Getting into Soda - Kegging System?

[DrDoctor]

Hey all. A broad question from a noob here...

My wife and I are huge boutique soda fans, and have been playing with the idea of starting a hobby soda business for fun. We could sell our soda at a nearby Farmer's Market on the weekends. If we can figure out a bottling system, that would be great. If not, then perhaps just selling the soda on draft? Maybe this would then develop into selling the soda at nearby local businesses (coffee shops, deli's, etc) depending on the setup?

I am looking for any advice I can get. I am having a hard time finding information on soda brewing outside normal homebrews using yeast. I don't have thousands of dollars to spend in equipment, and I am wondering if there is anything that exists on a very small scale. I am aware of the Co2/kegging system for carbonation, but haven't found a lot of info about this. Anyone have any good links? Is there a way to bottle using this system?

Any tips or advice would be amazing. Sorry for being such a noob.

Thanks!

 

[david_42]

Bottling soda is problematic. Either you use yeast for carbonation and that means bottles must be kept cold or you force carbonate in kegs and bottle. It would be very difficult to do the latter and maintain typical carbonation levels. Things like the Beer Gun work fine at 10-12 psi, but soda needs to be 3-4 times that.

You could sell on draft yourself, but most businesses have gone over to soda concentrates that are mixed while being dispensed. This requires very specific packaging of the concentrates.

It's possible that some low volume beer bottling systems will work with soda and you might be able to find a used system in your price range.

 

[marzsit]

you can fill glass bottles using a counter pressure filler, but you have to keep all of the equipment cold, including the empty bottles. one of my co-workers has a setup using an open top hussman cooler he bought from a grocery store that was closing, he does the entire filling and capping operation inside the cooler while wearing long gloves to keep his fingers from freezing.. plastic bottles would probably be easier, especially if a second set of hands were there to screw the cap on the bottle as soon as the filler was removed..

 

[DrDoctor]

If I were to use a system like this...

http://www.sodabarsystem.com/index_Soda_Dispensers.htm

How difficult would it be to use homemade syrups?

 

[DrDoctor]

If I were to use a system like this..

http://www.sodabarsystem.com/index_Soda_Dispensers.htm

Would it be hard to use homemade syrups?

 

[marzsit]

If I were to use a system like this...

http://www.sodabarsystem.com/index_Soda_Dispensers.htm

How difficult would it be to use homemade syrups?

not terribly difficult, but you do have to make your syrups close to a 5-to-1 concentrate since that's what postmix systems are designed to operate with. before bag-in-box syrups existed, corny kegs were used for dispensing soda syrup, and kegs can still be used today for the same purpose. one big advantage to using kegs for syrup is that you don't need syrup pumps like you need for bibs.