Easy DIY SodaStream — Build your own

This article will cut the fluff and give you the facts, parts and instructions so you can stop paying so much for bubbly water

My wife and I drink a lot of sparkling water. Every week, I pick up at least 8 12-packs of generic H-E-B brand soda. How much we drink depends on the season, or if we have guests in town. I calculated that we drink about 384 cans of soda and spend $87.68 a month. No one should spend $1052 a year on water.

I’m going to break down the cost per liter for purchasing generic cans of soda, using a SodaStream and making your own with a DIY carbonator. Skip to the BUILDING YOUR OWN section if you just want the details and purchase links to the parts for building your own rig.

Does it really cost that much?

Cans

Each case costs me $2.74 here in Austin TX. A 12-pack of soda comes to about 4.2 liters worth of beverage. So, calculating the cost per liter gives us:

$2.74 ÷ 4.2 = 0.65¢ per liter

Initial Investment: $0
Cost Per Liter: 0.65¢
Pros: Highly Carbonated
Cons: Expensive, Inconvenient, Wasteful

SodaStream

I don’t personally own one of these, but I have tried it a few times and I haven’t been impressed. Usually it goes flat super quickly and just doesn’t sparkle very hard. Apparently you can charge up your water many times to achieve the desired level of sparkle fizz, using up more of that precious CO2. Snooping around on their website it looks like the low end machine with a few accessories costs about $130. Replacement CO2 cylinders cost $30 and fill about 60 liters:

$30 ÷ 60= 0.50¢ per liter

It looks like you can also trade in your old CO2 cylinders for new ones at $15 (shipping not included — lets add $5 for that):

$20 ÷ 60= 0.30¢ per liter

Initial Investment: $130
Cost Per Liter: 0.50¢ or 0.30¢
Pros: Convenient
Cons: Overpriced, Restricted to expensive SodaStream patented CO2 tanks

DIY Carbonator

Building your own soda maker will cost a bit more up front, but the cost per liter is significantly lower. Since we drink so much soda, I went with a 20lb CO2 tank, but you can purchase 10lb, 5lb or even 2.5lb tank. I have also heard of people using paintball tanks. All the parts cost me $223.99. From what I found online, you can charge 1000 liters with a 20lb tank. A local place charges about $16 to exchange a 20lb CO2 tank (prices will vary, so shop around):

$16 ÷ 1000= 0.016¢ per liter

Initial Investment: $243.99
Cost Per Liter: 0.016¢
Pros: Convenient, Economical, Cheap
Cons: Not ready made

BUILDING YOUR OWN

This is where things get fun. You get to build a simple yet powerful machine that provides you with unlimited delicious fizzy soda in your own home. After a few hours of research (and reading tons of reviews), I was able to find most of the parts I needed on Amazon, with the exception of the tank.

The Parts

• 20lb CO2 Tank — $129.89. Fill the tank with CO2 to carbonate your drinks. I got mine from http://morebeer.com. If this size is too big for you, opt for a smaller tank.
• Pressure Regulator — $52.46. Controls how much CO2 gets released into your bottle. Screws directly onto the CO2 tank. After looking into a ton of options, I choose this one and have no complaints.
• Ball Lock Gas Line Assembly — $22.83. Connects the regulator to the carbonation cap.
• Carbonation Cap Coupling — $10.82. Attach directly to the ball lock assembly. Pull back on the ball lock to pop it in. I have seen some posts where people recommend using a plastic cap. Don’t do it — this thing works great and I expect it to last forever.
• Beer Line Tube — $7.99. Cut off about 6inches and push it over the inner barbed outlet of the carbonation cap so the CO2 gets injected into the liquid.

