Utter noob and need help

So, the situation is like this. We recently moved and bought a house. The home came with a very nice kegerator (not a DIY job) from what I can tell. I believe it to be fully functional, but was used for beer. Since my family does not drink beer, this is useless at the moment.

The questions I have are a few to start:
1) Can a normal kegerator be used for soda water instead?

2) If 1 is yes, is this something relatively easy to do and where do I look to get started?

3) I assume that if the above is true and easy, can a refilled soda water keg be typically attained locally? Luckily I live in a very urban area, so I assume finding a home keg shop (?) should be simple enough.

Thanks for looking and in the meantime, I will continue my research!

Soda is usually dispensed as a mixture of cabonated water and sugar/syrup that is mixed as it come out the tap (ever had a Sprite that tasted horrible? Syrup ran out but the water didn't). Kegerators don't work this way.

That said, you could start brewing root beer and ginger ale. They have kits online with good instructions but you can also find recipes to make it out of roots, herbs, etc. Sounds super fun and I'd do it if I wasn't making beer all the time.

You can most certainly find used soda kegs (called corny kegs) but your kegerator is probably set up to accept commercial keg couplers. Again, online you'll find the right connectors to fit your corny kegs, but you need to know if they're ball lock or pin lock.

You can definitely carb up water and serve carbonated water through the tap.

You'll need to make sure you have the right connections, so if you post a picture of the "stuff" you have, we can guide you to what you may need.

Little things, like the connector on the tubing, a picture of the tubing (and the length that is attached to the tap, etc, all seem like they don't add up to much but if you post pictures of all of that, we can piece together what you've got and where to go to get what you need.

Like was mentioned, you can also do ginger ale, root beer, soda syrups, etc in a keg and serve soda if you want more than carbonated water.

There should be a number of recipes for soda water/mineral water/tonic water on here and elsewhere.

Tonic Water
La Croix clone

If it is actual soda you are after, you can find extracts to add to the water, like these.

Yooper said:

You can definitely carb up water and serve carbonated water through the tap.

You'll need to make sure you have the right connections, so if you post a picture of the "stuff" you have, we can guide you to what you may need.

Little things, like the connector on the tubing, a picture of the tubing (and the length that is attached to the tap, etc, all seem like they don't add up to much but if you post pictures of all of that, we can piece together what you've got and where to go to get what you need.

Like was mentioned, you can also do ginger ale, root beer, soda syrups, etc in a keg and serve soda if you want more than carbonated water.

Click to expand...

Incoming!

First up - model/outside shot.



Second, inside look.



Beyond this, I would need more guidance on what to take a picture of. I have learned (today) that the small canister is CO2 (I am guessing here), but at least it seems to be at 0 psi left.

For the other responders, I am just looking for simple refrigerated carbonated water to come out the top. We drink a lot of soda waters (Dasani, LeCroix, etc). If they want flavor, they are free to add it themselves. We may stock some Torani flavors to make it easier

That looks to be co2, but I don't see a gauge with how much is left in the tank. What I think you are seeing is the regulator displaying serving pressure. When you have it hooked up to a keg, open the top and the knob on the regulator will set the serving pressure.

There may still be co2 in there.

Also, is that a huge block of ice? Looks like that fridge needs a good defrosting.

I'd also suggest some aluminum tape to cover those rust spots around the hole in the top. It'll keep it from molding if it hasn't already.

jmill said:

That looks to be co2, but I don't see a gauge with how much is left in the tank. What I think you are seeing is the regulator displaying serving pressure. When you have it hooked up to a keg, open the top and the knob on the regulator will set the serving pressure.

There may still be co2 in there.

Also, is that a huge block of ice? Looks like that fridge needs a good defrosting.

I'd also suggest some aluminum tape to cover those rust spots around the hole in the top. It'll keep it from molding if it hasn't already.

Click to expand...

Thanks for noting those! I took out the entire unit, defrosted, cleaned, and got rid of the rust. Since I am switching to water/seltzer, we assume we will need to change all of the piping as well - correct? The previous tenant used it for beer exclusively.

How much of the dispensing mechanics should we replace since we are not using beer? Does all of it need to be swapped out? At what point would it be better just to sell it and buy a clean/new one instead (if the parts are more expensive than a unit)?

You'll have to get the CO2 refilled/checked but you'll just need to either replace the lines or completely sanitize them. Although by the look at them I'd just replace them, tubing is cheap. You'll need to take out the tap and clean that as well.

You can just clean or replace the serving line. The faucet can be removed for cleaning or cleaned in place. Good luck with it. Nice bonus item in new house.

if you learn how to open up a sanke keg (assuming that coupler is a sanke) you can fill it up with water and set the co2 to it. although it will take a bit of time the co2 will absorb down into the water and cause it to carbonate. its hard to say exactly how long but it will work eventually.

Once you get everything cleaned up, you can put anything you want into the keg and carbonate it. Try lemonade, for instance. Or look up soda recipes online. It's much cheaper if you blend your own, and you can fine tune with sugar and nutrient levels, but syrups and powders are also available.

Give them a few days to carbonate. Take notes: there's a bit of a difference between the taste of the soda warm and flat and cold and fizzy.

Good luck! There's a whole world of taste treats out there for you.