We have sworn off bottled water and drink our water straight out of the faucet - with one exception: seltzer. We love the bubbly stuff, especially in the summer. It's a great palate cleanser, and we drink gallons of carbonated water and lime with our meals. Plus we really like to add fresh juice or flavors for a healthy alternative to soda.
The expense adds up, though, at nearly a dollar a bottle, and the packaging and transportation bother us. So we've been doing a little research into home carbonation. From pre-packaged to homemade, here's a range of options with pics and links for those of us who can't get enough seltzer.
• Do It Yourself: For those comfortable working with things like regulators, tubing, and clamps, here is a great Instructables tutorial for building your own bar tap-style setup for carbonated water. He takes most of his process from this very thorough article. Final cost: about $100 setup and $.02 per liter.
• The 1-Touch Method: The system offered by Soda Club USA is an easy, streamlined way to make soda water at home. You buy a Fountain Jet soda appliance along with a startup kit that includes gas chargers, flavors, and bottles for about $80. The chargers give you about 110 liters, and charger refills cost $20.
Read a review of this system. This leaves you with one more big, one-use appliance sitting on your countertop, but the cost is not bad - $80 startup, then about $.18 per liter.
• The Old-Fashioned Way: In the past, soda water was made at home and the bar with a seltzer bottle - you can still find vintage glass versions of these on eBay and in antique shops. They're often very beautiful. It's a simple system: a soda siphon with an attached gas canister carbonates water. It's a similar system that is used in whipped cream dispensers, and you can buy these through Fantes and other online shops.
There's some danger with these; you need to follow instructions precisely or the bottle could explode. Also, with the cost of cartridges you're still looking at about $.50 a bottle.
Here's a review from a blogger who uses a seltzer bottle, with a helpful chart comparing storebought seltzer and homemade, contrasting cost, fizziness, liberal guilt assuaged, etc.
• And for Bay Area dwellers... You can also buy your seltzer water from the Seltzer Sisters - they'll deliver straight to your door.
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I just don't get the whole carbonated water thing in the first place. Drinking the carbonation in soda is bad enough...
In NYC don't forget Walter the Seltzer Man -- he delivers seltzer in those great vintage bottles out of the back of a bread truck. Every week or month (depending on the extent of your seltzer habit) they pick up your empty bottles and leave you with a wooden crate of filled bottles.
It's a classic old New York job -- and as I remember his rates aren't terribly high.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for this info!
I'm addicted to San Pell but I'm sick of the expense and transport. Every time I lug my bottles I think "there's got to be a better way to get my carbonated water fix."
I don't like any other kind of soda, and I get really sick of drinking plain H2O all the time.
So thanks again for this post, yay!
I also have to thank you for this post. I fell in love with a German man and found myself with a seltzer habit shortly after that. How can I get in touch with the NY Seltzer guy? Does he deliver to Brooklyn?
As far as I know, the seltzer guy delivers to all boroughs -- since it's a small operation, though, I think it depends on how he can fit a new customer into an existing schedule. Maybe a few people in the same area could sign up at once...
I saw him in my neighborhood one day and signed up then and there...but a little googling led me to a site that says his number is 718-468-4047. I haven't tried it, but you could.
When I was a wee lass in Chelsea in the '80s, my parents used to have two crates of seltzer in those (now-)vintage bottles delivered every week. I still miss 'em.
I've bought N2O cartridges and a charger from http://www.creamright.com, which the blogger in the article above links to, and had a good experience with them.
I sell Soda Club machines here in Upstate NY, and let me tell you, pricey, but worth it. I adore ours. I've had one since I was 7 and it's been a long lasting love affair and every year there is a new flavor.
I like seltzer too! This may ruin the whole homemade fun and all, but if you've never tried La Croix, you should. They make all sorts of flavors, from lemon to lime or even berry. And they come in cans so they're much cheaper! The seltzer delivery in vintage bottles does sound like a lot more fun though!
Hillary
chewonthatblog.com
My friend lives in Inwood, and she gets seltzer from Walter. It's REALLY good stuff. The carbonation is light and of a better quality than store-bought seltzer, and the bottles are really cool.
I've got a soda club soda maker and I LOVE LOVE LOVE it! I make a bottle of seltzer just about every day (for me alone). It's so inexpensive and easy. Sure, the maker is a unitasker but I use mine so often it doesn't bother me.
I buy whatever selter is on sale at the grocery store -- pathmark, acme, etc. I get a case 24 cans for about $2.99, bottles are sold sometimes as low as $.44 to $.89, not cheap. I was drinking Vintage brand, then I went to the store brand. Comes in flavors, cherry is the best, but I enjoy plain just as well. Other flavors are lemon lime, orange, raspberry, etc.
I received an old-fashioned seltzer bottle as a gift. I love the seltzer it makes, but it bothers me to create more trash with the canisters. Any thoughts on this?
The Soda Club machine uses larger CO2 containers that are recharged rather than thrown away. For me, that's enough to cinch it over the endless disposable small cartridges.
1) If you buy a seltzer bottle off ebay, don't be a fool and get the kind that is really just meant to be refilled by the seltzer man and is consequently useless. I was a fool.
2) I think Walter has a waitlist now.
The Brooklyn Seltzer man's name is Walter Beckerman and there are several nice articles about him on the web. I also found Gomberg Seltzer Works, 718-257-9369, and this lovely little article by the New York Press http://www.nypress.com/print.cfm?content_id=10119.
John Matthews (1808–1870) is credited with the development
of a device to carbonate soft drinks. And you can visit his over-the-top grave at Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn. It's a hoot.
http://www.green-wood.com/pdf/matthews18to21.pdf
You're not the only one! I started using soda siphons and other nitrous charger accessories on all my home made stuff... even whipped cream. The kids seems like it a lot more, especially the wife... I've purchased things a few times but so far the best was Whip Its .org.
One tip I can give is using metal pieces, including the dispenser and charger cap. Much smoother experience.
Absalonnniii
I also drink a huge amount of soda. I looked at the sodamaker but it was really expensive. I thought there has got to be a cheaper way. Finally I found plans to make a home made system that is WAY cheaper than the sodamaker -- I can make seltzer for less than 2 cents a liter! Here is where I found the plans to build your own soda and seltzer system in about 10 minutes for less than $100 bucks.
www.makesodaandseltzer.com
It's serving me well and I am making some delicious sodas! And I don't end up using all that plastic, or even worse, shipping all that water!
You can also buy referbished 5 gallon soda kegs from places like http://stores.kegconnection.com/StoreFront.bok or home brew stores for about $30. They have set ups that use paint ball CO2 canisters. Its easy and costs less them other methods.
Yeah i was wondering wat are the side effects of inhaling Unknown Gas?
The Soda Stream system is great! Not sure why, but the company makes it seem as though you need to exchange your canisters with them by mail (which, from reading many reviews, seems to be an extraordinarily slow process), but in fact you do not. Many mainstream retailers- Macys, Williams Sonoma- sell the canisters and will take your used ones. Just call your local home/kitchen store. The canisters aren't cheap, but the convenience of making seltzer at home without having to lug liters and liters of it from the grocery store every week is a lifesaver!
I have a soda stream I love it, hate the syrup though! http://howtomakesoda.com
Making your own carbonated water at home is the best! I make it using Sodastream, read my blog here http://simplenaturalsolutions.com/how-to-make-carbonated-water-at-home/