I’m thinking about buying one, but the reviews I’ve read have been … mixed (to put it mildly).
Also, I’ve heard tell of users buying real syrups from soda manufacturers (viz, actual Diet Coke syrup, not the SodaStream-specific Diet Cola knockoff) to make tasty drinks with the machines. How does that work: like do you literally just get a few drops out of the bag with a spoon or something?
Finally, are there any products that are essentially SodaStreams but not that specific brand name? I’d rather not support that manufacturer.
I’ve purchased several sodastreams from the used market, where you can get reasonable deals. I then modified them to use paintball CO2 canisters, using an adapter available online.
I’m very happy with my setups. Instead of paying $15 to exchange an empty for a full tank of gas, I pay $4 to have my tanks refilled. Also, the paintball tanks last longer
I like plain water, so can’t help with the syrup stuff.
I have a DrinkMate and have been using it for two years to produce a steady flow of carbonated water. It uses the same cylinders as SodaStream so you can pick the cheapest provider of those you can fine, although I just take my empty cylinders to Target and get full ones at “half price”. It supposedly is fine with carbonating any liquid in your fridge, unlike SodaStream which is a “carbonate first, add flavor syrup after” kind of a deal, but I haven’t been testing that out. I just make the fizziest water I can make and then mix it half-and-half with good OJ.
This is the reason I bought the DrinkMate and not another brand. Also, this one the CO2 nozzle is a separate piece from the main unit and it lets off the pressure gently, as opposed to the SodaStream where you screw the bottles directly into the machine and then you kind of have to “guess” whether or not the pressure has dissipated enough to not explode when you unscrew it.
In practice, most of the time I just carbonate cold water and add the syrup afterwards. I’ve experimented with other stuff, like hard liquor, with various success. (FYI carbonated bourbon will pretty much instantly end the productive portion of your day )
I prefer Monin brand syrups, and I bought a set of screw-on pumps for them. I’ve found that certain flavors of syrup are much more foamy than others; “cola” for example, tends to explode if you mix it up first, then carbonate, and even doing it the opposite way, you still need to add the syrup extremely slowly, lest you get a “Diet Coke and Mentos” volcano effect. The pump gives you about 1oz per pump, and I’ve found that 8 pumps into a half-liter of carbonated water yields a fairly convincing RC Cola clone.
I have a Drink Mate. I use it to mostly carbonate water, but I’ll also carbonate apple juice and other liquids from time to time (Drink Mate is able to carbonate mostly anything.) We bought ours in January, and use it daily. I’ve tried the soda syrup (Soda Stream brand), and they tasted fine. The way they worked is you pour a certain amount into your carbonated water, tilt back and forth gently, and voila, you have whatever soda you like. The cap itself in the one I tried is a measurement tool for the syrup.
There are also flavor droplets available – they’re more like a syrup in consistency. Those come in a much smaller container, and those you put into your soda water by the drop to give you the essence of fruit flavors. Those you usually add to you glass before drinking, but you obviously can also add it to the larger container – it’s just a matter of how much.
I’ve also modded my Drink Mate and use a 10lb CO2 tank that I can refill for $25. That keeps my refill costs to very little. I got my Drink Mate in January, and we got through both canisters of CO2 that it came with in a week and a half each. Since then, we’re still on our original 10lb of CO2. Now, granted, there is an upfront cost in getting the tank and the conversion kit (both together about $120), but with the amount of soda water we drink, we’re closing in on the break-even point already.
I’ve had a Sodastream for over 11 years, with no complaints. I got @kayaker’s adaptor, and am also planning on refilling using dry ice next time.
I have no idea what this is referring to. It doesn’t explode when it’s unscrewed. There’s usually a small amount of excess CO2 released from the unit when you remove the bottle.
I’m not much of a pop drinker but I like adding fruit juice/puree (or frozen concentrate) and/or garden herbs. Of the sodastream syrups I’ve tried, and I’ve only had the sugar-free, the orange and root beer aren’t bad.
I have an old SodaStream. It works. I always hit the button 3 times to max out the carbonation.
Never tried using anything but tap water in it, but it’s trivial to, and I have on rare occasions, bought or made some juice or syrup and mixed some carbonated water into it. Isn’t that how Coca-Cola and similar are actually made?
I also had one of these
but it was stolen It’s totally better than the SodaStream; at least, it seems like it does not go flat as quickly.
We’ve had a SodaStream for probably close to a decade now. We only drink diet (or in my case, caffeine-free diet) soda. I always thought the SodaStream flavors were fine, but my wife wasn’t a big fan. And since the pandemic started, many of the diet and caffeine-free diet flavors have disappeared from their inventory.
