Carbonating: The Cheap and Easy Way

Have you ever wanted to make your own carbonated beverages such as soda and carbonated water? Well, I have. However, after doing a lot of research I realized that the carbonation machines you can buy cost hundreds of dollars. But then I found this way of doing it. It costs very little and can be made with stuff found around the house. It's great for making homemade sodas, seltzer water, and even re-carbonating flat beverages. I even tried carbonating chocolate milk... it was pretty interesting but not bad. :D

WARNING: BE CAREFUL! If you use too much vinegar and baking soda, it could blow up and make a huge mess in your kitchen, or worse... injure you. It happened to me (not the injury, but the explosion). I can assure you, it is not fun to clean up. This is high pressure stuff you are working with. So, please consider safety glasses and doing this outside on your first couple tries. Please don't hold me responsible for the mess in your kitchen if it does explode.

Sorry about the crappy video.

See The Video Here

Step 1: Collect Your Materials

You Will Need:

2 PLASTIC Bottles (preferably 20oz) With Caps
3 ft. (aprox.) of tubing, fish aquarium size
Drill
Drill Bit a little bit smaller than the tubing
Scissors
Funnel (forgot to put it in the pic)
Toilet Paper... Yes Toilet Paper
Vinegar
Baking Soda
Liquid You Want Carbonated

Note: Don't Use Glass Bottles, They Could Explode.

Comments

[macmari]

I tried the same thing! The difference was that I cut a napkin into quarters and used one quarter of a napkin instead of toilet paper. I also lacked the tube and used straws. It was rather hard, but, I did the same thing.

The experiment worked great! Thank you so much for posting this!

[knexfreak32]

Needle nose pliers would help ( I always use then for pulling tubing through)

[gbuickus]

Nice write-up.

I'm thinking that a diffuser at the end of the tube would help the CO2 into the water a bit more effectively. I accomplished this without any extra cash spent on fancy ceramic diffusers by just plugging the end of the tube and poking several holes along its length (near the end) with a small needle. Smaller bubbles should let the CO2 be absorbed more easily.

...if it's anything like ozone, I haven't tried this project yet, but the diffuser (holes poked into the tube) works very well on my water ozonater (purifier).


Second idea, is to use citric acid instead of vinegar; in powder form. Put small amounts of citric acid and sodium bicarbonate into one bottle with the short tube protrusion, water into the other bottle with the length of tube. Squeeze the bottle of water, forcing the water through the tube into the powdered mix, creating CO2 (see Alka-Seltzer). This way there's no toilet paper and no rush to screw caps on. Just off the top of my head, may be a terrible idea. :)

Third one is this: a small "pressure relief" hole cut into the lid of the bottle with the water. My thinking is that this eliminates risk of explosion (you are creating a pressure vessel after all, see pipe-bomb) as well as allowing more CO2 to be bubbled through the beverage as its flow is no longer restricted by equal pressure on the side with the water. Realize that in two closed vessels, once pressure is equal, there's no more flow between them.

Hope I could help. Third suggestion is a very strong recommendation on my part, I don't want to read an Instructable on how to remove plastic shrapnel. :)


P.S. - I did not read every comment, if any of this has been previously suggested, please disregard. Except for the good parts.

[brianfss]

Good suggestions. I liked how you improved on the writers idea without trashing him. Your third suggestion was pretty funny too.

[vov35]

Third suggestion is not a great idea as the CO2 needs the higher pressure to dissolve more fully. Maybe if you devised some sort of blow-off safety valve it would be better.

Citric acid is good, and diffuser is brilliant!

[vov35]

It's crucial to note that this should be done with SODA bottles only, and not other types. Soda bottles are designed to withstand the pressure from the co2 escaping the soda, and have been safely taken up to 150 psi. Regular water bottles could potentially fail, as could other plastic containers that somebody could try.

[bubbachr]

how do you eliminate the taste of vinegar?

[gbuickus]

You should get similar results with citric acid and baking soda (Alka-Seltzer). No vinegar, no smell or taste.

[beehard44]

what about putting sodium bicarbonate in ice tea? It has citric acid, theoretically it should work, removing the need for a second bottle

[gbuickus]

I think: The reaction of the Baking Soda with the acid leaves you with CO2, H2O and Na (Sodium). So you get the carbonation that you want, but with the extra Sodium, I'm not sure if it'd be good to drink too much of that. Sure, there's Sodium in sports drinks but you're not advised to drink those all the time.

It may be safe, though. I haven't really put much effort into looking up the effects of drinking alkaline metals. :)

[h0meIandsecurity]

you can find this tubing in CRT monitor

[Lance Mt.]

Umm... you realise just how bad of an idea that sounds?

No. Tubing costs $0.70 a meter if that in Australia, jsut buy it.

[h0meIandsecurity]

Oh, yeah! Today i found it on market place. Some people were selling some tubes and i asked them do you have some transparent and smaller, and they had it! I had i don't want to buy it now but when i will be having money, maybe tommorow. He ignored my question and asked me: "How much long", i said "about 2 meters is enough" and he gave it to me for free!

[Lance Mt.]

Success!

[nclarke]

Pause the video at 2:07 xD

[awent0428]

It worked! but it blew up on me!

