Soda Siphon vs Twist 'n Sparkle

[JanetGroene]

Whatever system you use, or none at all, the concentrates sold by these companies are very good space savers. Some are made with real fruit, some are sugar free. They make great drinks without sparkling water. We gave up on our Soda Club system to save space but continued to buy the concentrates. Of course, one wouldn't want flat cola but the fruit flavors are super. One caveat: note us-by dates.

[zeehag]

what ever happened to drinking water?????/ lol saves space and doesnt have things that fly around in big sea.

[CaptainRob]

Well, my wife has been asking me about this type of thing as well, however I feel I've got an even better answer...
Make your own, from scratch.

I homebrew beer, and my wife has started making wine. I just recently started looking into making my own ginger ale and the first batch turned out fairly good. I think I just need to tweak the recipe a little but its quite tasty for something made entirely from scratch. And best of all, it uses yeast for carbonation, instead of some prepackaged cartridge that I don't have equipment to be able to reuse. The recipe only takes two days to make a good bubbly ginger ale. I'm looking into what it takes to make a basic lemon-lime, orange, and rootbeer next.

As best I can tell, this makes more sense than buying an expensive soda maker.

Now, I've just gotta figure out how to make my beer onboard as well!

[Morrissey]

Originally Posted by zeehag

what ever happened to drinking water?????/ lol saves space and doesnt have things that fly around in big sea.

Water's just fine if you take it in the right Spirit! eg Scotch whisky

[LeaseOnLife]

We do like seltzer too. Let the ROW drink plain water, this is our little piece of luxury.

We made us one of these:

http://leisureguy.wordpress.com/2007...arkling-water/

We bought a 5lb CO2 tank, a beer-keg regulator, some hose, caps. Water needs to be ice-cold to accept a lot of CO2.

We make 3-4 liter a day, had the tank filled Dec last year. By weight, I guess we have more than half left in the tank.

[hellosailor]

Zeehag, you DO know why W.C.Fields said he never drank water?
"Because f-fish ****** in it."

And the really pure stuff really IS boring, try distilled versus your choice of "tap" if you want to really see that. A little bubbling, a little mineral content...there's more to drinking than just hydration. And plain water's not so good for hydration, either.<VBG>

[zeehag]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

Zeehag, you DO know why W.C.Fields said he never drank water?
"Because f-fish ****** in it."

And the really pure stuff really IS boring, try distilled versus your choice of "tap" if you want to really see that. A little bubbling, a little mineral content...there's more to drinking than just hydration. And plain water's not so good for hydration, either.<VBG>

distilled water leeches the electrolytes out of your system..LOL....and i cannot stand sparkling water--has a nasty aftertaste, always has--plain water--NOT tap--is good stuff. also doesnt have hfcs in it. LOL....for hydration, i have a recipe i use--is from emergency rooms, wherein i have been nursee for many yrs.
fake pop machines are as useless as regular tv.

[h20man]

Originally Posted by CaptainRob

Well, my wife has been asking me about this type of thing as well, however I feel I've got an even better answer...
Make your own, from scratch.

I homebrew beer, and my wife has started making wine. I just recently started looking into making my own ginger ale and the first batch turned out fairly good. I think I just need to tweak the recipe a little but its quite tasty for something made entirely from scratch. And best of all, it uses yeast for carbonation, instead of some prepackaged cartridge that I don't have equipment to be able to reuse. The recipe only takes two days to make a good bubbly ginger ale. I'm looking into what it takes to make a basic lemon-lime, orange, and rootbeer next.

As best I can tell, this makes more sense than buying an expensive soda maker.

Now, I've just gotta figure out how to make my beer onboard as well!

Welcome aboard CF..

and I would love to see your recipe for ginger ale as well..

