Food & Drink
Make your own soda
Addicted to the fizz? Concoct your own carbonated creations in the comfort of your kitchen while saving money and eliminating the waste associated with packaged soft drinks.
Making your own aluminum cans and plastic bottles. Make your own soda to create a singular refreshment that caters to your fizz-loving palate while curbing pollution linked to the transport of your preferred carbonated beverage and saving fossil fuels.
How to make your own soda
- Start simple: Similar to other involved hobbies, home soda making requires an ample amount of practice and patience during the beginning stages, although it's much less complex and quicker (and more kid-friendly) than concocting homemade beer. Do not expect to produce a lemon-lime spritzer of utter perfection on your first attempt. Homemade soda production may also call for sufficient physical space, although some devices (see Find it! Soda-making equipment) are designed for more cozy kitchens where space is at a premium.
- Cola 101: Parents weaning young soda-drinkers-in-training: home soda making is not only a fun family activity, but a built-in lesson in recycling, science, healthy diet choices, and economics. Before embarking on Project Root Beer, explain that soda is a special treat that when made at home can reduce packaging waste and save money. Also point out that when making soda at home you know what's going into each batch and can choose to create it from natural, more healthy ingredients. Even homemade pop calls for sugar or sugar substitutes so remember that liquid candy should be complimented by a more nutritious treat and reinforcement that grape soda is not one of the basic food groups. And for parents interested in making their own adult refreshments, suppliers of soda-making ingredients and paraphernalia (see Find it! Soda-making suppliers) also sell the gear needed for home beer and wine making.
- Don't fret about fermentation. Although homemade soda undergoes the same yeasty process as beer, the fermentation process is not nearly as long and the resulting soda should only be carbonated, not alcoholic.
Find it! Soda-making suppliers
Like a painter needs a brush and canvas, a home soda maker needs rubber tubing and champagne yeast. Below is a sampling of the many vendors offering the compulsory paraphernalia required in the art of home soda brewing. Basic starter kits are also available for those not yet ready to enter the more esoteric realm of passion fruit extracts and boiled celery seed.
Making your own soda helps you go green because…
- It diminishes your carbon footprint by eliminating the need for highly polluting, fuel-intensive transport of packaged soft drinks.
- It cuts back on the cycle of waste produced when purchasing soda packaged in aluminum cans and plastic bottles.
- It allows you to choose healthy ingredients like real fruit in lieu of artificial flavorings.
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