[imaxb6]

i tryed it and it worked perfect

[bubbachr]

ware did you learn to do this

[mkambas]

thx very much for this instructable.
i tested it, it works, and it's quite handy. i've assembled the tools in a box and labeled it "Carbonator."

there's only one thing i would change:

PROBLEM
toilet paper doesn't work for me. it disintegrates easily in the water and when shaken it can clog the tube.

SOLUTIONS
since the goal is to add the baking soda all at once, you may wanna use
1. either stronger paper (wax, parchment, plastic) leaving one end open. however, this still is a single-use method, or

2. place the b/soda in a small, open-ended container* (smaller than the bottle neck) and add it to the vinegar all at once. this multi-use method eliminates the need for paper altogether.

*an "open-ended container" can be a marker top, a short cigar tube, an empty BIC pen (remove ink cartridge, leave top on), a piece of hose with a cork on one end, or any similar object.

[Lance Mt.]

"when shaken it can clog the tube"

Swirl it then. You don't want vinegar anywhere near the tubing otherwise it might squirt into your drink.

[alester333]

 What were your costs for a liter bottle?

[Lance Mt.]

Do you mean all up costs to produce this, and then a litre of water?

Lets say $0.33 of tube, $1 for a cheap, no-named soda (not hard to get for free, empty.. C'mon.), the bi-carb - $4.00 for a 250gram box (can get for much cheaper) and $1 for 2 litre bottle of vinegar.

+ flavouring.

[ASCAS]

I replaced the toilet paper with sandwitch plastic.

[Lance Mt.]

Interesting, why?

[Evan606]

So OP or anyone who's tried this, does this drink taste like vinegar from the gas or no?

[Lance Mt.]

No.

[TechDante]

nice instruction. one note tho in your vid you should have removed all the air from the water bottleso that you could have the maximum amount of CO2 for carbination. other than that it works fine

[h0meIandsecurity]

good....but i want to use it for 2 days and i want to bring it to school i dont want to bring tube to school can i swotch cap with a hole with another cap so that co2 doesn't escape!

[bengus]

 nice work man . but the final product taste and smells of vinegar ..i hope that should be some alternative solution.. 

[beehard44]

i heard a co2 gennie that uses yeast

[fn06afranci]

you can use alka selzer tablets and water instead or the effervessant vitimin tablets and water

[shancre]

Does this really fizz up as much as what is described above?

[DooMer10]

you can use lemon juice maybe

[zombiehunter96]

Hmm not when I use it :/

[sthealthraider]

why in toilet paper?

[mkambas]

to sthealthraider:

"why in toilet paper?"
because carbonation begins the moment the baking soda is added to the vinegar. if the baking soda is added gradually, your vinegar bottle will overflow before you have a chance to add all the baking soda and replace the lid.

since toilet paper disintegrates quickly but not instantly, the entire quantity of baking soda can be added at once. this gives you just enough time to replace the lid.

however, the "toilet paper method" presents other problems. see my comment below for alternative paper types and methods.
good luck!
Mike

[VagsmaCutter]

I tried this last week and guess what?...I died! That's right, I died!(I typed this beforehand) So you may want to include something like, "DO NOT SUBSTITUTE INGREDIENTS, OR YOU COULD GET REALLY HURT! and stuff. I did everything exactly like you said except, we were out of baking soda so I used the next best thing...aluminum foil. And my mom wasn't too crazy about me wasting her, retirement vinegar" "just to carbonate a bowl of split pea n ham soup that dit'n even have no croutons in it, no how!" She said it probably wouldn't taste right no matter how fizzy it was. Anyway, the closest thing to vinegar we had was Muriatic acid, so I figured I would just use more to compensate for the substitution (you know the old, "molar mass" dealy). Everything else I did exactly the same. Anyway, I think I died doing it this way. (I don't know for sure because I think I was too dead to remember) So I just wanted everyone who was thinking of doing it the way I did, to, "NOT DO IT THE WAY I DID" IT MIGHT NOT WORK very well! If you don't have the right ingredients you should probably wait until you get them. Other than the fact that I died the first time I tried it, it was an awesome ible. Killer chemistry.

[ThePyroManiac]

Har-har, but flawed logic. Muriatic acid is Hydrochloric Acid/HCl and when mixed with aluminium, creates hydrogen gas and aluminium chloride. However, when you add baking soda to the equation, Acid + Sodium Bicarbonate > Sodium Chloride + Water + Carbon Dioxide You get salt, carbon dioxide and whatever that is left of your aluminium. So when you have everything in a bottle, unless you were doing it over a stove, the hydrogen was nothing but a gas expanding in it. The cap probably flew off and hit you in your face, the bottle most likely exploded, but that's about as bad as what a now salt water and aluminium mixture could do. I don't think anyone would use HCL to replace vinegar, anyway. And who would run out of toilet paper?

[VagsmaCutter]

E=MC Hammer;

I didn't have baking soda, that's Y solving for X could be considered flawed logic as well. But, your comment does bring to the surface an important question that I'm most certain could prove more difficult to solve than Fermat's last theorem or any of Einstein's theories (relatively); Indeed, who would run out of toilet paper?

[surroundsound5000]

 Maybe s/he used a big bottle, so the pressure was really really high and the popping bottle killed them. Maybe they were smoking and ignited the H2 and got blown up. Or maybe the scalding of the HCl burned off all their skin, and they died of blood loss.