Home Carbonated Water Setup Pressure Issues

[lightcarbonator]

Hey All,
Based on a few of the posts on this forum I finally decided to build my own carbonation system. It uses the Big Mac Carbonator inside of a Mini Fridge for a continuous supply of cold carbonated water to my faucet. This works great but I wanted to reduce the pressure before serving from the faucet. From browsing these forums I found that I could either run lots of line or buy a pressure reducer. I ended up getting the "In-Line Flow Control Compensator" and while it does reduce the pressure, it also creates lots of sputtering while pouring from the faucet (which I assume is because it introduces air into the line). Would love if anyone has advice on how to fix this. Is my only option to instead run more line to reduce pressure?
Thanks!

To Summarize my setup:
Cold RO System Water -> Big Mac -> Flow Compensator -> Faucet
CO2 at 100 psi -> Big Mac

On a side note, my main water line somehow got carbonated from this setup. It happened on a night below freezing but I don't know why this would have caused and (AFAIK) the Big Mac has a one way pressure valve. Really not sure what happened there...

 

[jcreason]

Hello,
I'm curious what you ended up with here? I'm attempting the same setup (minus the RO water). With 20' of 3/8" line, 80psi to the Big Mac, the water shoots out at such a high pressure you cannot fill a cup. I switched over to use 100' of 3/16" line, which was lower pressure but sputtered out of the dispenser heavily, and you can see gas in the liquid line running for about 25'. I reduced the length of that line to 70'-ish, but the sputtering continued.

I'm just using an inexpensive RO dispenser from amazon, as I'd like to plumb this into my counter top. I don't know if that's an issue:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B078N77XQG
Any insight you've learned and are willing to share would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Bobby_M]

In general, I think the Big Mac is a huge waste of money and is completely unnecessary to create carbonated water. Just put 30psi into a corny keg and call it a day.

80psi is more than you need. You should have decent carbonation with 25 to 40psi.

 

[jcreason]

Yeah, I enjoy having carbonated water from a keg on tap now. It's easy and straightforward, it just requires you to refill it every several days and either force carb it or wait another few days for it to carbonate naturally.

I am working with a cabonator now because:
- I would like to have a "limitless" supply of carbonated water plumbing it to my water supply
- Have it dispense at the sink, not the kegerator in the garage
- Have it continue to work for my wife while I'm not home

Also, it's just a fun project to work on.

 

[Bobby_M]

$63 float lid will do what you're looking to do.

https://www.brewhardware.com/product_p/cornylidseltzer.htm
How are you chilling the water before it goes into the big mac?

 

[jcreason]

Putting the tank into a small mini fridge is the plan, motor on the outside.

These lids look pretty awesome! I've switched over to using sankey kegs for everything, but do still have some pin lock kegs around. Additionally though, I am on well water at around 50psi.

 

[Bobby_M]

I'm on a well too but I just have a small booster pump on my RO system so that I can still run 25psi of CO2 into the seltzer keg and still have it continue to fill with water.

 

[jcreason]

Oh that's a good idea. I do already have the Big Mac though, so I am going to try to get that working. I can see why this isn't the most common setup however...