Quicksand Fans

Few here who have not actually visited my Studio will know that I make my own carbonated water. I am not talking about any of the machines sold for that purpose, but just a tank of carbon dioxide, a pressure regulator, and a hose with a cap that fits one liter soda empties from the grocery. Typically I drink the bubbly water plain or I mix it with various kinds of juice and even iced coffee. I'll skip more details about that. This post is simply to share what it actually costs. Not including the hardware, which is good for decades, a ten pound tank of CO2 was $40.00 the last time I bought some. Since then I have kept a tally of each bottle as it was completed. I am now running rather low on the gas so I won't get too many more but tonight I carbonated the 445th liter. The cost per bottle has now dropped under 9 cents.
I dunno if anyone else finds this of interest but I do.

Can't you like make, carbonated quicksand pits? And then throw down a bag of mentos and make a quicksand-carbonated-mentos vulcano?

Carbonated oobleck could be interesting.

Also your post was the most dad thing i ever read, i just imagine you're telling your kids(if you have kids thats it) how much money you'll saving by making your own carbonated water, soda and juice

Making your own carbonated water is great though.

Any idea if that setup would work for bottles? I make my own hard cider and want to try carbonating it but I'm kind of nervous about doing it the traditional way in the bottle with sugar/yeast (exploding booze would be bad ).

ImpracticalFetish wrote:Can't you like make, carbonated quicksand pits? And then throw down a bag of mentos and make a quicksand-carbonated-mentos vulcano?

Carbonated oobleck could be interesting.

Also your post was the most dad thing i ever read, i just imagine you're telling your kids(if you have kids thats it) how much money you'll saving by making your own carbonated water, soda and juice

Making your own carbonated water is great though.

Carbonated quicksand pits are definitely not practical. For water to absorb the gas it has to be very cold. You can, of course, make mud bubble by using a simlpe compressor and a little hose.

I do not do this to save money. I do it so I can have a very wide variety of carbonated drinks. For example, I have a glass of carbonated iced coffee almost every day. Other things that are actually quite good are spicy tomato juice, grapefruit juice, pineapple juice, and many other juices. I make a flavor I call "Plenty Good Soda" which has both vanilla and licorice in it (the flavors of Good and Plenty candy. One thing that does NOT work, in my experience, is trying to carbonate wine.

Mynock wrote:Any idea if that setup would work for bottles? I make my own hard cider and want to try carbonating it but I'm kind of nervous about doing it the traditional way in the bottle with sugar/yeast (exploding booze would be bad ).

I presume you mean bottles made of glass? I think if you used bottles that were originally sold containing something carbonated it ought to work just fine. Just don't try to over-pressurize it. I set my regulator valve to a little under 30 PSI. The water, or whatever, has to be ice cold and I have to shake the bottle as the gas is applied. One of the problems with home carbonating systems, such as Soda Stream (in my opinion) is they attempt to carbonate the water all at once, using higher pressure than I do. This is, I believe, extremely wasteful of the gas.

One thing to keep in mind is that if you carbonate something other than water there is a risk that if the valve were to come off or the bottle to rupture you will have your liquid (your cider) all over the place. Therefor, do the carbonation in a place that will not matter. I just carbonate tap water and then mix it with whatever jiuce or other beverage I want to make. With something like fruit juices I find I prefer to mix the straight juice and the bubbly water in about equal quantities.

Mynock wrote:Any idea if that setup would work for bottles? I make my own hard cider and want to try carbonating it but I'm kind of nervous about doing it the traditional way in the bottle with sugar/yeast (exploding booze would be bad ).

Natural carbonation is easy and safe to do when you bottle. I've been a homebrewer for a long time. I've over-carbonated a few batches; that's fun when you open them. Only once have I done it so grossly that I had bottle bombs.

If you do want to do forced carbonation, though, you'll want to cold crash and then filter your beverage first. If you carbonate it using pressurized CO2, but leave the yeast in, there's a pretty decent chance that the yeast can become active again, particularly if the temperature warms up, adding more pressure to what you forced in. Most people who do forced carbonation, do it at the keg level, not the bottle level. After cold crashing and filtering.

All that being said, sure it would work!

Chimerix wrote:

Mynock wrote:Any idea if that setup would work for bottles? I make my own hard cider and want to try carbonating it but I'm kind of nervous about doing it the traditional way in the bottle with sugar/yeast (exploding booze would be bad ).

Natural carbonation is easy and safe to do when you bottle. I've been a homebrewer for a long time. I've over-carbonated a few batches; that's fun when you open them. Only once have I done it so grossly that I had a bottle bottle bombs.

If you do want to do forced carbonation, though, you'll want to cold crash and then filter your beverage first. If you carbonate it using pressurized CO2, but leave the yeast in, there's a pretty decent chance that the yeast can become active again, particularly if the temperature warms up, adding more pressure to what you forced in. Most people who do forced carbonation, do it at the keg level, not the bottle level. After cold crashing and filtering.

All that being said, sure it would work!

Chimerix makes a good point about filtering. Not only might the yeast become active again (unless killed off by the alcohol level) but any particulate matter in the liquid will tend to cause the carbon dioxide to come out of solution more quickly when the bottle is opened.

Thanks for the tips. Got a big 6 gallon batch bubbling away in the basement right now, maybe I'll take a chance and try the natural way. Have to get another batch of Mead going too, that stuff is awesome.

Keep in mind the safety issue.

CO2 is heavier than air, and will settle close to the ground and in depressions and displace oxygen. VERY dangerous for an actor or actress with their head close to the ground, say partially submerged shoulder deep in a pit.

This characteristic has resulted in tragedy before via a natural disaster, including this instance. << Link Removed. Rule #8 >>

If someone DOES try this, do so on a windy day, or with off-camera electric fans blowing fresh air across the surface.