Soda Water?

[jakester]

I have been thinking of what i can do with some spare kegs for my kids birthday party at the end of the month. After reading this i might put on a keg of soda water and red cordial, i'm sure they will love it. All the men will be drinking my beer from the taps so it will give the kids a bit of fun also. I might even look into doing something for the ladies, has anyone tried anything like a cruiser or lemon rusky? If it can be done i will have everyone at the party covered! Will do a search and see what can be done.

 

[komodo]

Yep. A few guys have made alcoholic / hard lemonade - ie two dogs lemonage

Other wise you can make a soda stream lemonade / club squash type mix and add vodka for a lemon ruski type drink

 

[Tony M]

Thanks ...


Commercial soda water in siphons is made by chilling filtered plain water to 8 degrees Celsius, adding a sodium or potassium based alkaline compound such as sodium bicarbonate to reduce acidity, and then pressurising the water with carbon dioxide, known as Carbonation. The gas dissolves in the water, and a top-off fill of carbon dioxide is added to finally pressurise the siphon to approximately 120 psi (pounds per square inch), some 30 or 40 psi higher than is present in fermenting champagne bottles.


Toowomba's tap water's not the best ... and even though I have a whole of house filter system I'd like to make my soda water a bit 'special'. Does anyone have a 'recipe' for adding mineral salts to say RO water to make it taste nice?

I have dragged this post out as I'm looking for guidance in adding salts to soda water. I drink a lot of this and the Ph is around 4.7 and I have enough trouble with gastric acidity without drinking gallons of the stuff. My old teeth will be disappearing next.

 

[Vlad the Pale Aler]

The current keg of soda water was mineralised, a level teaspoon of everything in the brewing cupboard, tastes good too.

Do a search for the mineral profile of Perrier water then run it through your water profiler in Beersmith or Promash, posh water for nout.

 

[JonnyAnchovy]

in my very limited experience of making soda water in corny kegs (i.e. one keg) I got massive carbonic bite from the carbination. It make the water perceptibly more acidic than any commercial soda water, and not nearly as bubbly.

I guess mineral additions would buffer this, but has anyone else had similar experiences?

 

[Bribie G]

Ivesy: For some reason my keg of lemonade took 3 weeks to gas up acceptably at normal serving pressure (I have a 3 keg setup with a three way splitter so I couldn't force carb it, as it had to be at the same pressure as the 2 beers on tap). It's come real good, as good as a Sprite etc. However if you are doing it for the end of the month and it's going to be sitting on the same gas as your beers, then do it in the next couple of days.

 

[brettprevans]

use a one way valve on the line that way you can carb up 1 keg to a higher pressure and keep it at that pressure after you dial the pressure down on the reg. cheap way of getting around a dual pressure reg.


edit: the mineral water thread is here
I used PoMo's recipe and it came out nice once the salts had completely dissolved and dispursed through the keg. its was pretty hard core whilst the salts just sat at the bottom of the keg. actually i'd tone it back a touch on all of it.

 

[Edgewater]

For a clone of "Kirk's" style ginger beer use three 750ml cordial ginger beer bottles from the supermarket and then top up the keg with water. Turns out great after about three days under pressure in the fridge. Costs about $10. When I followed the instructions I found it too sweet (one to four) thus diluting it more to fill the whole keg for my taste was better.

 

[Tony M]

I have dragged this post out as I'm looking for guidance in adding salts to soda water. I drink a lot of this and the Ph is around 4.7 and I have enough trouble with gastric acidity without drinking gallons of the stuff. My old teeth will be disappearing next.

I made another batch of 15 litres with 20gm soda bi-carb and 2gm epsom salts into the keg. the Ph is up from 4.7 t0 5.9 and TDS from 400 to 1490ppm. It tastes more neutral now, presumably because a lot of the acidic bite has disappeared. It is certainly easier to drink, but is lacking in character. I suppose it is only water after all.

 

[Pogierob]

I had a spare keg and only just put something in the fermenter so I thought, why not throw a soda water in.....

Soda water is now going to be a permanent... so so good
it also gives me that non alcoholic choice and even though I have a keg o' beer on the other tap I find myself hitting the soda as a substitute on school nights,
The other half is pretty happy too as I have been wandering out with all sorts of soda water bevvies and just passing her a glass. (of course this is all part of the plan) to increase my tap numbers.

Any way, if you find yourself with a keg spare and no beer ready I recommend throwing one on... even if you ditch it once your beer needs the keg.

 

[Ciderman]

I'm in the middle of a keezer build and will be having soda water on tap. I was looking at getting perlick 650ss taps for beer, should I get the same tap for soda water or something cheaper?

 

[DU99]

i would get a cheaper tap like this...thats my 2cents

 

[themonkeysback]

I'm in the middle of a keezer build and will be having soda water on tap. I was looking at getting perlick 650ss taps for beer, should I get the same tap for soda water or something cheaper?

I use perlick flow control taps for my beers, but found I preferred my soda water keg from a non flow control tap (perlick 525ss), it poured more easily and the carbonation was better. So I agree with Du99, and would go either a non flow control perlick, or a cheaper tap.

Adam.

 

[Ciderman]

I use perlick flow control taps for my beers, but found I preferred my soda water keg from a non flow control tap (perlick 525ss), it poured more easily and the carbonation was better. So I agree with Du99, and would go either a non flow control perlick, or a cheaper tap.

Adam.

Great that's what I thought.

 

[kevinj]

I cycle the soda water through my taps to help keep them clean.
It can take a while to get rid of that yucky beer taste from the tap.

 

[navarau]

What a great topic and timely too.

I'm just starting the mods on my keezer to include a lemonade dispenser for the kids. I picked up an old Schweppes mixing head from a swap meet. It has 6 heads so I can run 6 different flavour. The intention is to have a common keg for the soda water and then have each cordial in an aluminium drink bottle under about 5 psi co2 pressure. The mixing head is where the magic happens and can be adjusted to get the perfect ratio of cordial to soda water.

I,m on holidays at the moment but when I get home I will upload some pics to make it a bit clearer as to what I'm doing.

If anybody knows where I can get a second hand "gun" type despenser like they use In Pubs now I would be very keen to know.

 

[waggastew]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/CORNELIUS-8-BUTTON-BAR-GUN-WUNDER-BAR-PEPSI-COKE-4-/311198566357?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4874e147d5

Bout cheapest I saw on fleabay

 

[navarau]

Thanks Waggastew I really appreciate your reply. I had seen them but being a tight arse home brewer I didn't like the idea of the $62.95 US postage.

Given all the cafe's, restaurants and pubs we have here in Australia and all the refurbs that go on there must be a place that these things go to die.

Sorry for the post hijack, I'll ask the question in the buy and sell section.

 

[barls]

http://www.chicompany.net/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=361_74

 

[stux]

When carbonating the soda water I find it takes forever at 100kpa serving pressure. I connect it up over night at 350 kpa and give it a few minutes shaking the next day when it's chilled, then I can dial my reg back to standard pressure. The soda keg is on a non return valve.

I fill it with filtered water

Soda water has been a permanent addition to my keg fridge for so long now that Swmbo even refills it!

We tend to take a 1-2L jug with a serving of soda stream syrup (got dozens now) and mix it at the tap. Pour a few hundred mls, swirl swirl then fill up.

Great at parties too