Soda (pop) making is fun for all ages. The easiest way to start is with the
Rainbow flavorings below. Each flavoring makes 4 gallons (approximately 40 - 12 ounce bottles)
You will also need to purchase a package of
yeast for each batch.
Making “soda” or “pop” is a fun hobby for the kids, and gives you lots of room for creative flavors. Here are some tips to make things easier for you. At it’s simplest form, making soda is nothing more than taking a sugar-water mixture, and adding a flavoring of some sort, and then adding a dose of yeast, and filling containers that hold about 20 lbs of pressure. After a few days the yeast has begun to ferment the sugars, and create carbon dioxide and a very small amount of alcohol. You can then chill your soda and drink! The easiest way to get started is to use the Rainbow Flavorings we sell, follow their directions on sugar and yeast quantities, fill your bottles and wait. We also sell an excellent book with recipes called
“Homemade Root Beer, Soda & Pop” by Stephen Cresswell. Just like making beer and wine, you must clean and sanitize your equipment. Avoid clorine bleach, as it is harmful to the yeast you are using to make the soda. A weak
iodophor of ¼ teaspoon to a gallon of water works wonderfully to sanitize your equipment, and requires only a few minutes of contact time, and a drip dry. To make a 4-gallon batch (approximately 40 - 12 oz bottles) using the Rainbow Flavorings, follow these 6 steps.
1. Mix 1 cup of warm water, (80º - 85º F) and 1 teaspoon of yeast, cover and let stand for 5 minutes to re-activate the yeast. Be sure to use a thermometer! If the temperature is over 90º you can damage or kill the yeast.
2. While waiting for the yeast mixture to re-activate, mix approximately ½ gallon of nearly boiling water with 8 cups of grocery store sugar, and stir until the sugar is dissolved.
3. Add the other 3 ½ gallons of cool water to the sugar water mix.
4. Add the Rainbow flavoring and yeast mixture, and stir to mix evenly.
5. Fill your bottles and seal them to hold the pressure. Store at 70º F.
6. After the soda is carbonated (from 1 to 5 days) refrigerate and drink!
Helpful tips!
Use
screw cap plastic bottles to hold your soda. They don’t need a capper, and you can squeeze the bottles to determine when the soda is carbonated. With
glass bottles, it is impossible for you to measure carbonation levels without opening a bottle. If you want to use glass bottles, use at least one small plastic bottle to use as a pressure testing bottle. When the plastic bottle is pressurized, then you can refrigerate the entire batch to stop the buildup of additional pressure.
Be sure to use “ale” beer yeasts. These yeasts create carbonation at temperatures of 60º to 80º, and go dormant at around 55º or less, making them ideal to use, since you can stop the increase of fermentation by refrigerating your soda to below 50º after it has carbonated to the desired level. Yeasts for bread, wine and lager beers may continue to carbonate down to 35º, making them riskier to use. Bread yeasts in particular tend to lend a “yeasty” flavor.
The pressure of the carbonation increases with temperature increases, and decreases as the temperature decreases. Soda that is slightly over carbonated at room temperature will be less carbonated at refrigeration temperatures, and most likely perfectly carbonated.
After you have filled your bottles, be sure to store the bottles during the carbonation period of the first 3 to 7 days at a temperature of around 70º to 80º so that the soda can carbonate. Again, use a thermometer to determine this, as temperatures vary as much as 20º in some houses. Test your plastic bottle every day, and cool when the pressure of the plastic bottle is hard when squeezed.
When using yeast to carbonate your soda, there will always be a slight amount of “yeast sediment” in the bottom of the bottles.
Making “diet” soda via yeast carbonation is possible. This requires you to use approximately 1 cup of sugar to get the yeast to carbonate the soda, and then the remaining 7 cups to be Splenda. You may want to experiment with the amount of Spenda in smaller batches, to get the amount of sweetness you want.
Making soda is even easier if you have a
Corny Kegging system. This requires no yeast, but relies on the Co2 bottle and regulator to carbonate the soda. The advantages are you are not relying on the yeast to create carbonation, so you have no sediment, and you can use 100% Splenda or other sweetners to taste. You can also add more sweetness after the soda is made, if you do not think it is sweet enough.