Putting it all together

Assembly takes less than 5 minutes

1. Get your CO2 tank filled or exchanged. Do a quick search online for a welding shop or beer supply store near you. Shop around. I’ve seen refills/exchanges costing anywhere from $16 to $60 for a 20lb tank. Keep in mind that most CO2 shops will just take your shiny new tank and exchange it for a not-so-shiny filled one.
2. Attach the pressure regulator to your tank. Add a little plumbers tape to ensure there are no leaks. The pressure regulator has two gauges. The one farthest to the left of the tank shows the tanks remaining pressure and one on top displays the output pressure. The knob on the front controls the output pressure.
3. Hook up the gas assembly line to the pressure regulator. The gas assembly line part linked above has a swivel nut clamped onto the tube. Remove the swivel nut and attach the tube directly to the barbed outlet of the pressure regulator and secure with the hose clamp (included).
4. Attach the carbonation cap to the ball lock. The ball lock part (attached to the gas assembly line) requires you to pull up in order to snap the carbonation cap in place.
5. Attach the beer line tube to the barbed outlet of the carbonation cap. The goal is for the tube to reach far enough into the bottle your filling that it’s submerged by water. I cut mine to about 5 inches, but you can cut a couple different lengths and switch them out depending on the size of the bottle you’re carbonating.

Time to start fizzing

A couple notes to get you started

• Make sure your water is cold! The colder the better. Carbon dioxide dissolves way better in super cold liquids (think 33°F).
• Leave some room at the top of your bottle. I leave about ⅙ of the bottle empty. Squeeze as much of the air out of the bottle as you can before tightening up the carbonation cap. Yeah, your bottle will look squished and that’s good. Once you charge it up with CO2, the bottle will inflate and the space will give you some room to shake the CO2 into the water. (Leave more room if you’re carbonating beverages like beer or wine. Since these beverages produce a lot of foam; only fill the bottle half way.)
• Shake the bottle well. While the cap is still secure, shake the bottle vigorously to mix the carbon dioxide into the water.
• Charge it twice. If you want your water to have a brighter sparkle, once you shake the CO2 into water, release the cap. Let the bubbles settle and repeat the process.
• Preserve the fizz. You’ll want to store your sparking water in an air-tight container that it fills. Storing it in a partially empty bottle causes the carbonation to dissipate faster. Since you left about ⅙ of the bottle empty when you carbonated it, you should try pouring it into a smaller bottle. One solution is to have a designated carbonating bottle that’s slightly bigger than the bottles you want to store your soda in. You can use a funnel to easily pour your freshly made soda into smaller bottles.

SAFETY

A word on safety

CO2 Purity: You should make sure the CO2 you purchase is “food grade” carbon dioxide. That means it’s 99.9% pure and free from chemicals that could cause harm if consumed (industrial grade gas ranges from 99.5% — 99.8% purity). Some say gas from a welding shop doesn’t meet the same standard as gas intended for consumption (like a beer supply store). Suffice it to say, there’s a lot of debate online about this topic with opinions ranging from “food grade gas is a gimmick” to “industrial gas contains heavy metals”. I’d recommend you tell the supplier you intend to use the CO2 for consumption, and they should be able to point you in the right direction. If you want to dig in a little deeper on this topic, check out this article.

Bursting Bottles: First of all, I wouldn’t carbonate anything in glass bottles. The last thing you want is glass shards blowing all over the place. I carbonate in the 2 liter plastic PET bottles most cola comes in. You’ll want to be careful with those too. A regular soda bottle can withstand about 150psi before blowing up. I usually carbonate to between 60 and 70psi.

Bottle Overuse: Plastic bottles can only withstand so much pressure over a given amount of time. Don’t ever use bottles that have been exposed to the sun or run through the dishwasher. I usually recycle my bottles every few months and purchase new ones as a precaution.

That’s it! Now you can stop wasting time and money paying for overpriced water and fizz it yourself.

Thanks for reading this article! Leave a comment below if you have any questions or suggestions. Please share this with anyone you know who should stop paying so much for sparking water.

Levi is the heads up product at Austin based startup homenow.io. You can connect with him on Twitter