Smaller batches?

I'm interested in making soda but I also don't need four gallons of it at a time. Would I be able to scale it down to a gallon? Does the extract stay good after opening? I'm also a big fan of variety so I'd like to have a couple bottles of different things in the house and at four gallons at a time I don't think my fridge could handle it.

Now for a few more general questions. Can you reuse PET bottles from previous soda purchases? Do you just buy new caps? Thanks in advance and I'm looking forward to this new area of the hobby.

Just store the bottle in your fridge once opened. Bear in mind, the extracts are very concentrated, so accurate measurement is important. A 4 oz bottle of Gnome makes 10 gallons. That's 5.8 ml per 2L PET bottle.

PET bottles work great and you don't need to buy new caps. One big advantage of PET, you can check the pressure by squeezing them.

I'm new to this and have had success with 1.25 gallon batches. That amount makes 12 x 12 oz glass bottles. Also, it is easy for recipe calculation because most batches are for 5 gallons so you just make 1/4 the recipe.

--Doug

Another alternative is to mix the sugar, extract and minimal water (1:1) and store it in the fridge. If you shoot for ~30 oz of mix for a 5 gallon bottle, you will be able to put 3 oz of mix in a 2L bottle, top off and let it carb. You may have to add more sugar when mixing a bottle, but that's no big deal.

Thanks, I really appreciate all the help. I figure I'll be jumping into this part of the hobby in about a week when I need to head up to the homebrew store for more beer supplies.