Bag in the Box

[howlinowl]

Nope, it's not about somebody's recently passed away grandma in a casket..... it's about the "bag in a box" soda syrups. Today I was at Sam's Club and noticed they had the "bag in the box" soda syrups for soda fountains for sale. It got me thinkin'.... "I bet I could dump one of these into a carboy and mix it with water, carb it and serve it outa one of my taps." However, the box din't say how much water to add to it, or what ratio, or what I should pressure to carb it at.

So, anybody gots any ideas??? I'm sure somebody else has tried this, I ain't smart enough to be the only one to think of this....

Allan

 

[Nurmey]

The bag in a box system of soda is very different than the old soda pre-mix. BITB is set up to mix with water and C02 at the fountain head. I'm not sure that it can be premixed with water and left for any amount of time.

 

[david_42]

Commercial soda concentrates will run 1:4 to 1:6 for sugar/HFCS sweetened syrups. Diet syrups can run as high as 1:10. (The concentrates I use are low-sugar and run1:23 dilution). You can use them in kegs, but you have to keep them cold, as close to freezing as possible. I find 35 psi is a good pressure. That means 16-17 feet of 3/16" line.

Midwestsupplies carries 1 gallon jugs of concentrates that you mix 1:4 in a keg. Dump in the syrup, add 6-7 pounds of ice, top off with water. Hook up the CO2 & let the kids roll the keg around until the CO2 stops flowing.

 

[tentacles]

Coke, Pepsi, and RC are all either 5.0:1 or 5.5:1 water:syrup. This is an industry standard. You could try to make pop, but you really should have a carbonation chamber - do you really want to run a keg of water at ~35 PSI? A standard 5 gallon BIB of Mr Pibb, for instance will make 32.5 gallons of soda. Then you need a nozzle that will mix the syrup and carbonated water - I've done some tests and you can't just pour the syrup in a glass of fizzy water, it doesn't taste right. BIB soda is of the "post-mix" type - what that means is that it's been formulated to taste right when it is mixed with pre carbonated water at the point of serving. "Pre-mix" soda is formulated to be mixed with water, then carbonated before serving. It's quite a bit less common than post mix. It may even use different syrup ratios than post mix, I do not know for certain.

I use a Wunder bar setup for soda, right now the whole thing is just sitting in the bottom of my keezer until I figure out how to plumb the wand outside and not look like crap.

If you want to get into dispensing soda from BIB, you'd need a BIB pump, carbonation chamber (probably with booster pump), dispensing head of some type. It's not horrendously expensive if you watch for deals. I've seen carbonation chambers (with procon pump) go for $20 on ebay, brand new.