At home commercial soda dispenser

[Jakob Perry]

A few years ago I picked up a surplus soda set from a bar for cheap. It came with so much stuff, 2 flash chillers, 20+ flojet pumps, 5 sureflo pumps, 5 wunderbars, 5 racks, a McCann's carbonator, and most of the plumbing. My first round with it was 'ok' -- you had to dispense a glass of soda before you get flavor to ensure it was cold enough. To my luck 6 months after I set that system up, we had to move, sooo it was taken apart.

Flash forward 5 years and I found this beauty on Facebook marketplace for a couple hundred dollars.

Its a Cornelius CB2323 tower setup with 8 flavors, a rack, and 8 sureflo pumps, backflow regulators, ANOTHER McCann's carbonator, 2 co2 canisters (1 full!), etc. I have a feeling once I clean up all the extra parts I have, I'll probably make my money back on the whole setup.... If I didn't spend so much on the Syrups...

Since I already had the flash chillers I had an idea -- can I make a recirculating system to keep it cold?

I eventually decided having another chiller just for the water was a bit much, so I simplified and am using the double chiller to cool the water and then the carb water as well. I also picked up a Soopyk Instant Ice Maker because the fridge didn't have one. Jury is still out on how that will work. Picked this one up because it has a direct water connection unlike most of them that require manual filling of a reservoir.

And here is how she ended up looking!

 

[Jakob Perry]

For the keen eyed, you may notice that I have some extra syrup pumps. I actually set this up to dispense 12 flavors, using 2 prism vales from Cornelius. This allows you to dispense 2 extra flavors per valve. This will allow me to run 3 non-carbonated flavors and 9 carbonated ones.

I called Cornelius and asked if there is any restrictions on the amount of prism valves you can run, they said no, just that all flavors on the valve need to be carbonated or non-carbonated, not both. In theory you could have 24 flavors on this bad boy!

https://www.cornelius.com/product/p...ver-activation-with-mounting-block-and-cover/
They MSRP for $1700! However, I was able to snag TWO of these for $450 on ebay. Sorta sad that the valves alone cost more than my entire setup (sans syrup) thus far.

One of the other things that came with the Pepsi setup was a bundle of 12 x 3/8" hose. In order cool down the syrups (its no waterbath but better than ambient), I run a chilled water loop and 10 flavors. I then have 2 non-carbonated syrup lines because those can run ambient temp. Lastly a gas line that is 1/4".

I'll add more photos when this part is done.. I need the syrup before I go take apart the machine.

 

[beren]

Pretty neat.

 

[whoaru99]

Some folk have lots of beer available on tap so I suppose if you drink lots of soda pop why not that too.

 

[beren]

Some folk have lots of beer available on tap so I suppose if you drink lots of soda pop why not that too.

pretty sure beer is healthier
I’ve been trying to get my wife to agree to a soda keg, she doesn’t drink tons of soda but even at wholesale prices coke bags are 1/2 the cost of cans.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

Neat, but those flavors have to go.

My dream setup would be Coke, Dr. Pepper, Ale81, Sioux City Sarsaparilla, Dr. Brown's cream soda, and D&G spicy ginger beer. They may not all be available as syrup, but that's how dreams are.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

Oh, and peach Nehi. And Welch's grape soda.