Recipe: Natural Orange Cream Soda

Ok folks, I've dabbled a couple times with quart batches under a carbonator cap. Found that this recipe scaled up really well to 2.5 gallons.

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Natural Orange Cream Soda
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3 12oz Orange Juice Concentrate (No Pulp preferred)
2 Cups White Sugar
1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
1 Quart Warm Water
2 Gal Carbonated Water

In a suitable container (min half gallon) - mix sugar into 1 qt warm water until dissolved. Add vanilla and all 3 cans of Orange Juice Concentrate (undiluted, straight from the can). Mix well.

Pour slowly into 2 gal cold carbonated water, as it will foam. Close keg, pressurize and agitate keg to mix.
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This is inspired by Orangina, but not close to it. I've considered adding a can of LimeAde concentrate or something, but everyone so far has been happy with the results.

I never tried this with yeast, as I was never happy with the off-tastes of yeast-carb'd soda.

Enjoy!

I'll post the quart base recipe so you can try it smaller before committing to the whole thing...

16 oz OJ, already mixed to 100% juice. (not concentrated)
16 oz Water
3 Tablespoons Sugar
1/8 tsp Vanilla

Mix and carbonate. Taste. Modify. Repeat.

sounds tasty

What pressure do you keep it on to serve?

I have the soda keg around 24 psi with a 7 foot line and 2 of those epoxy mixer sticks in the dip tube.

Your setup may vary.

this is sort of a dead thread, but I'm hoping I get a response anyways:

you say to pour into the carbonated water for the 2.5 gallon version - could I not just pour into some nicely cold water and mix and carbonate that way? or is there some madness to your method.

I wouldn't see any issue there, but I may be wrong.

No difference really, other than plain cold water supposedly carbonates quicker than water with ingredients in it.