setting up sodastream for bulk c02 during Shelter In Place in SF

August 4, 2020 12:51 AM

Have a sodastream, the canister is empty. Live in San Francisco. I'd like to buy a 20lbs tank full of c02 that can be refilled. I think I can do something to attach it to the sodastream directly, or refill the little canister from it, and I'm not sure which is better. I'm unsure where to start, and what the trade offs are for different setups, and also want advice on local prices.

I haven't found a good guide, don't know what tank, hoses, regulators, gauges, valves, etc I need to order off of aliexpress/amazon, and what gotchas to avoid. I'm also not sure I want a 20lbs tank in the kitchen which is why I mention refilling the little canister, but if loading the co2 directly is significantly better in some way, than maybe.

I'd like not to spend a crazy amount, which is why I mention aliexpress, since it seems like a lot of amazon stuff for this, like hoses, is just drop shipped at a high mark up.

I'm also not sure what a reasonable price for the tank (presumably cheaper than amazon to buy locally) and for refills would be in my area, and am interested if anyone has looked into that and done price comparisons already.

posted by gryftir to Food & Drink (14 answers total)

Are you dead set on refilling the CO2 yourself? Because if not, my mother started using Sodasense to exchange and replace used Sodastream CO2 bottles by mail in prepaid USPS boxes.

They shipped her bottles of the exact same size that went into the existing Sodastream equipment with no modifications needed.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 4:59 AM on August 4, 2020 [2 favorites]

Sodasense doesn't look any cheaper than Sodastream (~$40 for two canisters.)

It's apparently much cheaper to use a 20 lb tank and get it filled at a local bottler or chemical company, which is what gryftir is asking about. I'm also interested gryftir's question so I hope they get some good answers.
posted by See you tomorrow, saguaro at 5:07 AM on August 4, 2020 [3 favorites]

Is there a homebrewing shop near you? I remember a local store (now gone, unfortunately) selling Soda Stream refill kits. Although, it's been a few years and they might have been selling replacement kits where you get 3 gallon keg with a CO2 tank and gauges so you can fiz up your own water at home.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 5:18 AM on August 4, 2020

Dave Arnold has an extensive video about this.
posted by oceanjesse at 6:37 AM on August 4, 2020 [1 favorite]

I've been looking into this because we haven't been able to swap our tanks locally -- the stores haven't been able to get replacement tanks from sodastream. I'm considering getting an adapter from sodamod. They also sell 12 oz tanks that can be refilled at paintball or gas supply stores. What's been holding me up is finding a place to fill the tanks -- we don't seem to have local homebrew stores anymore, and from what I've found our local gas supply stores will only fill much larger tanks.
posted by amarynth at 7:27 AM on August 4, 2020

2nd robocop is bleeding. SF is big enough to have several local Hombrewing shops that would be able to help you out with the equipment to either refill your SS tank from a larger one or just adapt the large tank directly.

I think I paid $50 or $75 for my initial 5lb CO2 tank at the local welding supply shop (Airgas). It's the same gas, and welding gas has to be very pure. my last exchange was in the $25 range. exchanging a larger tank was about the same price for more gas, but I don't have the room for the larger tank.

A 5lb tank can normally carbonate around 20 5 gallon kegs, so a 20lb one might be a little overkill for your use.

the only gotcha I can think of is leaving the valve on the big tank on and leaking your CO2 out, and not find out until you go to carbonate something.

I have a "carbonator cap" I can put on a 2-liter bottle that connects to a homebrewing keg system as an alternative to the sodastream, but that will take more equipment to setup and you already have the sodastream.
posted by ArgentCorvid at 7:49 AM on August 4, 2020 [1 favorite]

If you find all of the moving parts overwhelming, we had a great thing going where I ordered a couple of (20 or 24 oz) paintball tanks and an adapter to make them fit the sodastream on Amazon. They fit on our old-school machine that took the 130L tanks; I think new ones may not accommodate so YMMV.

We got them filled at Dick's for like $5 each; they compared to the big exchanges that were $30 a pop. It was dead simple to just walk in and out and get them serviced.

