Soda siphon without disposable cartridges

[Soda Warrior]

I took it all apart last night. The side hole appears to be a relief hole, likely since the cartridges run fairly high at 850psi. As mentioned, in order of disassembly there are the following 4 parts: lockring, gasket, brass nozzle, plastic 1 way valve.

The innermost part is a plastic valve that lets gas thru into siphon, and does not let gas out. It is actuated by an outer rubberized sleeve that expands under pressure, allowing gas thru the side ports of the valve just under the sleeve. The 50psi pressure I run out of my tank may or may not be enough pressure to expand that rubber sleeve. If it is insufficient pressure, then I plan to run the siphon sans plastic valve, and just JB weld the relief hole. 50psi is likely not enough pressure to do any damage to any internal parts on the dispensing side of the siphon. I am away from the tank til Monday, and will run the test then.

I have done nothing further with the siphon, but just turned my regulator up to around 70psi (my regulator scale runs out at 60psi) and instead of running out of pressure, it dispensed all but around 40ml of the contents this time. I'd probably like to have higher carbonation and I think the siphon can take higher pressure, likely far, far more. It was good enough for my purposes. If you can turn up the pressure on your tank, I wouldn't alter the siphon, I don't think there's a need.

I am likely to buy a different pressure gauge to put on my regulator so I can measure higher pressures and experiment further. Can someone tell me the type of thread specification that these pressure gauges typically use, and any useful advice on fitting or pitfalls I should be aware of?

 

[Frank Trotta]

I have done nothing further with the siphon, but just turned my regulator up to around 70psi (my regulator scale runs out at 60psi) and instead of running out of pressure, it dispensed all but around 40ml of the contents this time. I'd probably like to have higher carbonation and I think the siphon can take higher pressure, likely far, far more. It was good enough for my purposes. If you can turn up the pressure on your tank, I wouldn't alter the siphon, I don't think there's a need.

I am likely to buy a different pressure gauge to put on my regulator so I can measure higher pressures and experiment further. Can someone tell me the type of thread specification that these pressure gauges typically use, and any useful advice on fitting or pitfalls I should be aware of?

Yeah, my regulator has a 60psi working gauge, that dumps anything in excess of that from the relief valve... I would also like to swap gauges. Not sure about the threading, but it is standardized. Which if any parts did you leave out of the siphon?

 

[Soda Warrior]

I didn't leave anything out of the siphon, just used it as it came in the post with the ball lock valve screwed on.

 

[Frank Trotta]

Ok. I gutted all the internals, and jb welded the relief hole. The seltzer is MUCH better, but still does not quite have the same kick as the seltzer made with carbonator cap and 2L bottle. I chilled in the freezer prior to carbonation til the point of slight ice formation, and chilled in the fridge immediately afterwards for a an hour or two. I am running 50psi, and the tank is pumping audibly less CO2 into the bottle as with the carbonator cap/2L bottle. I feel like the only variables left are leaving more headspace in the siphon, and swapping gauges to run higher pressure. We have an old school seltzer man here in Brooklyn, who runs I believe 100psi into his old glass bottles. His seltzer has bubbles that shoot up out of the seltzer like bullets.

 

[Soda Warrior]

I have a new gauge that runs up to 150 psi coming in the next day or two. Will let you know what happens.

 

[Soda Warrior]

I changed the relief valve on my regulator to allow up to 145psi and charged the unmodified siphon to 100psi. It discharged all the contents and was well carbonated throughout. I may try higher pressures to compare, although there isn't any particular need. It's working well enough now.

 

[Mellman]

I changed the relief valve on my regulator to allow up to 145psi and charged the unmodified siphon to 100psi. It discharged all the contents and was well carbonated throughout. I may try higher pressures to compare, although there isn't any particular need. It's working well enough now.

Do you have a parts list?

 

[Soda Warrior]

Do you have a parts list?

You can almost certainly do it cheaper than I did by buying a CO2 regulator that has a higher pressure relief valve and higher reading pressure gauge to begin with. However, the parts I used were as follows:

1 x iSi Soda Siphon Seltz Bartender Cocktail Stainless Steel. LT.1.0
1 x Stainless steel ball lock post keg coupler adapter corny cornelius pair e.g. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/332704376259 (Maybe the seller could be asked to list only the gas side adapter, I couldn't find a separate one that was in the UK and was fed up of searching - needs to be 5/8" -14 thread)
1 x Dual Gauge CO2 Regulator e.g. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/153297568355
1 x Pressure Gauge 50mm 1/4 BSPT Vertical 150PSI e.g. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/142459831312
1 x 1/4" BSP Brass Air Compressor Pressure Switch Safety Relief Valve 145PSI 10BAR e.g. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B073ZYWBM4

 

[cranecj]

I spent far longer than I care to admit looking for something like the kegging part up above. This: https://smile.amazon.com/Kegco-Sank...YZWQ5SPQ8KB&psc=1&refRID=P22BXMW2ZYZWQ5SPQ8KB worked perfectly for me!

 

[casper911ca]

Disclaimer: Don't do this at home.

Late to the party. The CO2 cartridges are 8 grams. So the goal is to get 8 grams of CO2 into ISI soda siphon which has about 300ml of head space (1L of water, 0.3 L of head space). 300 ml of water is 300cc's, so what is the PSI of 8 grams of gaseous CO2 at 300cc's?

Back of the napkin calculation: Using the ideal gas law, we get about 14.5 atm, which is a little north of 200 psi. I'm not advocating charging at this pressure, in fact this is probably DANGEROUS unless you are professional as your are dealing with a pressure vessel that has been engineered to take the cartridges, which only have 8g of CO2, rather than 5 lbs. Everything used in-between the CO2 source and the siphon should be all rated well above these pressures before even considering this, and the person doing this should be trained in both safety and operations before dealing with pressure vessels. Do NOT go slapping on homemade jimmy rigs

 

[casper911ca]

The max operating pressure listed by iSi is 232 psi, which means it's rating is pretty close to the 215 psi you get from the 8g cartridge, not much room for error. They would be dumb to not build in a safety factor, but still a little close for comfort if you trying to replicate the cartridge charge.

Fully charged, 5lb CO2 will be about 850 PSI (I think), which is more than triple the rating of the soda siphon. And it's 5lbs, not just 8 grams. So, for some reason an unregulated flow occurred it won't just stop at 8 grams, you'll have 280 times that amount.