But what if I could have infinite sparkling mineral water?
I drink a lot of sparkling water. And the amount of it I drink got to legendary levels, so I decided to see if I could make my own. The Soda Streams just carbonated tap water, and they barely did that. What I wanted was sparkling mineral water. That sounded like home brewing to me, and I wondered if home brewing was a hobby for some, why couldn’t sparkling water be one for me?
So I sought out various tutorials online and ended up cobbling together a few things. Here’s what I collected (none of the following are affiliate links):
- Kegerator
- You’ll want something to comfortably house a 5gal keg and a tank.
- Keg
- I chose a 5gal tank.
- Hoses and clamps
- The kegerator came with some, but I wanted ball locks that were easier to attach and detach.
- Filling hose
- The kitchen faucet hose wasn’t long enough, so I used a hose for pet bathing that I attach.
- Calcium Carbonate
- Himalayan Sea Salt
- Extra C02 Tank (see notes)
Assembly #
It wasn’t too difficult, especially with the help of this video. It’s mostly connecting the right kinds of cables.
CO2 Tank #
I didn’t like the 2.5lb tank, as it ran out in a week or two and few places stock refills.
The kegerator comfortably fits a 5lb tank inside with the keg and will last you about 5-6 weeks, assuming you refill your tank once a week.
The CO2 tank was the trickiest to source, as everything redirected me to soda streams or overpriced ones at Amazon. Soda stream tanks are absurdly priced and impractically tiny for a kegerator. For example, a 15oz tank ran about $30 at a local store. The 5lb tank I bought will work out to be much cheaper. $100 for the tank, $40 per refill.
Rounding that up, 1lb tanks from Soda Stream are $30. A 5lb tank from AirGas is $40. So it works and is about 1/3 of the price, minus the initial investment.
I found a good supplier at AirGas who regularly stocks 5 and 10lb tanks.
Water #
I went back and forth over water and whether I should opt for distilled or alkaline or tap. It turned out that tap was just fine for me.
Mixing #
You’ll want to experiment and find out what you like. I landed on 1g calcium carbonate and .25tsp of Himalayan sea salt per gallon and. Given that I use a 5gal tank, that’s 5g of calcium carbonate and 1.25tsp of Himalayan sea salt.
I pressurize it at 45psi. It’s at the perfect carbonation level after about 36 hours.
I started to taste a little too much bite when I used 1.5tsp of Himalayan sea salt.
Other notes #
I also put a pair of channel lock pliers in the fridge with them, as adjusting the pressure with my hands hurt and wasn’t easy.
Turn the pressure down once you get to the desired level, as you’re wasting CO2 otherwise. You can get it down to about 5 psi and still get enough pressure to dispense.
Make sure you clean the hoses and kegerator regularly, and especially before your first use.
Lastly, if your hoses aren’t properly connected you will have a problem. If you don’t do this, you’ll wake up with the floor soaking wet as I did. It sucks if you’re on carpet: I had to treat the carpet and underlying padding to prevent mold.
