Why are carbonator caps so expensive?

I know I can make theses things for less, and have to buy a freakin shrader valve tire filler...blah, blah, blah... Why the eff oare these things so expensive?

It is basically a corny post that screws on a PET bottle.

Has anyone figured out how touse a corny post with an adapter to fit onto a PET bottle?

I would love to have the convenience of using my kegging system, (without modifying it) to carb my 2 liter bottles...

...I ask again why are these things so outrageously priced.

I own one, and I am not paying what I payed for the one I have ever again!

On the other hand does anyone know where I can grab a few of these for a bargain?

Low demand specialty product. Like you say, you can build your own.

Has anyone tried seeing if a corny post will thread onto a 2 liter bottle?

I know I have spare kegs around and have never tried.

GilaMinumBeer said:

Has anyone tried seeing if a corny post will thread onto a 2 liter bottle?

I know I have spare kegs around and have never tried.

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There is no way, at least not without some sort of adapter.

Schnitzengiggle said:

There is no way, at least not without some sort of adapter.

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Yeah. I forgot how large a mouth 2 liters have.

What are they, like $20?? Yeah it's a piece of plastic with a valve on it. Do you have any idea how much it costs to design and manufacture a plastic mold? On an item that sells as little as a carbonator cap, they are probably not making much money when it's all said and done.

Building one is not that hard, but takes a schrader valve and your time. Could be a fun project. Buying one for $20 takes about zero time and you're ready to hook up to your gas. It's worth the $20 for convenience IMO.

You can build one for cheaper, but ask yourself how much would you have to have someone pay you for that homemade carb cap if you were to sell them? (Cost of material and time and overhead and multiply by at least 2 minimum).

Perhaps the patent has something to do with the price. I agree they are wicked expensive.

You can get four of them (or at least an equivalent product) for $20 from Crankandstein. It's a great deal, a lot of people in my local brew club use them.

Full disclosure, I occasionally work for Don (Dr. Crankandstein) turning metal for the mills.

matthewkbridges said:

You can get four of them (or at least an equivalent product) for $20 from Crankandstein. It's a great deal, a lot of people in my local brew club use them.

Full disclosure, I occasionally work for Don (Dr. Crankandstein) turning metal for the mills.

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Sweet! Never knew those existed. Its more like the parts you would use for DIY, but you would probably spend $20 on all the parts alone for 4.

matthewkbridges said:

You can get four of them (or at least an equivalent product) for $20 from.

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The working word here is "equivanent." Can you pop your disconnect off a keg and charge a pet bottle, then return it to the keg? Didn't think so.

Get your homebrewing masterpiece ready to hit the road. Or pump up the head on some mediocre stuff and take it to a party where nobody can tell the difference anyway.

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Their description is awesome.

AnOldUR said:

The working word here is "equivanent." Can you pop your disconnect off a keg and charge a pet bottle, then return it to the keg? Didn't think so.

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Sure looks to me like you can. Unless "equivanent" means something different than equivalent.

AnOldUR said:

The working word here is "equivanent." Can you pop your disconnect off a keg and charge a pet bottle, then return it to the keg? Didn't think so.

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Yes, you pretty much can. If you look at the product page, it includes the chuck-to-ball-lock adapter to make that work. Just pop the disconnect off of your keg, snap the adapter on it, charge a bottle, and then remove the adapter and put the disconnect back on the keg. Easy peasey.

AnOldUR said:

The working word here is "equivanent." Can you pop your disconnect off a keg and charge a pet bottle, then return it to the keg? Didn't think so.

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Maybe I don't understand, but yes.

Making carbonator caps has been the easiest and cheapest beer related DIY project I have done so far.

AnOldUR said:

The working word here is "equivanent." Can you pop your disconnect off a keg and charge a pet bottle, then return it to the keg? Didn't think so.

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Exactly!

I know there is some time and labor involved in creating a mold for them, but c'mon, once you have them injection mold, then it is gravy from there on out.

There is no reason for them to be $20 a pop. Period.

