How to Make Carbonated Fruit

Using dry ice, cut up fruit and a strong plastic bottle you can make carbonated fruit. It's refreshing, bubbly, and totally unique.

Many thanks to Instructables user Argon for coming up with this idea and giving me necessary tips on how to make it.

**Warning, dry ice is cold to the touch and can hurt you if used inappropriately. Please exercise caution when working with it, wear proper safety protection, and use it responsibly.**

Now on Know How! Click on the steps above for more details.



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Step 1 Materials

To make carbonated fruit you only need to gather a few things:

Fruit

When making carbonated fruit it's best to use firm fruits, like oranges, apples and pears. I tried doing it with softer fruits like kiwis, strawberries and bananas and it just doesn't work as well. Apples in particular seem to work the best.

Bottle or Container

You will need a plastic bottle or a container to put the fruit into. I have found that a wide mouth Nalgene works best. You can use an empty 2 liter soda bottle however, just be careful not to add in too much dry ice, more on that later. DO NOT use a glass jar. The bottle will be under pressure and broken plastic is safer than broken glass. If you have a vessel that is designed to take pressure, like a beer keg for example, than by all means try using that.

Dry Ice

The final thing you will need is a block of dry ice. You will only need a tiny tiny amount of dry ice to make the carbonated fruit, but its hard to buy less than a large block of the stuff. Now, chances are that you have never seen dry ice for sale. You can't make it on your own and you might not be able to find so easily.

I used the Dry Ice Directory to find out where it was being sold locally - they have listings for all over the world. I live in the east bay of California. I was surprised that In all of Oakland there was only one distributor - the AM PM Gas Station on Market and Grand in West Oakland. They oddly enough had a ton of the stuff for sale, and they are open 24/7! I was very impressed that I could buy dry ice anytime I wanted even if it was only for sale at that one place.

**Before you go to buy the dry ice please refer to this
Dry Ice Safety Info website. I am not going to go through all of the safety precautions that should be taken in this instructable, so take a minute to familiarize yourself with its possible safety hazards.**

Comments

[mornisfan]

Nice, I will probably try it this weekend

[Alx_xlA]

It is possible to make your own dry ice... Sort of. You can use a CO2 fire extinguisher fired into a pillowcase or similar vessel. Not exactly cheap, but it is effective.

[im3733]

a cheaper option is to use a co2 canister used for paintball, only costs a few bucks to fill up, and it will probably have fewer "other" chemicals in it than a fire extinguisher would (at least in my mind).

[47ford]

So we did this slightly differently a few years ago. When camping we used dry ice in our cooler. No mess, and best grapes ever. I think grapes are one of the best fruit to use for this, no cutting necessary either. Carbonated grapes are very refreshing :) We were in and out of the cooler many times a day and I suspect that it does not have an airtight seal, but we did have a fairly substantial block of dry ice to start with and the grapes were in there at least a day or two before we noticed the carbonation effect.

The more dry ice you use the less likely you want an 'air-tight" seal (as to prevent overpressure). I suppose you could use a pressure relief valve too (to prevent exploding) - head over to McMaster-Carr (www.mcmaster.com) and you should be able to find a slew of pressure relief valves, this of course require some mods to your "container", but definitely reduces the exploding factor.

[bitterbierce]

You are, kind of, doing carbonic fermentation, it is the same thing some winemakers do to make wine from grapes without pressing. It is not regarded as very traditional, but it works wonders on some grape crops.

[indulis]

No it isn't fermentation, you are basically forcing CO2 into the water in the fruit using pressure. Fermentation requires yeast/bacteria to make it work. The process going on here is more like a soda stream, it just happens that the liquid that is being "fizzified" is inside the fruit rather than sloshing around in the bottle.

[lukethedog]

I know this is a reply to an old post but, though I would clear up the yeast part. Grapes have a natural yeast on the skin. From the day people first stomped grapes into juice and stored them in a clay jar they had fermentation. They did not know why they just thought if you stored them in a sealed container in the darkness of a cave you got a fermented product.

What the first post describes is a process called 'raking' you remove the stem from the grapes and place them in a barrel, vat etc and using a small rake you move the grapes around three or four times during a 24 - 36 hour period. this opens up the grapes and kind of gets them acclimated, 'not really sure what it does it is tradition. Then you would press them in a grape press and add yeast to the juice and store them in a barrel. But, that is more info than needed and you should see 'making wine' on Instructables.

[zzmel7]

This is soo cooool. I like it better when the bottle explodes. That is also a safe and sane way to make bombs for the 4th of July. he he. How would you make carbonated fruit drink out of this. Just curious :)

[ethoo]

they make soda this way...........

get water...fruit juice whatever

add dry ice (quite a bit compared to what they put in)

let it bubble away until there's no dry ice left (stir occasionally or heat water before so that it doesn't freeze the water.

drink it

swallow it

go to the bathroom

lol

...

[Cobalt59]

I would just blend it up. And maybe add some carbonated water.

[Cobalt59]

I'm going to use a steel scuba tank and use a pound of dry ice. :)

[GorillazMiko]

Would this work fine with raspberries? Or would they get too mushy?

[Ttalos]

Just a small note. I would suggest putting the bottles in the refrigerator overnight while the dry ice sublimates. CO2 is more soluble in cold water. It won't slow the sublimation of the CO2 to be in the refrigerator. I think I will be trying this tomorrow :)

[WallaceTheSane]

Brilliant. I'd like to see a carbonated apple. People would pay money for this. (I'll bet Japan already has carbonated fruit, but we're just too uncool to know about it yet.)

