I do not know about the stuff you buy in bottles but soda stream is plain water (eau de Lake Michigan) that co 2 is injected in. Do not think that is killing us...I agree we do need to get away from the soda pop type drinks. There is no way a person can manage their weight if they are drinking liquid sugar as a beverage every day. I drink a lot of plain ice tea with lemon or lime and just plain water but I do get tired of it and look at a fizzy drink now and then. Hate lugging bottles or cans from the store. I like the idea of getting creative with soda stream and like the idea of making non sugar flavored waters. Moderation is the key to all things. I do not like just plain room temperature water.

Here is a cool clip of a guy making fresh lime soda in India...nimboo pani. A delicious drink. Basically fresh lime (or lemon) juice, sugar and carbonated water. Note the primitive soda stream contraption he uses.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqaAuQcXEbc

Shopko had some inexpensive "infusing" water glasses ($8). I am enjoying the plain co2 water with some slices of lemon and lime. I used to use the packets of true lemon and lime, but they have really gotten expensive and real fruit is cheaper.

Regarding the sugar factor, I have long abandoned the idea of not using artificial sweetners and losing or maintaining weight. Unfortunately they are a necessary evil. The question is which one and how to effectively sweeten any soda stream product if not using a premade mix.

I mostly drink mine 2 cents plain (love it and lots of it). Occasionally use slices of citrus. Recently started putting a bit of Italian Volcano organic lemon juice (grazie, Costco) into a glass, adding 2-3 drops of liquid Stevia (thanks, Trader Joe's) and topping off with Soda Stream seltzer. I'm playing with proportions, but I'm pretty much getting diet Limonata.

I'd be interested in experimenting with using real sugar, but minimally.

I mean, look at iced tea. If I'm drinking it at a restaurant, I'll use one sugar packet, maybe two if I put a lot of lemon in. That's what, 30 calories in a pint? Meanwhile, a bottled tea will have 180. So if I could stay with natural flavorings and much less sugar, I could avoid all those nasty artificial sweeteners.

Thats a lot better than a coke that has about ten teaspoons for a can.

toria wrote:Thats a lot better than a coke that has about ten teaspoons for a can.

Nope. Bad math there: A can of coke is 140 calories, at 16 cal/tsp, that's 8 3/4 tsp.
Arizona Iced Tea Lemon shows 90 cal per 8 oz serving, or 135 per 12 oz. Pretty much the same.

Different sources on the internet quote different spoons of sugar for coke from 8 to twelve oz. I do not have a can so I can not do any math. All I know is its too much!!!

JoelF wrote:I'd be interested in experimenting with using real sugar, but minimally.

I mean, look at iced tea. If I'm drinking it at a restaurant, I'll use one sugar packet, maybe two if I put a lot of lemon in. That's what, 30 calories in a pint? Meanwhile, a bottled tea will have 180. So if I could stay with natural flavorings and much less sugar, I could avoid all those nasty artificial sweeteners.

And it goes without saying that you want to use simple syrup.

When I make a glass of fresh lime with soda I like to use simple syrup. I put a few teaspoons in a glass and pour a few spoons of boiling water into it. I make sure I have a long metal spoon in my glass. It dissovles very quickly into a simple syrup. I then add the fresh squeezed lime, lime wedges, ice and then fill with bubbly water.

To add to what I wrote above about sticking with water for carbonation, History Channel re-ran a Modern Marvels on "pressure" yesterday and featured a mom & pop soda company (like the old Lasser's). They reiterated that it's always best to carbonate the water rather than the final product because water absorbs the carbonation more readily. Once you add stuff to water the solubility of the CO2 drops appreciably. They also vary the carbonation by product with colas being more fizzy and fruit sodas less fizzy.

spinynorman99 wrote:To add to what I wrote above about sticking with water for carbonation, History Channel re-ran a Modern Marvels on "pressure" yesterday and featured a mom & pop soda company (like the old Lasser's). They reiterated that it's always best to carbonate the water rather than the final product because water absorbs the carbonation more readily. Once you add stuff to water the solubility of the CO2 drops appreciably. They also vary the carbonation by product with colas being more fizzy and fruit sodas less fizzy.

I know this is off-topic but it may finally solve a mystery for me. Are commercial sodas like Coke, etc. carbonated with the syrup when packaged? I ask because we buy a lot of Izze in the 12 oz bottles and you can leave them half empty and uncapped for days and they don't lose their carbonation, while a 2 liter of diet coke open for an hour and then capped will go flat in less than a day.

I am amazed at how fizzy the soda stream gets and lasts. Of course I have only saved things for about three days but normally those big bottles of coke go flat really fast in a day or so.

boudreaulicious wrote:

spinynorman99 wrote:To add to what I wrote above about sticking with water for carbonation, History Channel re-ran a Modern Marvels on "pressure" yesterday and featured a mom & pop soda company (like the old Lasser's). They reiterated that it's always best to carbonate the water rather than the final product because water absorbs the carbonation more readily. Once you add stuff to water the solubility of the CO2 drops appreciably. They also vary the carbonation by product with colas being more fizzy and fruit sodas less fizzy.