They are selling convenience, and apparently they have no competition!

All they did was take an actual corny post and make an injection mold out of it, and added the PET bottle screw on, anyone with a mill, some time could accomplish that.

Not saying I have the means, but I know it can be done.

I just don't want to have to have an extra hose with a schrader valve connection on it to fill my bottles.

I know it can be done inexpensively and easily, but I don't wnat ot invest in another co2 tank to make it convenient for me.

I understand that this might sound like incessant bitching, bu thte point here is htere is no reason for these things to be as expensive as they are, none whatsoever.

The company that makes them has had to have sold enough to pay for their overhead, mold, and materials many times over...so the argument that it was expensive to produce is BS. Maybe at one time it was, but I can guarnatee you it isn't anymore...unless there is some guy in his garage making these, and distributing them on his own in his free time...picking up waht I'm putting down?

I'll bet someone savvy with casting resin and a drill press could make their own at home, but not for less than $20.

matthewkbridges said:

If you look at the product page . . . Easy peasey.

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Have to eat crow here. I didn't read or look close enough to see the adapter. Just saw the tire stems and thought you'd need a seperate disconnect.

Not a bad alternative for the price, but I agree with Schnitzengiggle. The price of the Carbonator Caps is too high. We shouldn't have to mess around with an adapter.

Well.....there IS a reason for these to be the price they are, and it's already been covered in this thread. (So, I suppose this post is redundant, so delete if you wish) It's supply and demand. Products that are in limited demand will perhaps have only one, or a limited number of suppliers, and will be priced accordingly.

The only "should" where supply & demand are concerned was covered by (I believe) Armand Hammer, the late chair of Occidental Petroleum:

"The price of any item in the market is exactly what it will fetch."

It's all about perceived value. You buy stuff every day that probably has the exact same margin applied but you don't question it.

I agree that it's overpriced and I express that opinion by not buying it. If you can figure out how to build them cheap enough that selling them for $10 each would be profitable, that would be great. I'll buy 4.

Bobby_M said:

If you can figure out how to build them cheap enough that selling them for $10 each would be profitable, that would be great. I'll buy 4.

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That's the easy part. Here's the problem. Pretty broad description!

Patent 5396934

Abstract: A method and apparatus for injecting CO.sub.2 gas into a bottled liquid to carbonate or maintain carbonation in the liquid. A valved coupling having a conduit extending there through is screwably attached to a P.E.T. bottle substantially filled with liquid. The valve is depressed .while the bottle is squeezed to remove any excess air in the bottle. Regulated CO.sub.2 gas is then fed through a connector that is attached to the coupling to carbonate the liquid. Once carbonated, the connector is removed while the coupling remains in place to maintain carbonation.

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I've got a little CNC lathe in my garage. The thought of blowing out a couple thousand of these is tempting, but I'm sure someone would be knocking at my door.





edit:
Not a customer.





Damn! Missed all the name calling.

rico567 said:

Well.....there IS a reason for these to be the price they are, and it's already been covered in this thread. (So, I suppose this post is redundant, so delete if you wish) It's supply and demand. Products that are in limited demand will perhaps have only one, or a limited number of suppliers, and will be priced accordingly.

The only "should" where supply & demand are concerned was covered by (I believe) Armand Hammer, the late chair of Occidental Petroleum:

"The price of any item in the market is exactly what it will fetch."

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It's not that simple. There are several ways to manipulate supply and demand. Like when the supplier has a monopoly or a patent.

Looking at the abstract from my previous post has me thinking that the Crankandstein system is in conflict with Liquid Bread's patent.