[zombiefire]

sure we are

[charles.david.sutherland]

I think for pressures higher than 20 psa you might have to use what's called an autoclave.  these are typically utilized to sterilize medical equipment and tend to be somewhat expensive.  If you have access to one though, I could see no harm in at least trying it out.  just be sure its squeaky clean :-)

[Alx_xlA]

If you're using an autoclave, I think that the last thing you'd have to worry about would be its being dirty.

[skylane]

An autoclave is , basically, an oven. For sterilizing medical equipment.

[teddy1998]

this is soooo cooooool! is it possible to carbonate limburger? i've always thought about that, you know, a fizzy stinky thing. or just pepper jack. thats good too. or montery jack.

[tuckerzero]

Carbonated fruit. Unbelievable. I read on http://dryicenetwork.com, that if you cool a fridge with dry ice, everything gets carbonated.  That would be gross... but for some reason I want to try it :-)

[JeffB]

What would happen if I used a pressure cooker and upped the amount of dry ice added?

[NobodyInParticular]

As far as I can tell, even "high pressure" cookers only go up to 20psi. This does have the advantage of maintaining the pressure at a constant safe level. Is it enough pressure for fizzing fruit?

[frollard]

pressure cookers must go into the hundreds of psi - boiling water/steam? that gets ugly high pressure fast. A pressure cooker would be ideal to do this experiment - especially if it has a safety valve.

[skylane]

I've used pressure cookes for years. I've never seen one that goes over 15psi. The pressure builds to 15 psi. Then anything after that gets relieved through the ''jiggler''. They all have safety valves. I have no idea what kind of pressure is in a soda bottle. It would be fun to attach a pressure guage to see what it goes to. and/or water bottles, which are much thinner. I did an underwater dry ice bomb in a 3 litre soda bottle (yes three liter) It moved rocks as large as 12" in diameter. The surface (about 3') looked like WW II movie depth charges.

[NobodyInParticular]

I am no expert in pressure cookers, but I was not able to find a single home pressure cooker rated for more than 20psi during my search. As far as I can tell, 15psi is what is meant by "high pressure" in a pressure cooker recipe.

Devices rated for hundreds of psi must go by another name.

By contrast, an ordinary soda bottle is rated for 100 - 120 psi. The pressure relief mechanism (the cap popping off) is unreliable at these pressurization speeds, though.

[frollard]

I apologize! I was definitely thinking of a different type of cooker - the type that they make various 'puffed' grains with. (Puffed wheat for example). The food is cooked under considerable pressure infusing it with high concentrations of steam. When the pressure is let off, the product puffs up quickly (similar to popcorn, only without a pressure build-up from the outer shell of the husk)

[funwithfire93]

how long woulsd the fruit stay carbinated in the sealed jar? what im pretty much wondering if i bought a whole block of dry ice and divided it up with a bunch of bottles and fruit could i keep the bottles in the fridge

[SystemZERO]

I will never use anything but a Nalgene bottle to make this anymore. My friends and I tried it with a generic Walmart brand bottle, and it exploded in my fridge after 5 minutes. Nalgenes, on the other hand, are practically indestructible.

[thestyrofoampeanut]

wow you actually used a water bottle sorry, i just find it a bit funny because some people mix dry ice and water in plastic bottles to make "dry ice bombs" and on a side note nalgenes are bulletproof, but only when empty

[snowluck2345]

use the ideal gas law to figure out how much dry ice you need. I use 7 grams for a 1 liter bottle to bring it up to 60 psi. Thats assuming the bottle is empty, which it isn't but I'm not worried. Nalgene are rated for a lower pressure than a standard soda bottle. They aren't even rated but they blow up around 70 psi, soda bottles blow up around 150.

[SystemZERO]

No, not a bottled water bottle, but a reusable generic nalgene style bottle. I've never had problems with my nalgene doing this

[shuboyje]

Just wanted to point out that this will produce ethanol via carbonic maceration. It's a fairly common wine making technique. It shouldn't be enough to worry about if you only leave the fruit in there for a little while, but with enough time it is possible it will hit 4%. If you want a good container to do it in, go to a local homebrew store and pick up a used cornelius keg for $20-30. They are made for holding the pressure of carbonating things and can handle up to 120 psi.

[indulis]

No it won't! Ethanol is produced by the yeast in the grape juice slurry. There is NO DANGER of producing ethanol by forcing CO2 into a liquid! This is what Soda Streams do, same process here.

[shuboyje]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonic_maceration I think you have some learning to do. Please be sure you know what you are saying before posting, the net is already full of bad information, no need to add to it.

[indulis]

You are right! I apologise, and consider myself chastised!

[Father Christmas]

If, as stated in this instructable, the failure point of a typical 2litre bottle is 115psi, why would someone purchase something that holds scarcely more? I just don't understand that step of logic.

[shuboyje]

Many reasons, mainly a corny keg is made to be re-used, it is cleanable and has a large opening which makes it much easier to put larger pieces of fruit in.

[frollard]

and a 2 liter bottle FAILS at 115, while a corny would be RATED at 115 (which is probably fail-safe to 200.

[Father Christmas]

I guess that makes sense. Im not much for playing with pressures, so I dont have much of a use for one.

[frollard]

I was just pointing out that he said its designed for 120...not fail at 120 a car tire wants 40 psi will survive 60, 70, or 80, but thats a safety feature.