I hope you don't mind me camping on your post. But I have the same issue and was about to open a new thread. Hopefully it won't look like someone answered you.

If I'm reading their website (Prairie Moon, right?) correctly, you should be able to use 1 ounce of concentrate to make 1 quart (32 oz) of syrup. Then add 2 oz of syrup to 10 oz of carbonated water to make 12 oz of soda. Which means to make a 16 oz drink, you should be adding 2.7 oz of syrup to 13.3 of carbonated water. Not sure from the post if you are doing that, but the extra 8 tablespoons represents 4 oz so that by itself should be enough. If you're tripling the 1 oz to 3 oz, you are definitely way over what they say.

My story is we just got six concentrates and played around with Orange and Cream Soda last night. I'm using a Soda Stream to make my one liter (really 30 oz) of carbonated water. I didn't feel like making syrups so went through the math to figure out what I needed to just carbonate 30 oz of water. I came up with a teaspoon of concentrate and 9 drops of super concentrated Ezsweetz. Just keeps coming out really weak. I'm up to three teaspoons and not there yet. Three teaspoons is half an ounce which according to them is enough to make half a quart of syrup (16 oz) which would be enough syrup to add to 80 ounces of water to make 3 quarts (96 oz) of soda. Unfortunately it's not even providing enough flavor for 30 oz of water.

I am going to write them for advice as it just seems to be wrong but came here first for any similar experiences. Again, apologies for camping but I felt it would be rude to open another post. I will do so if there are no responses here.

I would love to hear what they say as I have a shopping cart with a bunch of syrups in it...but waiting to see how this gets resolved.

Are you ordering syrup or concentrate? I find it hard to believe this is an issue across the entire line, too many people like these for it to be typical. I can see them cheating a little to show value. I have to add a full cap of Soda stream instead of the 1.5 oz, its more like 2. I just really think they dropped the ball somewhere recently.

They suggested perhaps not enough sugar and also gave me a recipe from a customer who is a Sodastream user.

1 oz liquid Ez-Sweetz
3 oz Rio concentrate
enough water to equal 16.9 oz (about 12.9 oz), the same as the Sodastream flavor bottle

This is for making a syrup in the old SodaStream bottles. Then the same measurement is used as with SodaStream syrups, 1.5 oz of syrup added to 30 oz of carbonated water. I went through the math and they used about 50% more concentrate that I calculated based on the PM formula. And about twice the sugar (I'm assuming they are using regular Ezsweetz, I use a double concentrate from Ezsweetz.

So I told them I would try tonight and see how it turns out but I wasn't holding out much hope as I ended up yesterday using three times the amount I calculated using the PM formula (which was still twice the one from the customer) and still came up short. I will try the Cream Soda again, which was terrible and the Root Beer. I have to say though that I am tired of doing all these calculations. ;-)

Kingpin - Apologies again for stealing your thread...hopefully some of this is helpful?

I was going to order concentrate...let us know how the test goes tonight.

Okay - I tried the root beer. Pretty good. I will have to go over my numbers again, but I maintain I am close to the formula that was given.

So I'm now using 3 ounces (18 teaspoons) of concentrate to make 17 ounces of syrup. The normal measurement for Soda Stream from their syrup bottle is about 1.5 oz of syrup to the 30 oz of carbonated water. This means the 30 oz of water is getting roughly 1.5 teaspoons of concentrate. I use extra concentrated Ezsweetz so that's a half ounce in the 17 ounces of syrup. They say it has 450 servings. Also, each drop is supposedly 2 teaspoons of sugar and six drops is 1/4 cup. Here's where I get confused as Ezsweetz numbers don't work out on their web site, but basically I counted about 250 drops going into the half ounce. So from a sweetner perspective, my syrup is 17 oz, I used almost 2 oz for the 30 oz, so I'm thinking more like 30 drops per 30 oz bottle of carbonated water.

Next test is simply to go back to my formula, bumping it to 1.5 teaspoons and 30 drops of sweetner and go again with the root beer. Once done with that, I'll try aspartame.

