At one point, sparkling water was one of the most expensive and wasteful food products we were purchasing. Shipping the water from the canning facility is a major cost. The environmental cost of the trucks and fuel is in my opinion even worse. Then there are the aluminum cans: we were drinking a couple cans a day, two people, that’s 28 cans a week! It adds up so quickly and our recycling bin was filling up quickly. There has got to be a better way!
Early Experiment: The Sodastream
If you want to make carbonated water at home, then why not try the Sodastream, right? This is probably the first step, and not a bad option. Our first attempt…didn’t go well tho.
Once we figured out the details, it was great…in small doses. It doesn’t make much, but what it does make is instantly available and well carbonated. It’s about a couple glasses worth. If we were to continue using it, we’d probably end up having to carbonate a couple times a day.
The real dealbreaker for me is that the refills for the CO2 are not cheap, and use their own connector.
Option 2: Big tank, Little Sodastream
Restaurants make carbonated drinks, right? They have big CO2 tanks. You can buy these online, and then get an adapter to pressurize a SodaStream off of the bigger tank, and no longer need refills. So I bought an adapter between the sodastream and a normal CO2 tank…which I didn’t end up ever using.
This would at least be better than constantly having to purchase new Sodastream refills. The hacker in me also likes routing around the lock-in mechanism that Sodastream has with their proprietary tanks.
After looking around, I did find that I could refill a large tank at a decent price, and could purchase a tank cheap…but during my research I dropped by a local brewery store, and that took things in a whole new direction.
Option 3: Homebrewing
As someone who isn’t in tune with homebrewing, I didn’t realize that home brewers had effectively solved this issue for carbonating beer, and all I needed to do was the same thing, but without the beer. So I purchased some equipment:
I also rented a small CO2 tank for $25.00. The final result:
The steps are pretty straightforward. You hook up the CO2 to the pressure regulator and use that to set the CO2 to the level of carbonation you prefer. Usually something like 25psi is not very fizzy, and 30psi is just right for me. The tank has a much higher psi of around 500, hence the need for the pressure regulator.
You then fill the tank with water, and hook up the hose from the regulator to the IN port. Connect a hose output and the tap to the OUT of the tank. Wait a couple days, bam, you have carbonated water! Warm…carbonated water. It turns out that temperature is very important to the carbonation process. It works much better to have lower temps.
Stayin’ Frosty
I had generally proven out the concept. This was going to work, I had carbonated water. I just need a more permanent home in my kitchen for it. The goto option is apparently the Kegarator.
I don’t know much about these…but I do know an overpriced refrigerator when I see one. These things can easily run upwards of a thousand dollars. No thanks!
Craigslist is full of people trying to offload their old mini fridge cheap. For $160 I had a decent fridge. But…its going to need some modifications:
- I need to install a tap on top. Taps can be found cheap, and I got mine for $60. Came with a cool little mat to surround it as well.
- I needed to detach the thermostat attached to the top of the fridge. This is right in the way of where I’d want to run the hose.
- Cut a hole for the hose to go in.
- Create an attachment point for the tap.
The top of the fridge has a sheet metal exterior, then a plastic cover on top of that. This meant rivnut-ing the sheet metal on the top of the fridge and 3d-printing a structural ring that would sit between the plastic and metal sheets.
I ran the hose through, and 3d printed a bushing to fit between the top hole in the fridge and the hose.
Fill the tank…and wait.
And…that’s really it! Fill the tank with water. I fill it from my fridge so its filtered, taping down the button and using a funnel 😂.
Wait a couple days for it to naturally carbonate, and you’ve got five gallons of sparkling water. Pretty awesome!
My Goto Recipe
Two ingredients:
- Sparkling Water
- A slice of citrus
We usually keep a pre-sliced piece of citrus or two in the fridge so its just ready to go. We keep a ‘muddler’ (a wooden dowel) by the fridge to squish down the citrus and release the goodness. Then pour and serve.
Ahh….delish!