Even without the patent/monopoly, if multiple companies were making the carbonator cap, would it really be less expensive? Exactly what's the demand on it for more companies to make it worth making? (Perhaps Crankandstein can answer that better). If a place is only cranking out a few hundred at a time, then the limited production drives up costs too.
Other items with the equivalent amount of plastic may be cheaper because of the continuous run and constant demand. I think of rubbermaid containers of all sizes, or combs or kids toys. Even given the equal raw material cost, the scale that they create just spreads the other production costs out over each product.
Hmm, I can't recall the names and examples of these other costs for some reason, been a while since my packaging and auditing studies.
Overhead. That was the term. Both manufacturing and nonmanufacturing overhead on making the product. You know, how a solid 1000 dollars for rent, heat, mold transitions, etc while creating only 100 items means that each item is 10 dollars additional to the material costs. If they make 1000 items and that overhead is still the same or slightly larger (lets say 2000 for increases sake) then it's only 2 dollars in addition to the material costs. Problem is if the demand is high enough for that large number of items. Storage tends to cost quite a bit.

It's also like beer. The amount of time it takes to make a single gallon of beer vs a 5 gallon beer isn't largely different. Sure you may have a bit more boil time, but that's really not a whole lot of additional time. The primary and optional secondary are still going to take the same amount of time and material costs scale exactly (price per pound etc), but for the sake of your time, isn't it better to make 5 gallons of good beer than a single gallon 5 times? Luckily, demand will always be high for beer.

The carbonator caps are a bit pricey, but they are also quite durable and do the job very well. I have a couple of them that I've been using for years without problems. I find that I don't really need more than two.

I think you could very easily find a way to get around the patent issue. There seem to be a lot of very similar products made by a lot of different companies and I haven't heard much about any patent lawsuits. The "Chugger" pumps come to mind immediately. How do they avoid infringing on the March patent? The pump heads are nearly identical in every detail from what I see in the pics. You could probably just make some minor changes and avoid a patent infringement lawsuit, but some real legal counsel would probably be a good idea before trying to sell something like that.

Well, the dude from March said the other day that their patents have LONG expired.

I do think it's a stretch to say that the Carbonator Caps are a monopoly in any way, since it's a product that's easy to DIY and it's something that's entirely optional. Microsoft got into trouble with the DOJ and the EU because it was believed that you NEEDED to buy Microsoft products - no one possibly thinks that Carbonator Caps are a required purchase. They may be the only ones who sell it just because there's no other competitor who thinks it's worth getting into the market.

Being declared a monopoly requires (or at least, SHOULD require; the regulators don't always seem to view it this way) that there's no viable alternative. I'd argue that the presence of 2.5-gallon soda kegs is a viable alternative. I'd argue that the presence of seltzer bottles that use CO2 charges is a viable alternative. I'd argue that the presence of counterpressure bottle fillers is a viable alternative.

If you want a sparkling beverage in a portable container, there are plenty of ways to achieve that outside of a Carbonator Cap. No monopoly.

I'd also say that the market for these caps is pretty damn limited. They're selling basically only to homebrewers, who also keg, who also would like to carbonate other beverages. And, people who want one generally buy... well, one. They can't be moving THAT many units every year.

So, ignoring the patent issues for the time being, the costs of creating the injection mold, getting them made up, getting the packaging, and getting them distributed (to homebrew shops that already sell the same basic thing)... cripes, there are easier ways to make a buck than that.

As to the ones from Crankandstein, they look like they would work OK, but they also look like they would work for a little while and fail. Seem to be made with used soda caps, not new material. Carbonator Caps (the "real" ones) seem like they'd last a good long time. There's value there.

It think it would be nice for someone to post the actual cost it would take to make and sell something exactly like a carbonator cap. Since I work at a mold producing company, who also manufactures plastic injection parts, I could have someone estimate this. I doubt anyone there would want to take the time to do it though.

There isn't really much cost involved in the actual making of the parts. If the mold is designed and built properly, there is NOTHING special about the plastic piece itself. A mold change could take less than .5 hours at our shop and we do it all manually. If this was built to run on one of our small PCM presses and the cycle time was 45 seconds (fairly conservative estimate) then an 8 hour shift could produce about 600 (factoring in any downtime). It would take much less than 1 whole person to run the press.