So now we’ve switched to buying the boxes of soda syrup from Amazon or eBay. Tastes exactly like it does out of a fountain soda machine, although instead of two or three carbonation “squirts,” we find that it takes five to get the right balance. But we’re happier, it’s more delicious, and we’re not having to recycle so many SodaStream bottles, so it’s a win all around.
Also, to echo @needscoffee, we haven’t encountered the explosion issue described earlier. You usually get a big hiss when you release it, but the only time I’ve had any kind of explosion is when I’ve inadvertently added the soda to the water before carbonating.
Some of the cites are COVID priced, but overall it confirms the CO2 is pricey, but mods can make it more tolerable. If you buy off the shelf Sodastream syrups you’ll likely be unhappy with both taste and cost (most of them are half sugar / half artificial sweetener).
While this will be overlapping with my post in the above link, I like Sodastream and the like because my wife drinks carbonated water during warmer months, and I make my own sugar syrups, which doesn’t save me any money, but means it is exactly what I want.
And I normally just want barely enough Soda to make a weekend’s worth of Rum and Cokes.
I had a SodaStream for a few years and liked it until it suddenly stopped working and tossed it. Never tried the SodaStream brand flavors, but like the Crush concentrates and KoolAid grape. The catch is that for me, the sweetener leaves a slightly bitter aftertaste and gives me gas.
Before it broke, I bought a box of Sprite syrup, about $80 for 2.5 gallons. You need a special adapter hose/spigot, about $18 and attach screw it on the bag. There’s a special one way valve on the bag. The syrup is the same as used in fountains, so you need quite a bit, several ounces, not just a squirt to flavor a full bottle. I figured it cost me about $1 for a bottle including the CO2, so no real savings.
Forgive my ignorance here, but how do you get the syrup from the box to your cup? Those boxes are built specifically for commercial machines, and use a system of hoses and such the average home consumer lacks. Do you just, like, pour it from the box into a gallon jug or something, and then pour from the jug into your soda water?
We have a SodaStream but got tired of constantly buying expensive CO2 cartridges. I was aware of the adapter thing you can do that @kayaker mentioned but never got around to it, plus it seems to me that the quality of SS home carbonation is inferior to that of store-bought sparkly water- it doesn’t seem to have the same ‘bite’ to it. Anybody else notice or experience this with SodaStreams?
This sounds like the perfect solution if one likes carbonation / carbonated soda. I like how it involves some home-craft ability to make a mod which is less both expensive and suits your needs. Well Done!
I’m almost curious as to what other Mods you’ve considered making.
“That’s it folks, 12AM, work in the morning, party’s over…”
“Aww… do we have to? You’ve got a Great Place here.”
< raises exterior hose nozzle from the modified Sodastream >
“I said out…!”
< Icecube-Thok!> < Icecube-Thok!> < Icecube-Thok!> < Icecube-Thok!>
The post from @Didi44 above yours describes the process in the second paragraph. A simple adapter that works as a “tap” for the box. You can either stand the box up using that tap and pour directly into your SodaStream bottle, or use the tap to pour into a pitcher that you can use at will. We do both.
As mentioned, I agree that storing the syrup in another container is probably the best since the tap is gravity fed. I got the one with the hose and it was inconvenient because I had to hold the bottle well below the counter for the syrup to flow.
There’s a number of standard mods out there for your SodaStream/Drink Mate
Refill your soda machine CO2 canisters yourself using an adaptor, a regulator, and a CO2 tank of your choice. Advantage is you just reuse the same canisters which fit natively into your soda dispensing device.
Refill your soda machine CO2 canisters using dry ice. You basically take apart the canister (using a vice and strap wrench or similar – once it comes off, it’s much easier to take on and off), weigh the empty container, put the correct amount by weight of dry ice in it, close it all up.
Use your own containers (CO2 tank, paintball canister, whatever), attach it to the SodaStream/Drinkmate using one of many adaptors available on Amazon, Ali Baba, eBay, etc. In this case, instead of refilling the original CO2 canisters, you’re using your own connected directly to the soda machine. The disadvantage is that it’s not quite as pretty, but the advantage is that it’s cheap as hell. I get CO2 at $2.50 a pound for my 10 pound tank (If I had a 15# tank, it’d be $1.67/lb). A 60L 14.5oz soda machine cylinder with a $15 exchange rate price equals $16.55 a pound.
The Whiskey Tribe YouTube channel actually did a DrinkMate vs. SodaStream test carbonating various whiskeys a year or so ago. Including adding Mentos (before carbonating).
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It’s totally better than the SodaStream; at least, it seems like it does not go flat as quickly.