[hellosailor]

"distilled water leeches the electrolytes out of your system..LOL"
Eh, no. Popular myth. Electrolytes move by osmosis and other mechanisms and they will generally move into whatever solvents are in your body and then be excreted with them. Distilled water doesn't "leech" any out, it simply carries whatever has been shifting into it. Drink "plain" water, however you describe that, which is lacking in any electrolyte, and it will "leech" out just as much as distilled will.
Electrolyte and mineral balance is way more complex than a question of what is in the water you are drinking. Given adequate nutritional intake and proper bodily functions, the water's mineral content is unimportant.
But then again, twenty years ago they said the kidneys regulated sodium. Ooops, that was before they figured out the HEART actually played the major role in that. Around the same time the doctors were figuring out that butter was actually better for you than margarine which was full of, ooops, saturated transfats.
Sparkling water can have many tastes, evian and san pelligrino being two very different ones. And club soda and seltzer, despite the marketing, also being two different drinks. (Club soda has added salts or minerals, seltzer doesn't.)

I use the UN standard rehydration recipe, it probably is what your ER recipe was based on. Tastes like old socks no matter how you doctor it up, but it sure makes me feel good.

[zeehag]

now beer is something of value-- sody pop has hfcs in it and should be banned form earth...LOL even carbonated water of non natural source is not good..LOL. but beer is --has minerals and vitamins and stuff that bubblewater doesnt.. yes it takes up space--- but i do know some folks make beer on board and it does work.....

[Astrid]

Here is an old time recipe for ginger beer that is pretty good:

2½ cups (625 ml) white sugar
4.4 oz. (125 g) crushed, dry ginger
A little less than ½ cup (100 g) seedless raisins
Skin (peel) & juice of ½ lemon
1 gallon (4 liters) water
0.4 oz (12.5 g) dry yeast (not instant yeast)

Mix the sugar, ginger, raisins, and the skin and juice of the lemon in a bowl. Boil the water and pour over the mixture into the bowl. Stir until all the sugar is dissolved. Let the mixture cool until luke warm. Dissolve the yeast in a little warm water and add to the luke warm mixture. Stir thoroughly. Cover the bowl lightly and let it stand covered in a cool area for 12 hours until the raisins float and the mixture contains small bubbles.

Pour the mixture through a soft cloth or sieve into storage bottles. (This removes all solids from the mixture.) Since there will still be a little yeast-action going on, use containers that can withstand a little pressure.

from:
http://www.sa-austin.com/ginger-beer-recipe.html

[hellosailor]

"sody pop has hfcs in it and should be banned form earth"
No, it all doesn't. The diet sodas don't, and even Coke and Up have produced runs of "no corn sugar" product. A number of smaller brands proudly advertise using only cane sugar.
But of course, the High Fructose Corn Sugar debate took major damage over a year ago, when it was revealed that hfcs apparently isn't metabolized the way it was earlier reported to be. The reports have gone from "toxic!" to "well, we really don't know".

Beer has its points, but it also contains a known toxin: Alcohol.

Everything in moderation.

[Dulcesuenos]

The twist n sparkle looks like it uses regular 12 gram co2's? Anyone know if they are the same? As for making oyur own or useing a refillable cylinder try a paintball C02 tank, cheap to refill heck walmart sells them in 9, 12, 16, and 20 oz.

[hellosailor]

I'm not sure you'd want to use paintball CO2. From what I was told years ago, which may no longer apply, the small cartridges (8 and 12 gram) are "food grade" oil-free CO2 while the stuff intended for other uses often has some lubricating oil in it. Left over from the compressors used, and considered a good thing for the machinery it will blow through.

That was back when cartridges cost 1/2 of what bottled soda cost. I still don't understand why they cost well more than 2x what the bottled soda costs now.

[CaptainRob]

Here's the recipe I used, it's from Alton Brown. It's pretty good but I found that I have to add an additional teaspoon of sugar and some more ground dry ginger to each glass to get that taste I'm looking for.
Link

Ginger Ale Recipe : Alton Brown : Food Network