This mold could also have more than 1 cavity, which would conservatively produce 2,000 a day. I imagine a press of that size could run a 2-cavity. A slightly larger press could easily run a 4-cavity mold. 2400 per shift, or nearly 7,700 per day. And that is a very conservative estimate. A person could tend several machines if the mold was built to automatically shear the sprue from the part, which in this instance would be the ONLY way to do it. So the operator simply sorts for shorts or flash.

As far as the assembly, I have no idea. I don't have one to examine, but I suspect the addditional materials would cost the company a few pennies per part and the assembly cannot be that difficult or time-consuming even if done by hand.

The main cost is in the design time and the build of the mold and the demand for the produce. Supply is not a problem since the part is obviously so easy to produce with common material.

After really thinking about it, I'd say you are really mostly paying for the convenience. After seeing that link to the alternative product, I'd say they have a solution to the convenience too. I'd MUCH rather buy the 4 caps and adapter than a single carbonator cap PERIOD.

But for the price for any of them, it's not worth the effort to chuck a piece of metal into the lathe to build one by hand.

@ the bird,

I must agree with you entirely on this. The carbonator caps are expensive, but they are more or less a one time purchase kind of thing. I might feel differently if I wanted to buy a dozen of them. I'm getting good mileage out of the two that I have and it looks like they will survive for many more years. They will probably get lost or stolen before I wear them out.

I have a friend in the manufacturing business and he has often said that most patents for similar small items like this look very nice framed and hanging on the wall of his office, but the reality is that it's seldom worth the time and expense to go to battle over possible infringements or to even bother getting a patent in the first place.

When you buy a product, you're buying its end utility. It has nothing to do with the cost to produce it. That cost only comes into the equation when you're trying to figure out what the lowest price you can charge in light of stiff competition.

Even if the total cost is 20 cents each on a run of 10,000 units, you charge what the market will bear. Then supplier #2 comes along and offers it for $3 less and back and forth you go.

I guess another way to say it is the potential buyer is always deciding between price and value. The potential seller is the one that worries about cost and margin. This is way I'm always confused when people are appalled when a large company's profit report comes out as if there should be some kind of limit.

If I told you that it costs me $35 to sell a $40 sight glass, would you buy it any quicker than if my cost was actually $25?

I'm actually quite surprised that someone has not wrangled a Chinese manufacturer to crank out some knock-offs for pennies per unit. Could probably sell a bunch of them on Ebay at $5.00 each at least.

There is one thing I think we have overlooked and that is product liability. The carbonator caps could potentially fail catastrophically (ie explode under pressure) and cause a personal injury. An expensive lawsuit would be sure to follow. Liability insurance would be a necessity and it would surely bump up the cost more than a little for such a limited production item.

I don't think the carbonator caps are durable or well made. It's easy for a 2L bottle, empty, with a cap on it to fall, because they are top heavy, and then the cap breaks. I have a cracked one. Another complaint I have is they tend to leak when attached to co2. In other words, they work fine for me to put pressure on a 2L but not to leave hooked up to my gas lines. I have 3 of these things, one is cracked and the other two I am paranoid about now. My local HBS told me they've gone through a few generations of the product due to breakage.

Catt22 said:

I'm actually quite surprised that someone has not wrangled a Chinese manufacturer to crank out some knock-offs for pennies per unit. Could probably sell a bunch of them on Ebay at $5.00 each at least.

There is one thing I think we have overlooked and that is product liability. The carbonator caps could potentially fail catastrophically (ie explode under pressure) and cause a personal injury. An expensive lawsuit would be sure to follow. Liability insurance would be a necessity and it would surely bump up the cost more than a little for such a limited production item.

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That is an issue I didn't bear in mind, considering the company actually carries some sort of liablilty insurance.

I understand it comes down to supply and demand in its most simplest form, but there is absolutely no competition when it comes to a like product that utilizes the same disconnects creating convenience.

