Force carbing cider in pet bottles

[spilver]

Hi all,
First time poster, long time lurker.
Thanks to everyone for sharing their knowledge on here. I have had some good success with my broom closest ciders thanks to that info.
I have had good results bottle carbing in soft drink pet bottles and cold crashing.
We are currently selling a unit to buy a house and my quiet plan is to go to a keg system.
As I have been looking into it I came across the carbonator cap. Would this, in combination with a 16 gram Co2 portable keg charger be able to carb a cider in a soft drink bottle?
I see it can't carb akeg, just charge it to pour, but maybe a smaller 1.25 size coke bottle of cider may carb with the gadgets?
Anyone tried? I may give it a go soon. If it works it will save a lot of fridge space and make backsweetening a whole lot easier.
Seems too simple of a solution to be true.

Cheers.

 

[Airgead]

Yep. It would.

I have used exactly that system to carb up little sample bottles of ciders to give away or sample before the main batch got carbed up in the kegs.

Its slow as you are only carbing up a max of 2l at a time. Its expensive compared to carbing from a regular gas bottle as those little bulbs aren't cheap but It does work.

Cheers
Dave

 

[spilver]

Thanks dave.
That is good news, I'll go ahead with the project then. It will be a few months before I even start getting a keg system together so this will work for me.
Appreciate the input.

Aaron

 

[Airgead]

One thing you could consider is to just get a regulator and small gas bottle (maybe a sodastream bottle and reg... craftbrewer sell them). You can use that with the carbonation caps and it will cost less in the long run than buying the bulbs. You can then re-use the reg when you put your keg system together and save some cash at that end.

Cheers
Dave

 

[spilver]

Thanks for the feedback.
I ended up getting some tubeless valves and a Co2 inflator, the food grade canisters work out about $1.50 each and will carb two 1.25 bottles as well as top up hits. Valves were $8 for 12 and the inflator $15 at a bike shop.
The aged ciders that are naturally carbed taste much better, but this is good for when stocks are low.
I also took the plans for the party keg off here to the maintenance engineer where I work and he machined the modifications up and we threw a couple if party kegs together. I have most of my proper kegging system together, just the gas bottle and reg. to go. Looking forward to cider on tap at home and on the go with the party rig.
Thanks for the ideas and info.

 

[spilver]

Finally got the big project finished. 30 litre fv's are perfect,
20 for my keg of straight apple, and 10 for mrs spilver in the party keg souped up with cascade raspberry cordial.
The stuff on tap is coming out tippy top now, even the bottled ciders I have been churning out are getting good. even been getting commissioned for a few.
Currently have bottled, apple, apple blackcurrant , cloudy apple n pear, apple cranberry, apple raspberry. They are all nicely sweet & dry.
The best one for the keg I like is just plain ol apple from coles or home brand 3lt clear juice.
The bottles are good, but the kegged goon kicks ass when you can use sugar syrup to get your flavour right. The carb caps I made earlier in the post are handy for filling a 1.25 or two for outings and keeping the fizz.
Currently have a cloudy apple from the classics white label juice I got fr the golden circle outlet,
It is only pasteurised, not reconstituted and was great in the bottle, so am looking forward to getting it on the tap.
A bit less on the og for this one though. I think I had about 5 or 6 pints one night and couldn't remember for the life of me if the mrs. said goodnight, or get f#%*ed.
Apparently it was a little of both.