Soda makers

[Dom]

I am looking at soda makers. I love a glass of sparkling water with just a squeeze of lemon juice in the summer, a nice pick-me-up in the heat.

There seem to be a zillion choices at all price levels. I tend to gravitate to the old fashioned simple bottle with small cartridges. But I am open to other choices, too.

Do any of you have any experiences with them, good or bad?

[Dānu]

How To: Cheap Homemade Seltzer with a Modified Sodastream

Oh seltzer! Tasty bubble water of the gods. Once you’ve tickled your tongue with this crisp and refreshing remake of boring old water, you’ll never go back.

Our march towards a franken-seltzer machine started innocently enough.

In college (as our romanced was blossoming), Mrs. FW and I drank prodigious amounts of the cheapest diet soda we could get our hands on. It was really awful, off-brand stuff. Think diet strawberry shasta… and you’ll get the picture. This essential fuel for all-night study sessions cost us $4 for a 30 can flat. We’d easily go through a flat per week during peak study season.

After college, being so mature and all, we quickly dialed back our soda consumption. But we missed the fizz! We were buying 2 liters of seltzer water occasionally, along with diet ginger ale. The reasons for diet ginger ale have been lost to the sands of time as I now think that stuff tastes weird even for diet soda. And, Mrs. FW was a known coke zero fiend.

When we moved to Washington, DC, we quickly discovered that the tap water there tastes terrible (we later learned that it also likely contained lead… but that’s another story. Thanks DC!) We got a brita filter, but we also upped our seltzer consumption. We knew it was becoming a problem when it took more than a single trip from the car into the house to carry our stash of 2L seltzer bottles. Our recycling bin runneth over.

One day I was browsing a favorite kitchen store in DC (Hill’s Kitchen, highly recommended!) and nearly stumbled over the sodastream display. I’d honestly never considered making our seltzer! The skies parted, angels sung, I texted Mrs. FW that I’d discovered the solution to all our problems, and I biked home with a sodastream machine strapped to my back.

Time passes, seltzer is made. Things are good. Too good, actually… Looking at our monthly spending I began to realize that we were spending more on seltzer per month with the sodastream than with bottled seltzer. Why? We were drinking mammoth amounts every month. Our peak seltzer consumption had us going through 180L per month. We’ve stopped all other beverages (no juice or soda), and so seltzer had become our drink du jour.

Think about that. 180 LITERS of seltzer. A standard American bathtub holds 150L of water. Mrs. FW and I drink more than a bathtub-full of seltzer every month!

That’s 3 full sodastream canisters of CO2, at $15 a pop (!!). The sodastream allowed us to consume way more seltzer than we ever would have if we were buying it in 2L bottles. There’s no way in soda-hades that I’d schlep 90 bottles of seltzer from the grocery store! But if it’s just 3 little canisters… it seems much more reasonable.

Now we love our seltzer. And ever since we started drinking it, we’ve been consuming way more water than we ever did before. We don’t add syrups or flavors, so it’s just water, but the cost, oh the cost! The concept of drinking a veritable river of seltzer a month isn’t bad, but the reality of spending $45/month or $540/year on bubbly water is sorta insane.

[Cheerful Charlie]

I am looking at soda makers. I love a glass of sparkling water with just a squeeze of lemon juice in the summer, a nice pick-me-up in the heat.

There seem to be a zillion choices at all price levels. I tend to gravitate to the old fashioned simple bottle with small cartridges. But I am open to other choices, too.

Do any of you have any experiences with them, good or bad?

I have a plain old seltzer bottle.  I haven't really used it in quite some time.  They work.  But cleaning mine is a bit of work.  And I have had problems in the past getting CO2 cartridges at nearby stores.  and then there is cost.  About $1 each cartridge.  One reason I kind of moved away from using mine.

[Dom]

I am looking at soda makers. I love a glass of sparkling water with just a squeeze of lemon juice in the summer, a nice pick-me-up in the heat.

There seem to be a zillion choices at all price levels. I tend to gravitate to the old fashioned simple bottle with small cartridges. But I am open to other choices, too.

Do any of you have any experiences with them, good or bad?

I have a plain old seltzer bottle.  I haven't really used it in quite some time.  They work.  But cleaning mine is a bit of work.  And I have had problems in the past getting CO2 cartridges at nearby stores.  and then there is cost.  About $1 each cartridge.  One reason I kind of moved away from using mine.

I can buy 80 cartridges for 30 bucks. The old Seltzer bottles are something I will likely go with, my parents had one they used for 40 years. They are inexpensive and I don't trust myself to rig up a large CO2 container to a modern machine. I am not handy, and I'll probably gas myself.