As far as monopolization is concerned, another manufaturer need only make a slight difference to their design to avoid any patent issues. I unno if you can patent an idea, but it seems to me that when there is no competitor (monopoly) that the only supplier can pretty much charge whatever they want for their product. When that price is too high (profit margins are out of bounds) then ultimately they are only hurting themselves because consumers won't want to pay the price for their product.

Of course, a competitor offering a similar product (I mean the same product in essence) it is obvious that someone will have to offer a better price to compete with the original supplier who already has a name in the market, and a product that is trusted and familiar.

My whole point to this thread was that these things are ridiculously expensive. Like I mentioned earlier, unless osme guy is cranking these out one-by-one there is no way they are costing even half ofthe retail price. Any smart business person would be making large volume purchases from supppliers to keep the total cost of each unit to a minimum.

Assuming the mold that makes these things can push out lets say 8 units per injection (which is conservative for how small these pieces are) and there is a 1 minute time/cost per batch, in a 24 run, over 11,000 pieces could be made considering ther is no down time, or material shortages etc...

These would cost next to pennies to make. I guess what I'm getting at is there seems to be some gouging happening in their profit ratio. The only other thing that I can think to take into consideration is the storage of these items if they don't move fast enough. It cost money to store them considering they aren't using a JIT model for production, which could actually lower their cost assuming storage fees are part of their extremely high price.

Having said all of that, I guess it doesn't matter, if no one is going to compete with them, the price isn't going to change.

Schnitzengiggle said:

Assuming the mold that makes these things can push out lets say 8 units per injection (which is conservative for how small these pieces are) and there is a 1 minute time/cost per batch, in a 24 run, over 11,000 pieces could be made considering ther is no down time, or material shortages etc...

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I think one of the most overlooked aspects of this thread is the idea of market size. Some people have alluded to it, but let's take a look at some numbers:
The AHA estimates that there are at least 750,000 people who brew at least once a year at home. The AHA itself has 19,000 members.
In my own homebrew club (Covert Hops of Atlanta), I would estimate that about half of the brewers keg. The rest bottle-condition. Of those who keg, most use growlers or bottles that have been counterpressure filled (myself included). This includes people who use beer guns, the stopper-and-racking-cane method, and all other counterpressure methods. Also, let's assume that non-club members will include a lot of ultra-casual homebrewers who are unlikely to pay the expense of a kegging setup for a hobby they indulge in one or twice a year. So, the percentage of keggers will be maybe 25%.

The long and the short of it is there may be a market of maybe 30,000 of these in the US (this number came from the above numbers plus some rectal extraction). While I'm sure it's off (in what direction is anyone's guess), if they can make 11,000 per 24-hours they could pretty much saturate their market in a little over a workweek if they run one shift per day. Also, if you consider that most people who buy these will buy only one, the economics of scale simply aren't there. Even if half of all US homebrewers (casual and serious) buy one each year, then it would only take about 100 eight-hour days to saturate the market based on Schnitzengiggle's numbers. Factor in die-making, tool depreciation, setup-and-teardown time, and all of the other overhead, and something that you only need to make for 100 days a year isn't much of a bargain. If you also account for small-batch shipping, packaging costs (and the time/energy involved with packaging), the numbers only get worse.

I'd love to hear some counter-analysis that shows that there is a much larger market than this, but if there isn't, you can forget an economy of significant scale.

I am pretty sure this thing is two molded parts actually. There is the outer cap itself, and an inner molded insert that houses the poppet. I don't think there would be a way to mold this thing solid with a spring loaded poppet all in one piece.

There's another factor no one's talked about yet - retail markups. The homebrew shops presumably are going for gross profit margins of 30% - 40% (gross margins - just the sales cost of a good related to how much you paid for it, not including salaries or electricity or marketing or any other overhead). Figure that a $20 CC, they're probably paying $12 or $13 for it, at most.

Figure as well - let's say you get the manufacturing and packaging down - how are you going to sell them? Not sure how the distribution models work, I *think* there are a couple of big distributors that sell most products to the shops. You've either got to convince a distributor to carry your version of the same product they already sell, or convince hundreds of stores around the country to do the same.

