Sodastream Machines

[Joe Anshien]

That should be a food grade CO(2) tank. The SodaStream cartridges are really expensive, and I'm not surprised in the least about 3rd party refills or kits.

I have made (and probably should start again) making sparkling water in my kegerator. It's all a sunk cost, so it's just costing me a tap space which is fine, because I just don't have anything else on them at the moment.

I picked up the whole kit minus the tops for the bottles for $50 from someone selling his old kegerator parts. The tank lasts me forever and gives me about 45lbs of bubbles in a bottle. When empty I just swap out the CO2 bottle for about $30

 

[LMichaels]

So, I found on FleaBay a Philips unit with 2 tanks. I paid a bit more than I wanted to but it had one full CO2 and one near full CO2. Well I did a blind taste test between my Italian Sparkling Mineral water and my Cherry Valley well filtered gasified water. Wife did the samples. The first thing she asked was which is better? And I honestly could not pick one over the other. They were both outstanding. Then she asked: Which is which? And I could tell which was which. However; I think part of it was because the water I'd just gassed, vs the fresh bottle of Italian water were slightly different temps, with the freshly gassed water being almost cold because I'd run the filtered faucet a minute to make sure to get well filtered and all the water out of the line from the basement.
The second test: I refilled an Italian bottle to test if it would hold pressure if I refilled. We then waited about 10 min. By this time both were at pretty much full room temp. I honestly could not discern much if any difference between them. At least not enough to tell you which bottle poured which glass.
So, I will likely not be buying cases of water anymore. Because I can do the equivalent of 4-5 cases of my $16 per case water for the cost of one C)2 cylinder. Which would be about $28. vs buying the same amount bottled at close to $50. Win win! I am actually quite surprised and pleased.
Of course if my area did not have such high quality water out of Artesian wells to begin with I am unsure how well this test would have turned out