Anyone Else Force Carbed Using A Soda Stream?

[woodwormm]

since i started crash chilling before if keg, i've always had a taste of the beer left in the fermenter after my keg's full - i cant be stuffed bottling a couple litres...


now, i don't mind a pint or two of my brew dead flat but the gadget guy in me wanted a carbonated tester...

once i tried to force carb a beer on SWMBO'd Soda Stream in the kitchen.. STRONGLY recommend not doing this! lucky she was out as it gave me enough time to clean the kitchen! i don't think the Sodastream machine has been quite the same since but the minister of War and Finance doesnt seem to have noticed...

tonight i 'borrowed' one on the soda stream bottles and installed a JG bulkhead fitting into the lid. bit of tube on the under side to make a dip tube and then the tube on the outside to my gas bottle. 30psi. shake shake shake and well i almost got a force carbed beer straight up. i didn't shake quite enough tonight, but i did prove it and make a bottle of soda water while testing for leaks...

just hope SWMBO doesn't notice the missing botlle!

 

[bignath]

since i started crash chilling before if keg, i've always had a taste of the beer left in the fermenter after my keg's full - i cant be stuffed bottling a couple litres...


now, i don't mind a pint or two of my brew dead flat but the gadget guy in me wanted a carbonated tester...

once i tried to force carb a beer on SWMBO'd Soda Stream in the kitchen.. STRONGLY recommend not doing this! lucky she was out as it gave me enough time to clean the kitchen! i don't think the Sodastream machine has been quite the same since but the minister of War and Finance doesnt seem to have noticed...

tonight i 'borrowed' one on the soda stream bottles and installed a JG bulkhead fitting into the lid. bit of tube on the under side to make a dip tube and then the tube on the outside to my gas bottle. 30psi. shake shake shake and well i almost got a force carbed beer straight up. i didn't shake quite enough tonight, but i did prove it and make a bottle of soda water while testing for leaks...

just hope SWMBO doesn't notice the missing botlle!

Mate, you're a legend.

That's exactly the sort of stuff that regularly crosses my mind. Hmmmmm, what happens if i do this.......etc. etc. etc.

 

[Housecat]

lol

It reminded me of when I was a teen and a mate of mine tried to "revive" some Coke.

Result: two very shocked :blink: covered in coke teenagers with a lot of explaining to be had!

HC

 

[bradsbrew]

Got a pic for us PFS? Have you used this fitting?

Cheers Brad

 

[woodwormm]

Got a pic for us PFS? Have you used this fitting?

Cheers Brad

i'll grab some pics tomorrow,

i've got one of those bulkheads, and it's very chunky, wouldn't have worked...the bulkhead i used was from the fitting place we use at work for pnuematics. it's much more slender but i still had to dremel some of the flange off the inner nut.... (now there's some words you don't see very often in the same sentence: slender, dremel, flange and nut!)

 

[woodwormm]

geez has this week gotten away from me! ...

here's some pics

top bulkhead in this pic is the one i used, bottom is the one available from sponsors...




i had to 'dremel down' the inside the lid nut of the bulkhead to fit...





ended up with this... seems to work pretty good!

 

[Bandito]

I've carbed beer using a sodastream heaps of times. I have 18 bottles from before I got kegs so I can do a whole batch.

The trick is to get the beer cold then give it two good squirts about 1 second long each, then leave for 5 minutes. They come off without any gushing. No need to shake. It does take heaps of practice to get the carbonation right.

 

[Bribie G]

These work ok for a 2L bottle, but they aren't as effective as they claim to be. I give the bottle an overnight carb at serving pressure on a spare gas QD in the kegerator and that does the trick.

 

[Dr_Rocks]

Just revisiting this thread.

After some research into using sodastreams/soda siphons to force carb beer (which seemed to be mainly negative involving exploding siphons or ruining non-glass siphons) I was dumb enough to try it myself. But, apart from a small amount of wastage, I found I had no problem. So here it goes...

From a 30L brew I had a little over 1L left and no more kegs/bottles. So I emptied the 1L isi soda siphon of water, sterilised it and proceeded to fill it with 1L of flat beer straight from the fermenter, see pic of soda siphon below. The beer was cold (after cold crashing) and the 1L isi soda siphon was also cold (I had it in the fridge with sanitiser).

I then screwed on the lid and put one 8g CO2 bulb into the top and returned it to the fridge (I don't have a mini CO2 reg). After approx 4 hours in the fridge I went outside and removed the CO2 bulb which had transferred all CO2 to the siphon and slowly took the lid off. I lost perhaps 50mL of beer in foam when I opened and poured the beer into a tall glass. Yes the beer was overcarbonated but after I left it in the fridge for another 5 - 10 minutes it was all good.

The beer was a wet-hopped pale ale so I didn't mind drinking it "green". The flavours were good, the wet hops noticeable and it had a decent malt/bitterness profile. In the future I would either try and get smaller bulbs (either 4g or 6g but I don't think these exist) as it was definitely overcarbed with the 8g bulb, get a regulator which I could control the carbonation (most likely option) or I would just pour the carbonated beer into a jug, then put in the fridge to "calm down" for 10 minutes prior to pouring. I think all of those options would honestly work.

I just wanted to see if anyone else has had a positive experience with soda siphons recently as a cheat to taste beer on keg/bottling day as the majority I could find was negativity??

All this because I can't wait several days to taste from the keg......what have I becomeee?