Homemade drink carbonation machine. Cost is 2 cents per liter once you start making your own soda. Use whatever size co2 tank you want. All the parts are available on Amazon. Regulator is about 40 to 50 dollars, the special cap and associated parts come as a kit for about 20 dollars and you need a length of tubing and a couple of hose clamps. You can buy everything for as a kit for about $79 on Amazon.
They even have brand new CO2 tanks or you go to a local supplier for welding shops. After you get your first full tank you just brink back the empty and they change it for you.
http://www.popsci.com/diy/article/2012-06/how-make-your-own-home-carbonation-system
How To Make Your Own Home Drink Carbonation System
Sodastream machines are nice, but for the true seltzer addict, a do-it-yourself carbonation system can be cheaper, more flexible, and more fun
By
John MahoneyPosted 06.15.2012 at 1:54 pm
25 Comments
DIY Carbonator John Mahoney
If your friends and family are anything like mine, you've observed that home beverage carbonation is experiencing a bit of a renaissance lately. Perhaps you've seen the increasingly ubiquitous Sodastream machine on a countertop near you—or, more likely, heard its syncopated honk and pop-fizz release from across the room, announcing another fresh liter of water made bubbly.
The Sodastream is a nice machine in a convenient package, but for the true fizz addict with a tinkerer's predilection, it's possible to build your own home carbonator that's cheaper, more flexible, and ultimately more satisfying. Here's why you might want to consider your own DIY rig, and most importantly, how to put it together. It's easy!
It's Cheaper
The Sodastream machine's Achilles heel is its tiny, proprietary CO
2 tank. The company (formerly known as Soda Club) sells seven different home carbonation machines ranging from $80 to $200 (enhancements along the line are mostly cosmetic), but only offers CO
2 canisters in 14.5 and 33-ounce sizes. (The measurements refer to the weight of the gas.) Sodastream claims somewhat optimistically that these are good to make a total of 60 and 130 liters of seltzer respectively. What's worse, these tanks have a proprietary cap which can only be filled by the company. My local kitchen supply store charges a hefty $15 to swap an empty 14.5-ounce tank for a new one. Compare that to the $15 charged by my friendly neighborhood welding supply shop to fill my new
five pound tank, and the economics start to come into focus. With luck, my five-pounder won't need a refill until early 2013, and if you've got the room, you can go even bigger on the tank. Web carbonation guru
Richard Kinch yields over 1,000 liters from his 20-pound tank—and he likes his seltzer
extremely fizzy (more on that in a minute).
It's More Versatile
The Sodastream is an appealingly simple gadget. But once you develop a refined taste for on-demand seltzer, you may find it somewhat limiting. Sodastream's CO
2 regulators come factory-set and aren't adjustable, meaning it's impossible to go beyond its pre-defined pressure limit. But with your home-built model's adjustable regulator, you can fine-tune the level of carbonation applied to your liquids. Mr. Kinch favors a tongue-blistering 45-50 psi fizz on his soda water, but if you want a milder 30 psi pop, you can adjust your gas regulator with the quick turn of a screwdriver or wrench. Adjustable pressure also allows you to apply the ideal amount of carbonation to different types of liquids. If you're charging up a batch of tasty gin fizzes (or starting your own
modernist cocktail bar), you'll want to dial up the pressure to 45 psi, since alcohol can dissolve more carbon dioxide than plain water. I don't know the ideal pressurization level for cream gravy, but with your bountiful supply of cheap CO
2, you're welcome to experiment (please report back with your findings).
With a home rig you can also ditch the Sodastream's proprietary one-liter plastic (or puny 620ml glass) bottles and use anything with a standard plastic soda bottle cap. One liter, two liters—even those cartoonishly obese three-liter bottles—all will work with your DIY carbonator. Just make sure it's plastic—a blown plastic bottle is much preferable to flying glass shrapnel in the unlikely case of rupture.
It's More Fun
If you've gotten this far, I probably don't need to explain to you how satisfying it is to improve on a commercial product with a more economical machine of your own construction. But even if this isn't typically your thing (I'm by no means a handyman), a home carbonator is an exceedingly easy project that just about anyone can handle. So let's get started.
Parts List
• A CO2 tank of any size. Empties can be found on eBay and filled at welding shops, paintball facilities, homebrew hobby shops and elsewhere. My five-pound tank was $100 filled at
McKinney Welding Supply in Manhattan and fits into a small cabinet in my kitchen.
• A gas regulator ($39.95,
Amazon). The regulator tames the high-pressure inside the CO
2 tank and outputs an even flow of gas at constant, adjustable pressure into whatever you connect to the other end. Nicer ones will have two gauges—one for the gas tank's pressure which will hit zero when empty, and one that measures the output pressure into whatever you're gassing up.
• A length of vinyl tubing (Five ft. with hose clamps, $5.49,
Amazon). Tubing rated for pressurized applications is required—you'll want about a 1/4" thickness. You can also get braided vinyl line for a bit more durability. The barb fitting of a CO
2 regulator typically has an outer diameter of 3/8 inch, so tubing with an inner diameter of 5/16 inch is what you want.
• A ball-lock keg coupler ($7.50,
Amazon). This piece connects to the other end of your tubing and holds back gas flow until the little inner valve button is depressed by the tip your Carbonator bottle cap.
• The Carbonator bottle cap ($11.43,
Amazon). This ingenious cap screws onto your soda bottle and provides a valve on the other end that engages with the keg coupler to connect your bottle to the gas supply without leaks.
• A standard soda bottle filled with cold liquid (warm water doesn't dissolve CO
2 well). Any size bottle will work, so long as it has the common cap size found on a typical two-liter bottle of Coke. I can't resist
quoting Kinch again here, who very admirably takes nothing in his system for granted: "If we could send a few back through time to the ancients, these bottles would be considered precious jewels reserved for the king's use."
Total cost: $163.94. It's a little more money up front than all but the most pricey Sodastream machines, but those $15 canister refills add up quickly. After a few months you'll be saving money (ultimately, the system produces seltzer at three or four cents per liter—not bad!). You can also lower your initial spend on the CO
2 tank by shopping eBay.
Assembly
Once you have all your parts, final assembly can be done in 10 minutes or less. Here are the connections you make:
- Attach the regulator to your CO2 tank by lining up the threaded ends of each. Unless you're the Incredible Hulk, you'll want to crescent-wrench the regulator's threaded nut tight, using PTFE tape, to ensure a leak-free seal.
- Attach one line of hose securely to the ridged metal piece (the "barb") on the bottom of your regulator. To the other end of the tube, attach the barb of your keg coupler. Hose clamps should be screwed tightly into place over each tube-covered barb for a snug fit. Congratulations, you're done!
