Last step in the project of building a home soda machine for flavoring cola

[Robert]

You can say the same thing about home cooked food and restaurant food. The difference is you control what you put in your soda

Robert

[Danny D.]

Looks like I have a bunch of suppliers to look up! Thanks for the comprehensive suggestion.

[trader4]

All those are readily available, including neroli oil. And you don't have to search by supplier, just googling for "buy X" works. Ebay and Amazon probably have it too.

[Danny D.]

That's the kind of Internet-supplier advice I was hoping for!

Googling, I find this GFS web site:

But they seem to sell through "channels".

Plugging my zip code into their store-locator comes up with a hotel and a health club in my town - which I find strange - so I need to dig deeper on how this GFS company sells its product to the consumer.

They don't have a phone number on their web site so I filled out the contact form on the web but the fields are clearly geared to commercial suppliers.

[Danny D.]

The only consumables for making soda are:

- Water (so cheap that let's forget about pricing it)

- Carbon dioxide (again, so cheap that we can forget about the price)

- Flavoring (need a cheaper supplier of cola flavoring)

That seems reasonable. If it matters, I'd add the roughly 10% sales tax and the mandatory 10 cent recycling tax, so it boils down to about $1.20 is the price to compare with for a two-liter bottle of cola.

Interesting! I have a Costco membership - but not Sams Club. I wonder if Costco sells it (I've never seen it - but then they only recently started selling coke bottles at about the prices we listed above for colas).

This seems to be a good approach.

Actually, almost none of the components are available at the local grocery stores I checked. I'm pretty surprised there isn't an online supplier of the various chemicals as a kit though ...

I'm not worried about the ratios to use (I can experiment to taste) but you're right that the cost for the desired quantity is the final problem, which, if not overcome, makes home cola creation costs prohibitive.

I agree. An inexpensive source for cola syrup is probably best.

[Danny D.]

True. The kids think carbonated water is god awful.

The wife, on the other hand, enjoys a bottle with just a few drops of my home-made lemon extract.

For the lemon extract, I simply steep zested peels (the yellow, not the white inside of the rind) in the strongest cheapest concentration of ethanol I can find (which is Vodka).

Unfortunately, I'm paying the "alcohol sin tax", even though the point isn't to 'drink' the alcohol used.

BTW, is there a cheaper source of strong ethanol other than Vodka?

[chaniarts]

everclear

[trader4]

1 oz (28 g) caffeine citrate 3 oz (85 g) citric acid 1 fl oz (30 ml) vanilla extract 1 qt (946 ml) lime juice 2.5 oz (71 g) "flavoring," i.e., "Merchandise 7X" 30 lb (14 kg) sugar 4 fl oz (118.3 ml) cocoa leaf fluid extract

[zxcvbob]

Or if you don't mind if it's flavored a bit and not clear, Ronrico 151 rum (Ronrico costs about 1/2 what Bacardi does)

Bob

[Frank]

Good point but I guess working with extracts or concentrates you don't have choice of what is put in them. Also mention was made of need to use food grade carbon dioxide. I think you'll find oil in industrial grades.

[Robert]

Look for everclear. around the same price but its 200 proof.

Robert

[krw]

No more than 190 proof (though some is "only" 150 proof). Ethanol can't be distilled beyond 95%. To get it more pure, things like Benzene have to be added, which just kills the flavor.

[Joe Mastroianni]

Are you sure that "food grade C02" even exists?

[Danny D.]

Hmmm... I never heard of it (but I'm admittedly not a connoisseur of hard liquors by any stretch of the imagination).

Looking it up, it's ethanol from corn (versus Vodka, which is ethanol from potatoes).

It looks like I can get 190 proof (95% ethanol) so that would be perfect as the Vodka I'm buying is only something like 100 proof (50%).

[Danny D.]

Everclear seems like a good idea.

According to google, you can't get it any higher than 190 proof (95%), but Califoria apparently outlawed the 190 proof so I will look for one notch lower.

NOTE: Why they'd outlaw 190 proof but allow the next level down is beyond me, since people could just drink more - but it is California ... so that must explain it.

[l not -l]

Everclear is made at two proof levels, 190 and 151.

[trader4]

After this thread yesterday I happened to be in a supermarket where they sell the SodaStream machine and products. Ahye Karumba! What a joke! Like many of you, I've heard the ads saying that you can save money, but never bothered to check it out. I had seen what 5 gal bags of syrup sell for at Sams Club and just from that concluded it's not worth it. So here's what the SS was selling for at the supermarket:

Machine $200 CO2 cylinder, makes (up tp) 60L $30 Cola syrup, makes 12L $5

So, lets figure out what it costs to make a 2L bottle:

CO2 $1 Syrup $0.83

That's a recurring cost of $1.83 for 2 litres. You can buy real Coke, not some generic cola, for $1.60 and that's when it's not on sale. On sale which happens every couple weeks at one supermarket or another, you can get if for $1. The generic colas you can get for about $1 any time. And you don't have to pay $200 as an entrance fee.

I'm sure you can do better than that for the SS by shopping around. But still, unless they have some awesome flavored soda that is way different than bottled soda, the whole SS thing is nuts. I'.m sure if you go the DIY route for the machine, buy CO2 from a gas supplier in bigger tanks, etc, the math is going to improve.

[Danny D.]

I have to agree with you that the whole Soda Stream model makes no monetary sense to me.

My kids and I don't find the cola taste from coke all that much different from the Soda Stream taste - so I don't think they have an edge on taste.

So, about the only thing that the Soda Stream can sell on, at least to me, would be on price or on convenience.

I figured I'd have the price part licked by building my own carbonation machine (which was a fun and super easy project) - but the syrup is now the stumbling block.

I'm still working off the leads you guys gave to lower the price of the syrup - but your store has it for the exact same price as Bed Bath & Beyond did - so that's the biggest snag for me.

[Danny D.]

Look at what I just found in my "chemical stash" from grad school days!

It's pure ethanol, with a long tax stamp even! It has to be 35 years old or more!

I don't see 'any' mention of benzene on the bottle though ...

PS: When did they stop using tax stamps on alcohol?

[krw]

That's how it's made. Alcohol and water *CANNOT* be distilled above

95%. Impossible. To make "pure" alcohol, one adds 5% benzene to the 95% alcohol/water mix and then distills the alcohol off from that. There will always be a trace of benzene in the resulting alcohol; enough that you really don't want to drink it.

Did they?