I went this route to save money, but if I need a half oz of sweetner to make 17 oz of syrup, its cheaper for me to buy the $5.00 bottles of SodaStream syrups. Though if some of the PM syrups are really good, then its worth it. I think the real expense issue with SodaStream is the CO2.

Hopefully this makes sense when I post it, not checking until tomorrow!! ;-)

I ordered the classic 6 pack from PM. Sounds about the same as what you have. I am using the recommended recipe of 2.5 cups sugar to about a quart of water and their 1 oz cap filled with the concentrate. I don't think sugar is a problem as it tastes sweet. It seems that the overall syrup made from the concentrate is weak or light on flavor based on their recipe.

Hi Kingpin. I agree but I am curious which flavors you tried. Looking over the numbers I used for the SodaStream formula they gave me I show the 3 oz of concentrate and 1 oz of Ezsweetz (5 lb equivalent) is making roughly 16.9 oz of syrup. I use almost 2 oz of syrup per 30 oz bottle which makes roughly 8.5 32 oz bottles of soda or 272 oz in total.

Using their formula for syrup, 1 oz of formula and 1.25 lbs sugar per qt and using 2 oz syrup per 10 oz water to make 12 oz soda, they will make 16 12 oz sodas or 192 oz in total.

So to make 272 oz of soda, they require 1.42 oz of concentrate and 1.8 lbs of sugar. So they are at less than half the amount of concentrate I used and 1/3 the sugar. I'm not suggesting I'm sticking with this, especially the sugar. I think a more normal amount of sugar for 272 oz (8 liters) of soda is around 2-2.5 lbs so they are close on that one. I'm also going to go ahead and order more including the concentrate droppers. It also seems to still be way under the amount of concentrate you were using which is why I was wondering which flavors you tried.

I am going to make sure I have the proportions correct for root beer first, then apply to the other concentrates. I'm wondering if either I got a couple of duds or the orange is just bizarre. I never tried bumping the amount up for the cream soda flavor but I'm going to stick with the root beer as a test because it has a more standard taste and I feel we have a better chance of determining the weakness/strength of that.

And thank you for letting me camp here!! ;-)

Edited to add there is one discount code for 5% at PM, 'save5' without quotes. Every little bit counts, anyone know of others, please share.

Hi FTJoe..... I have tried the Root Beer and Cream Soda so far. The cream soda I did per the instructions on the PM website and the paper that came in my box of goodies. When I used the 1oz of concentrate with the 2.5 cups of sugar and 20 oz of water to make the syrup. When I did it that way it came out tasting super weak when added to the recommended 10 OZ or less of water. so I added more concentrate and shook it up again and tried it (it tasted good out of the container) but then added to the water I needed to add nearly 4.5 OZ to 10 OZ of water to get anything reasonable.

The same thing also happened with the root beer.

Wow - that sounds like a lot!! I'm going to have to try the root beer again tonight but by just making my 30 oz of carbonated soda by adding 2 teaspoons of concentrate and 15-25 drops of sweetner. Supposedly six drops are a quarter cup of sugar (one drop is two splenda packets), I used a half an ounce/250 drops so it makes sense its around 5 lbs. If I wanted to only use half the sugar for the batch, then I'd think I would want around in 30 oz, I'm guessing I should only use about 12-15 drops.

Does that sound right to folks who make soda? About a quarter pound or half a cup of sugar/equivalent for a little less than one liter?

Yes, that sounds right. I usually use about a lb of sugar/gal of finished soda. That's the ratio for how much sugar is in kool-aid, so it's not unheard of.

Thanx. So I did 2 teaspoons in 30 oz of carbonated water and ended up using 20 drops of extra concentrated Ezsweetz. This received approval from the taste testers. Though my daughter really couldn't tell as we started adding sugar if it was lacking flavor or sugar as compared to the control batch.

On to other flavors once we get through these batches. Though right now I only have Cherry, Black Cherry and Vanilla besides the Orange, Cream and Root Beer. Coming in a few days are Lemon Lime, Ginger Ale, Grape, Sarsaparilla, Orange Dream and Chocolate Raspberry. So I'll probably try Orange and Cream again using these proportions. If no good, we'll make syrup for snow cones.