I know this is off-topic but it may finally solve a mystery for me. Are commercial sodas like Coke, etc. carbonated with the syrup when packaged? I ask because we buy a lot of Izze in the 12 oz bottles and you can leave them half empty and uncapped for days and they don't lose their carbonation, while a 2 liter of diet coke open for an hour and then capped will go flat in less than a day.

The 2 liter bottles go flat fairly quickly whether capped or uncapped.

My posts in this forum have been deleted, and I do not understand why. However

As stated in an earlier post, yes, tonic water syrup is available. Sur Le table has it. It does include quinine.

I see your earlier posts regarding shopko so maybe they are back.

P.S. What would be really neat is if someone would invent a beer syrup. Then you could pour it in the bottle add some grain alchohol and make your own beer easy.

Nope, posts involving frozen lemons, etc have been removed. At least I cannot see them.

Um, Toriia, there is (was) a beer flavor readily available many years ago. "I know nothing" but it went through to friends of mine. A neat dehydrated item that IMHO was awful. During desert storm I, flavorings were passed to me to send along to add to alcohol "distilled" as part of the effort locally. I made a lot of "fizzies" for my friends that included Texas Pete hot sauce or beer hops. Those were dropped into the drinks. That good amounts of dried fruits were sent for "energy". The packets of Texas Pete that were provided by a local Church's chicken were never part of this.... MREs were awful and a Church's chicken locally donated thousands of Texas Pete packets provided I pay for sending them.

toria wrote:I see your earlier posts regarding shopko so maybe they are back.

P.S. What would be really neat is if someone would invent a beer syrup. Then you could pour it in the bottle add some grain alchohol and make your own beer easy.

http://www.patsbcb.com/beer-concentrate

Nope, my posts are not available.
I am not going to type in that all again. Darn but I did not mention vendors. WTF?

exvaxman-

I wanted to assure you that nothing was done with your posts from the moderators side. Unfortunately, there are times that a post may not be successful due to a glitch in the browser. I'm not sure what happened with yours.

For the mods,

somebody has thought of the beer concentrate. Interesting.

exvaxman wrote:yes, tonic water syrup is available. Sur Le table has it. It does include quinine.

That is definitely worth checking out -- thanks for the tip!

The Tonic syrup from SodaStream contains quinine.

I have tried several flavors of soda stream now. I was not impressed with the diet cola nor the diet lemon lime. I have since bought their version of coke zero. I love the diet pink grapefruit. Love love love. The diet cranberry raspberry was good too. Have not tried the other things yet. I have found soda stream at Kohls, BBB thus far so its not too hard to get. Also they have good coupons there so you can get a discount.

My one pet peeve with the soda stream is that the bottle is a bit too big. I use it almost exclusively to make club soda for drinks and I don't need an entire one liter bottle for that. It would be nice if it also came with smaller pint bottles which wouldn't go flat before I finished it. I guess I could just drink more but finishing a full liters worth of vodka sodas in one sitting seems unwise.

I am not privy to any insider information or anything. However, I have seen two or three different machines that are in development that will address some of the issues people are having with Soda Stream. One of them uses a technology similar to the K-cups.

http://sprizzidrink.com/

http://www.athomesoda.com/

october271986 wrote:My one pet peeve with the soda stream is that the bottle is a bit too big. I use it almost exclusively to make club soda for drinks and I don't need an entire one liter bottle for that. It would be nice if it also came with smaller pint bottles which wouldn't go flat before I finished it. I guess I could just drink more but finishing a full liters worth of vodka sodas in one sitting seems unwise.

Sodastream sells half-liter bottles:

http://www.sodastreamusa.com/12-Liter-W ... -P132.aspx

spinynorman99 wrote:

october271986 wrote:My one pet peeve with the soda stream is that the bottle is a bit too big. I use it almost exclusively to make club soda for drinks and I don't need an entire one liter bottle for that. It would be nice if it also came with smaller pint bottles which wouldn't go flat before I finished it. I guess I could just drink more but finishing a full liters worth of vodka sodas in one sitting seems unwise.

Sodastream sells half-liter bottles:

http://www.sodastreamusa.com/12-Liter-W ... -P132.aspx

The smaller bottles are also available at Target.

The problem to me is getting the authentic syrup. I do not have problems with the machine. I do like some of the flavors but the coke and sprite tasting stuff is not on target. Its okay but not like "the real thing". If you could buy that in smaller bottles easily I think you could actually make real coke at home.

toria wrote:The problem to me is getting the authentic syrup. I do not have problems with the machine. I do like some of the flavors but the coke and sprite tasting stuff is not on target. Its okay but not like "the real thing". If you could buy that in smaller bottles easily I think you could actually make real coke at home.

Bag in Box of Coca Cola brand syrups are available at Sam's Club.

There is a sode stream knockoff being sold through Tuesday Morning for $30. I have no idea about refills, but someone might want to investigate.