If you have a paintball or outdoor store that you can get to, a couple of canisters ought to get you through for a couple of months.
posted by AgentRocket at 10:46 AM on August 4, 2020

> What's been holding me up is finding a place to fill the tanks

This is exactly where my process broke down. I bought the mod, and a refillable tank, and couldn't find a place in SF that could fill it. I ended up going back to purchasing the tanks at BB&B. I'm hoping you have more success, or things have changed since I last looked.
posted by gingerbeer at 11:22 AM on August 4, 2020

Call Oak Barrel Winecraft in Berkeley. I bought my CO2 set up from them for beer.
posted by bradbane at 12:28 PM on August 4, 2020

If you find yourself too boxed in by the constraints of modifying an existing sodastream I highly recommend just building your own. I used this exact guide - super easy, has written info and a video, no sodastream products required. My rig has been going strong for 6 years now with heavy use. I've only had to refill my 5lb tank 4 or 5 times, and once was because I left the valve open. That guide tells you exactly what to buy (plus thread seal tape) if you're ok with Amazon - I'm sure you could find the same stuff elsewhere too. 20lbs size seems like a lot to me as I drink a huge amount of seltzer and only rarely have to refill my 5lb.

I was a little nervous about dealing with a large tank of pressurized gas in my kitchen but it's really fine as long as you are careful.

Others have mentioned potential places to get tanks refilled. I'm in the midwest and there are a number of large welding/industrial gas places nearby that do this as a service - tank exchange for 5lb of carbon dioxide. It's a bit weird to go to the huge industrial gas place with your tiny little tank but they are usually familiar with it. I typically call ahead and ask if they do food grade carbon dioxide. They corrected my wording last time - it wasn't necessarily actually labeled "food grade" specifically - but they knew what I was talking about, that I wanted a smaller tank that I was going to use for beverages. I'm sure homebrewing shops will do this too but I haven't been able to find a good one in my area.

In my experience they don't refill a tank you have, they exchange your empty tank for a full one, so you may not want to get too attached to your beautiful new fresh tank that you buy to start. I can't recall the exact price but it's definitely under $30 to get a 5lb tank exchanged in my area.
posted by ghostbikes at 12:47 PM on August 4, 2020

Response by poster: Not to thread sit, but welding supply shops can refill containers, I just haven't done price comparisons. It looks like ~$50 bucks at airgas in SF for 20lbs food grade, $30 for 5lbs food grade. Maybe 5lbs is enough, but I really like it and can see drinking sparkling water as my primary beverage.
posted by gryftir at 12:54 PM on August 4, 2020

If you're not married to the sodastream itself, I use a soda bottle ball lock adapter on a 20 lb tank of CO2 to directly carbonate water/beverages two liters at a time via an adapter cap. The upthread-mentioned David Arnold's book walks you through this whole deal, but it's bone simple if you don't want a tap, you just put the adapter top on a bottle, shake it up to carbonate, vent it once or twice and recarbonate (to replace suspended O2 with CO2) and there you go.

I jumped straight to this setup without bothering with a sodastream and it has worked beautifully for me for years now.
posted by lhputtgrass at 2:46 PM on August 4, 2020

not trying to cause trouble, but i think i read some time ago that there is a difference in the quality/purity of CO2 from Sodastream and that which you would get from a paint ball source. anyone know if there is any truth to this?
posted by ydaltak at 3:53 PM on August 4, 2020

> gryftir: "can see drinking sparkling water as my primary beverage."

if you want to go all-out, do a continuous carbonation system like in the video oceanjesse posted. (a lot of work but maybe worth it?)

or 3/4-out is a 2.5 or 5 gallon soda keg (cornelius keg) batch-carbonated in a mini-fridge keg cooler/kegerator. you need the cooling to force the gas into the water at a reasonable pressure. You could eventually work your way up to this by buying the larger CO2 tank and adapter for the SodaStream, then moving to a carbonator cap for 2L bottles (or do both those at the same time), then buying the keg and dispensing tap and fridge later.

MoreBeer (start looking here) is a company that has several locations in the bay area; they also have locations not in california, so the stuff could be shipped if your local ones are closed.
posted by ArgentCorvid at 7:10 AM on August 5, 2020