Just made first soda, Taste?

[Irisndfan2]

Just mad emy first soda using Gnom'es Cream Soda extract. A sample of it tastes pretty good, maybe a little too sweet, my question is how close will this be too the actual taste after its carbonated and chilled?

 

[KevinM]

The flavor should be the same, but temperature affects sweetness, so when chilled (even uncarbonated) then the drink will not taste as sweet as it was in room temperature, and definately not as sweet as if serving it hot. (Ice cream works this way too, if I recall correctly from an Alton Brown show.)http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7100291

Also, carbonation has a bitter/sour flavor http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=carbonation-has-a-taste-09-10-16 so once carbonated even if it's not yet chilled, then some of that sweetness winds up being toned down. (Or rather, you get a wierd mix of bitter and sweet, warm soda anyone?)

So with both carbonation and a lower temperature, it will definately not be as sweet as the taste test was.

Also: the taste difference is simply in the addition of carbonation, as if using co2 to force carb, without the consideration of having yeast consume any sugar which would act as a minor reduction in sweetness as well.