I still have an unopened can of the commercially-brewed OpenCola personally given to me by Cory Doctorow about twenty years ago! (Plus two opened cans, which I saved after I drank the contents.)
OpenCola
91–100 of 121 posts
Re: OpenCola
#92I can't stand canned US coke. I have to drink mexican coke, which is sold at Homedepot near me. They seem to be selling those at $1 per bottle pretty well.
I can reliably pick out the difference between bottle, canned, and fountain Coke and Pepsi (all 6 variations). Out of the fountain, Coke and Pepsi are sweeter than their packaged counterparts (because the syrup is usually fresher and more concentrated); Pepsi tastes somewhat like a blend of Coke and watered-down Dr Pepper. Canned Coke and Pepsi have a metallic taste not found in its bottled or fountain counterparts (and this taste remains even if poured into a cup).
For bottled Coke, HCFS Coke and Mexican/Kosher Coke taste similar but not the same: HCFS Coke has stronger/bolder (one-note type of) sweetness but sugar Coke has a broader sweetness.
All versions of regular Pepsi have a cloying aftertaste.
Re: OpenCola
#93People repeatedly say online that we know the Coca-Cola recipe, it's been leaked, etc., so it's not a secret, but it's clear doing some casual afternoon reading that whatever the exact composition is, it's not public knowledge. All of the recreations that you can find readily available online and through videos "come close" or are "their own thing, but pretty decent," etc. At best, what we think we know of Coca-Cola…
My guess is that there's a lot of cinnamon and sugar in it, and caffeine.
Re: OpenCola
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
First of all, surface salt doesn't taste nearly as good as food that is salted throughout. Every chef knows this. Not to mention that salting foods before cooking changes their texture as well. This is why a steak that is salted an hour before grilling is far more flavorful and has a better texture than one cooked without salt, but salted at the table. And it's not a subtle difference, either -- we're talking night-a…
That might be true, but it takes toooo much salt. So I prefer to salt after cooking, right before eating because it requires way less and gives roughly the same effect. The reason a chef "knows this" is because if you judged their food with or without salt, the salt one would win, so in the end they're required to add waaay to much salt, when the tongue just needs those surface crystals. Healthier to salt after, and…
> Healthier to salt after
It's not. Unless you have hypertension or some other medical condition around salt, there's no reason to restrict your salt intake.
For the average person, the level of salt in restaurant food has no unhealthy effects whatsoever. Amounts in excess of your daily requirement are simply excreted in urine.
Re: OpenCola
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd think that a cola recipe ought to at least have cola-nut extract, which this recipe does not.
"These days, the Coca-Cola recipe is a closely guarded secret. But it's said to no longer contain kola nut extract, relying instead on artificial imitations to achieve the flavour." [0] [0] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160922-the-nut-that-hel...
No artificial flavors are listed. So whether there is kola nut or not, there isn't any replacement that is artificial:
INGREDIENTS: CARBONATED WATER, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, CARAMEL COLOR, PHOSPHORIC ACID, NATURAL FLAVORS, CAFFEINE.
Re: OpenCola
#96Coke's success isn't due to their formula, it's due to their brand. You could release a perfect Coca-Cola clone and you'd probably struggle to sell it.
Re: OpenCola
#97Ingredients located at [0], full recipe at [1]. If true, it's interesting. I don't have these oils on hand but seemingly they wouldn't be too difficult to procure. According to the This American Life episode [2] where they made a batch, the taste testers were able to detect real Coke 28 out of 30 times. So maybe it's not a perfect match! Still, it's cool. 0: https://github.com/cognitom/OpenCola/blob/master/recipe.mar…
I'd think that a cola recipe ought to at least have cola-nut extract, which this recipe does not.
Kola nut is the original caffeine ingredient in original coke. They replaced thus long ago with coffee-extracted caffeine, so there is little reason to still use kola nuts.
Re: OpenCola
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
A can of coke has almost 10 sugar cubes, it's pretty silly. The only winning move is not to play. https://www.zmescience.com/other/sugar-26072011/
I drink it only 1-2 times per year. It is helpful on long distance rides. I like sugar more than I like Cola.
I went from consuming nearly no sugar to consuming really quite a lot when I started cycling seriously. Compromise I'm at now is to do sugars for the purposes of energy for workouts, high quality calories everywhere else.
Re: OpenCola
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I was younger and drank more soda, I discovered I could grab a can of coke, pour it into a 24oz cup I had, then fill the can with water and pour that in and it tasted the same to me. If I focused on the flavor it was very subtly different, in a way that felt more refreshing -- but most of the time I was just drinking it without full focus and couldn't tell the difference. Back then I was also packing lunches for…
To my taste buds, North American candy, soda, and other sugary snacks have gotten twice to three times sweeter since I was a kid. To the point that in most cases, all you can actually taste is the sugar and nothing else. It would be interesting if someone were able to dig up a 30-year-old can of Coke or whatever and compare its carbohydrate content to modern Coke. (You can't just use the Nutrition Facts label, becaus…
> have gotten twice to three times sweeter since I was a kid.
They definitely have not. You just like sugary things better as a kid.
It's kind of like, the summer camp I went to as a kid, and recently revisited as an adult -- they shrunk all the buildings and fields in size by half! Or so it certainly seemed, I could have sworn...
I can't eat the candy I ate as a kid either. Now, 85% dark chocolate on the other hand...
Re: OpenCola
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
"These days, the Coca-Cola recipe is a closely guarded secret. But it's said to no longer contain kola nut extract, relying instead on artificial imitations to achieve the flavour." [0] [0] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160922-the-nut-that-hel...
No artificial flavors are listed. So whether there is kola nut or not, there isn't any replacement that is artificial: INGREDIENTS: CARBONATED WATER, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, CARAMEL COLOR, PHOSPHORIC ACID, NATURAL FLAVORS, CAFFEINE. https://us.coca-cola.com/products/coca-cola/original
This only means the flavours are derived from natural products like plants, bark, meat, milk, bone, etc. So not fully synthetic flavours (which are often from oil/gas), but still these will not be anything you would ever guess or recognise. Companies that use actual 'natural' flavours usually list them in the ingredientsas consumers take these as signals of the product being 'healthy' (e.g. fruit concentrates like apple concentrate or various citrus extracts, root extracts, leaf extracts, etc)