On WMEU-CA (Channel 48 Chicago) they run old TV commercials and they had one from Shasta, which advertised, that it didn’t have as much carbonation as the others.
I never thought of it before but do different types of soda have different carbonation amounts. For instance is Pepsi more fizzy than RC or Coca-Cola?
Are colas less fizzy then lemon-lime sodas (like Sprite or 7-Up)
I know Root Beer tends to be really fizzy but is that due to added carbonation or the fact that root beer is just different from cola or lemon-lime type drinks
It’s due to you being exposed to low-quality root beer. The good root beers that I’ve had (e.g., Crater Lake, XXX, and especially the stuff from the late lamented Unicorn Pub) tend to have little carbonation.
Other sodas such as Orangina and Chino also have little carbonation.
I find that a lot of the lemon lime sodas are over carbonated. I remember having to let Slice (an old brand I haven’t seen in years) actually sit open for half an hour before I could drink it. I still find Sprite to be more carbonation that I like.
I’ve been meaning to start a thread like this. It’s impossible to pour some sodas without creating a head, but others remain relatively flat. How do manufacturers decide how much carbonation complements a given flavor?
I’ve heard, or maybe read, that different types of packaging give different carbonation levels. If you want something highly carbonated, go for the smaller bottle, not the two-liter. I’m not sure whether this is causation or merely correlation.
When you’re talking about a soda fountain, or soft drink station, you’re usually speaking of a sturdy cardboard box containing a purified sugar syrup which is mixed on-site with fresh water and CO[sub]2[/sub] from a cannister. By and large the syrup is easy for unskilled fast-food workers to exchange; it’s a simple hose of heavy clear plastic tubing with a screw-on fitting at the end.
When I worked in a restaurant, the people from Coke would come to adjust the mix — that is, the ratio of CO[sub]2[/sub] to H[sub]2[/sub]O.
As I remember it, the ratio was 5.75:1 for Diet Coke, but 6.5:1 for sweet drinks. It’s been years, so I could be wrong.
Does the head of a root beer have to do with the amount of carbonation alone or is it the composition of the drink that allows it to hold on to the bubbles longer?
Sierra Mist seems to have less carbonation than 7-up or Sprite. My husband and I like almost-flat pop, so sometimes I open a can when I don’t want to drink it, and just let it sit in the fridge for a day or two. Mmmmmm…flat pop.
We don’t drink much pop at all. A six-pack of baby Sierra Mists per month is a lot for us.
Since root beer can also be made in an alcoholic variety, and since many breweries switched to root beer during Prohibition, I’m going to say that the head on root beer is a deliberate creation by the brewers. They want it to look as beer-like as possible, I guess.
Just from personal experience. I think 7Up & Dr Pepper have higher than average amounts–as in they explode when you open them. Some of the obscure brands or store brands go for lower carbonation.
I love Dr. Pepper*, but I have to open a two-liter bottle very carefully, because cracking the cap seems to make it fizz up more than other soft drink sodas.
I wonder if if’s a factor of how close to the bottling facility we are?
*Dr. Pepper may not be the first soda I ever tasted but it’s the first I drank with any regularity. My folks didn’t keep a lot of soft drinks around the house, but my grandfather loved his Dr. Pepper. This was back in the days of glass bottles!!! He’d let each of us kids have a whole bottle to ourselves, and we thought he was the bestest grandpa ever!
I sure notice that the biggest commercial brands must be more highly carbonated. I used to love Diet Coke, but at some point I started getting air bubbles somewhere in my stomach or intestines so acutely painful that it felt like I had the bends. I finally figured out that the soda was to blame and I gave it up and the air bubble problem went away. Every once in a great while I’ll have half an Orangina or some other less aggressively carbonated drink, but it never causes that horrible intestinal pain like Coke or Sprite did.
I’ve always noticed that Mountain Dew is considerably less carbonated than other sodas. I think this is a major reason why MD, unlike other sodas, is still drinkable after it’s gone somewhat flat and at room temperature. I’m somebody who will crack open a 2-liter of Dew (well, I used to - I’ve since switched to water for the sake of my teeth and waistline) and drink straight out of the bottle while sitting at my computer, and I found that it was nearly as good at room temperature after sitting there open all day as it was ice cold and freshly opened.
From my days in fast food, I always noticed that the diet drinks foamed a hell of a lot more than the non-diet sodas, which led me to assume that saccharine interacts with the CO2 quite differently than sugar does.