Bit OT: seltzer water and pop system for small office... should I build one or rent?

So I am building a kegerator for the office, since I am somewhat of an "official brewer" of my 15 person office. Now that we are moving to new offices, we would love to stop buying hundreds of cans of pop every month for $$$ (add 5c deposit on each can).
Do we have a vendor in here who sells a system for under $2K (with warranty) that could do carbonate water and possibly 2-3 soda flavors (plus sells the syrup)?

If I am reading correctly, you are already building a kegerator, right? Why not just fill a keg with water and carb that?

I thought about that. Problem is, we easily polish off 5 gallons of "fizzy" (as we call it) per day. I know I am at about 3/4 gallon of it per day.

Jesus! Stop drinking so much pop!

Good God. I don't think I have had that much soda in the past 15 years put together. I see why you want to stop buying it retail.

I guess you could carb up two kegs a day so you always have some in reserve. Or, with the amount you go through, get a contract with Pepsi?

It is all water, baby 6 espressos require that much water to not get the stones.
If we drank that much beer, we would all be AAs in no time.

I think I may have misunderstood.. I thought you were saying the office polishes off 5 gallons of soda per day.

Yeah we polish off more than 5 gallons per day, but vast majority of us only drink seltzer/carbed water (with splash of juice, usually).
It adds up, if you have to get retail cans.

Understood.

I still think you may be better off building a kegerator that will hold 4 or 5 cornies and carbing your own water.. It would cost much, much less than $2000, even brand new.

The only thing I could find that seems to fit what you're asking is this. But it looks like you have to buy their $400 faucet to use it. Still right around $2000 total, though.

If you're not looking for a vendor, then your options are wider. Like an inline carbonator off ebay going to a chilled keg. Or a used dispensing system. Otherwise... You'll need that vendor and a full system.

Another thought.. I just a Sodastream soda maker from Kohls for about $89. It uses a co2 tank with 1 liter bottles and carbonates water, then u can add their soda mixtures. There's cola, diet, lemon-lime, and orange so far. whoever wants to use thee Sodastream, they can buy their own bottles, which are about $15-20 for a set of 2. Hope this helps.

the problem with sodastream is the cost of refilling (exchanging actually..) their co2 cartridges... for an average home it's not bad, but if you go through 5 gallons of soda per day it becomes pretty expensive even if the initial cost was under $100 for the system.

the sodastream flavor concentrates are really good however, and reasonably priced for the volume of finished drinks per bottle.

so much soda pop (shudders)

bigbeergeek said:

so much soda pop (shudders)

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well, in this case, it's not so much soda pop but seltzer or fizzy water that is being consumed...

aaah, now I've caught up with the thread

marzsit said:

the problem with sodastream is the cost of refilling (exchanging actually..) their co2 cartridges... for an average home it's not bad, but if you go through 5 gallons of soda per day it becomes pretty expensive even if the initial cost was under $100 for the system.

the sodastream flavor concentrates are really good however, and reasonably priced for the volume of finished drinks per bottle.

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I don't see why the soda stream couldn't be retrofit to take a bigger tank. Been toying with the idea lately myself.

It's probably very possible, but at that point, you'd might as well use carbonator caps and shake regular 2 liter bottles and let the younger kids and the people scared of putting on/taking off the connection use the normal soda stream rather than reengineer a connection.

EFaden said:

I don't see why the soda stream couldn't be retrofit to take a bigger tank. Been toying with the idea lately myself.

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it can, and there are vendors on ebay and elsewhere that sell adapter kits. some involve adapting a small paintball tank that fits inside the soadastream unit so it remains portable, others adapt a high-pressure hose connected to a large external tank which can be difficult to conceal in an average kitchen area.. people who are really into it go with the paintball tank system and also have a setup that allows them to refill the paintball tanks from their own 50lb c02 tanks. but, by this time you're into the modifications at least several hundred dollars for a unit that cost less than $100 new....

I built a keezer and kept it in the basement where we lived. I drank a lot of beer as i was too lazy to go upstairs. Then I added a tap for water. This cut way back on my beer consumption.

I put it under 30 PSI it makes great sparking water. I am not sure though if it could keep up with an office full of fizzaholics. I am not sure how long it would take though at 5 gallons a day to carb up the next batch. My suggestion is build a keezer for 5 or more kegs get a second regulator inside the keezer. Put the psi on primary keezer at 60 PSI to force carbonate the backups then set one or two at 20-30 psi for serving. You'd have to rotate out or fill the kegs in place to keep up with consumption. It might be a bit of a pain but if everyone has to run to the store to keep up the current consumption it is probably a drain on the office efficiency as it is.

Next to my current setup of my keezer I have a fridge with ice, peach, mango, lime and lemon juice, bitters and agave nectar. Makes a nice option to drinking beer always and really impressed my nephews.

what about rigging up a sanke keg?

Soda stream and just rent a 20 or 40 pound tank.

http://www.co2doctor.com/freedomoonespec.htm

We use one at work (regular soda stream) and the only problem we've had is sanitation. People drinking out of the bottle, then putting it right back on the machine. A box of alcohol prep pads now is right beside the sodastream. You jsut have to remember to rinse off the bottle before you drink out of it.