And what's your selling point? What's the marketing angle?

"We'll sell it for $15, instead of $20"?

I just don't see it making any sense to try and shoehorn in on this.

1. It's a tiny market and inherently limited (maybe 30k potential customers, maybe a few more, but very limited repeat sales; you buy one and you're good)

2. All of the costs of the mold-making and other manufacturing costs

3. If you're trying to compete on price, you're probably looking at selling these to the retailers for maybe $10 a pop. Doesn't leave a lot of room for margin expansion.

And, there's no real potential for scale. You aren't going to start selling these more broadly unless you figure a way to 86 the need for a full CO2 tank. Maybe if you could create carbonated beverages using a simple, CC-like device that used the CO2 chargers or a simple regulator, you could sell to the health-food market. As currently conceived, CCs require that you have a full kegging setup, which basically limits you to *us* as the entire end market.

And... if you're right, and they ARE selling these way over cost... the original manufacturer is going to knock you on your ass, because they've already paid all the setup costs and gotten the distribution arrangements and done all that hard work. They're in a much better position to undercut YOU on cost, because their costs have mostly already been paid.

This feels like the Dragon's Den....

I am confused on this product. Is it used to keep the carbonation in beer that has already been carbed and put into a 2L, or is it used to carb uncarbed beer put into a 2L?

You can use it for both purposes. I bought mine to carb up a pumpkin beer that wasn't quite ready when a friend was in town and now I use it to keep beer carbed.

AlphaWolf-Brewery said:

I am confused on this product. Is it used to keep the carbonation in beer that has already been carbed and put into a 2L, or is it used to carb uncarbed beer put into a 2L?

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Mostly to maintain carbonation on already-carbed beer (in lieu of filling a growler), but they can also be used to carbonate other beverages.

Just keep your eyes peeled. I bought 3 of them 1 at a time for about $8 each with shipping. There awesome for early testing beer. I use a 1 liter pop bottle to samlpe my 15 gallon batches before I rack and carbonate it all to see if I need to make any adjustments.

Still cheaper than getting a 2 1/2 corny till I find one cheap.

matthewkbridges said:

I think one of the most overlooked aspects of this thread is the idea of market size. Some people have alluded to it, but let's take a look at some numbers:
The AHA estimates that there are at least 750,000 people who brew at least once a year at home. The AHA itself has 19,000 members.
In my own homebrew club (Covert Hops of Atlanta), I would estimate that about half of the brewers keg. The rest bottle-condition. Of those who keg, most use growlers or bottles that have been counterpressure filled (myself included). This includes people who use beer guns, the stopper-and-racking-cane method, and all other counterpressure methods. Also, let's assume that non-club members will include a lot of ultra-casual homebrewers who are unlikely to pay the expense of a kegging setup for a hobby they indulge in one or twice a year. So, the percentage of keggers will be maybe 25%.

The long and the short of it is there may be a market of maybe 30,000 of these in the US (this number came from the above numbers plus some rectal extraction). While I'm sure it's off (in what direction is anyone's guess), if they can make 11,000 per 24-hours they could pretty much saturate their market in a little over a workweek if they run one shift per day. Also, if you consider that most people who buy these will buy only one, the economics of scale simply aren't there. Even if half of all US homebrewers (casual and serious) buy one each year, then it would only take about 100 eight-hour days to saturate the market based on Schnitzengiggle's numbers. Factor in die-making, tool depreciation, setup-and-teardown time, and all of the other overhead, and something that you only need to make for 100 days a year isn't much of a bargain. If you also account for small-batch shipping, packaging costs (and the time/energy involved with packaging), the numbers only get worse.

I'd love to hear some counter-analysis that shows that there is a much larger market than this, but if there isn't, you can forget an economy of significant scale.

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The above has it nailed. Home brewers are a very small market. Only a fraction of that small market would have the required CO2 equipment and some minority of those may make a one time purchase of a carbonator cap. Surely there would be some repeat customers, but they will be relatively few and far between.