Soda Water Question, and btw awesome site!

[MagicMike]

I am new to this forum and simply had to register to say my thanks to all the wonderful people on here who share their expertise about the power of homebrew. This is my first post and plan on growing with much anticipation and progress.

I was just given a 20lb tank from a friend who was eagerly excited to donate it to me knowing how much I want to create seltzer water. I have a lot to learn and I plan on going through the entire forum to setup the proper procedure but in the meantime I have a few questions which I know have not been answered since I've checked and was wondering if anyone can share them with me.

They might sound silly, but I promise you those aren't my intentions.


1) If I were to buy a 2L bottle of Coca Cola and only consumed 1L of it, and the next day or two it became super flat is it possible to use my CO2 system to refill it with my CO2 and keep the same refreshing taste from the 1st day I bought it?

2) Is it possible to replicate the Perrier or Pellegrino bottled water from stores? And do you know what PSI those 2 companies might be using for their carbonation procedure?

3) This one is something I can probably find on the site but I'll ask it on here anyways, if the plastic 2L bottles can handle 200PSI and it's recommended to suck the air out of them before filling, how would it work for gas bottles (say the 1L bottles). How much PSI can it handle and how would I suck the air out of it (impossible)? Thanks

 

[KevinM]

Nice score. That's one of the expensive bits.

1) Yes. You need a carbonator cap. It's also possible to build one yourself using tire valves and such. It's more difficult with the less liquid you have. Sometimes it's easier to have a 16 oz bottle to recarbonate soda in from a flat 2 liter, if you drink that slowly like I do.

2) Yes, its possible. It's sort of tough though. You want to see about finding the various salt and mineral contents of those waters and try to replicate them. There are a few books about this subject, but few websites. It's also how carbonated mineral water was originally delivered to people (other than consuming it at the source). I don't know the carbonation content of those, but you can certainly vary your carbonation to achieve it.

3) What do you mean by gas bottle? And when it's said to remove the air, what you really want to do is fill the plastic bottle by using the carbonator cap, pressing the valve and squeezing the bottle, then pressurizing the liquid. This way, only carbon dioxide is in the liquid and will mix into the liquid. If you mean glass, then no, it's not recommended. If you want to use glass, you essentially need to carbonate the liquid, then cold fill the bottles. I haven't seen burst test results on glass, and theres varying opinion on certain non-soda bottles.