My highly creative friends Cheila and her husband Nate just made their own carbonator. If you're into carbonating, making your own Italian sodas, always having fresh seltzer water on tap but don't like the cost of the store bought carbonator refills you might want to check this out!
Use this tutorial to make your own DIY carbonator! It averages out to be about the same cost as a store bought carbonator but in the long run it's cheaper than store bought carbonators because it costs WAYYY less to refill. A 14.5 ounce store bought canister will cost you $15 if you recycle your old canister at the store. You can fill a 5 POUND tank at a shop for around $15. That's FIVE AND HALF times cheaper than filling a store bought canister!
1. Using COLD water fill your soda bottle and squeeze all the air out of it.
Here's another benefit that I think might change some minds. If you like your soda really fizzy the store bought machines will only let you fill to around 20psi. If you want to get REALLY fizzy soda you can set a homemade carbonator at 45-50psi! That might be my FAVORITE part of a DIY carbonator. But if you like less fizzy soda you can adjust the regulator for something less fizzy. It's just much more versatile.
2. Screw on your carbonator cap.
Another major benefit is that you can use your own soda bottles! The store bought carbonators needs special bottles that are $15 for a 1 liter bottle. Recycled soda bottles are basically free!
3. Take the end of your DIY carbonator and attach to carbonator cap.
Some of you might be like "WHY would I want to make my own soda?!" Well, A, it's cheaper. B, it's great because instead of drinking super sugary soda you can make your own with as little sugar as you want. You would be surprised how little difference in taste there is when using 3/4 of the amount of syrup normally used in soda. PLUS, if your kids are soda drinkers you can secretly make their sodas with half the sugar and they will probably not be the wiser. C, I hate flat soda. If you do too you never have to have flat soda again with a carbonator.
4. Turn your valve open then shake. Voila! carbonated water! And it was WAY fizzier than the water I make from my store bought carbonator!
If you make your own soda I recommend using the Torani syrups rather than the SodaStream ones. The SodaStream ones all have sucralose instead of sugar (even the non-diet ones). They do have a limited selection of "naturally flavored" sodas with cane sugar which I DO recommend, especially the ginger ale flavor. But if you want a wide variety, Torani has 42 different fruity soda flavors! I recommend the naturally flavored SodaStream syrups for your traditional "coke" and "sprite" "root beer" and "ginger ale" flavors. So far I haven't found a naturally flavored "Dr. Pepper" syrup so if any of you know of one PLEASE LET ME KNOW! I also recommend getting these syrup dispensers that screw onto the top of the syrup bottles so that you don't have to make a whole bunch of different sodas, just the water then add a couple squirts of the syrup when you pour your glass.
Since I already own a store bought carbonator I probably won't be investing the money to make a DIY one but if I were thinking about buying a carbonator THIS is the way I would go!
Like not spending money? 
1 {comments}:
Wow, this is so awesome, I was just saying to my friends the other night that I wanted to make my own soda water but the idea of buying those cartridges all the time is off-putting. Thanks for the advice, I'm going to try it!
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