I'm traveling in Japan and tried a canned soda which I loved, and would love to be able to recreate at home as it isn't available stateside. I've searched for food labs near me that could help me reverse engineer it, but I'd prefer to see how close I can get in just my kitchen.
Ask HN: How to go about reverse engineering and deformulating a beverage at home
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Re: Ask HN: How to go about reverse engineering and deformulating a beverage at home
#2You might like Claire Saffitz's attempts to recreate snacks [0] in the kitchen.
She generally found it very difficult and laborious to get right.
Re: Ask HN: How to go about reverse engineering and deformulating a beverage at home
#3Maybe you can hack up a crude gas chromatography-olfactometry[1] setup at home?
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_chromatography-olfactometr...
Re: Ask HN: How to go about reverse engineering and deformulating a beverage at home
#4I'd start by buying a few. Open one and let it decarbonate. It's must easier to discern flavors for uncarbonated drinks.
As an example, Coca-cola has cinnamon in it, which is almost impossible to taste when it's carbonated. It pops out when Coke goes flat.
Most sodas will have a citrus component. Japan has odd ones like Yuzu, so try to pick up some essential citrus oils that aren't normal in your home country and are plentiful there.
Then really, just put it onto stuff that you know the flavor of and taste/smell it to see if you can tell what's been added. Dip some white bread into it and see if anything comes out, etc. Don't be afraid to swirl it around in your mouth (like wine) or just breathe it in.
FYI, I was just in Japan and realized that their Sprite has a lot more lime than other countries, which I didn't really like. Normally Sprite is great in hot weather, but the lime just didn't work in the heat IMO.
Re: Ask HN: How to go about reverse engineering and deformulating a beverage at home
#51. Buy the ingredients listed on the back
2. Look up basic proportions & recipes for canned sodas online, just to get an idea about how much to use
3. Start experimenting, varying the ratios of each ingredient in each batch
Re: Ask HN: How to go about reverse engineering and deformulating a beverage at home
#6What is the soda in question ?
Re: Ask HN: How to go about reverse engineering and deformulating a beverage at home
#7You could ship a sample out to get a liquid chromatography mass spectrometry analysis done.
Re: Ask HN: How to go about reverse engineering and deformulating a beverage at home
#8You could ship a sample out to get a liquid chromatography mass spectrometry analysis done.
Then when it comes back with 4000 molecules as a result, figuring out which 2 spices are responsible for 3993 of those.
Re: Ask HN: How to go about reverse engineering and deformulating a beverage at home
#91. Buy the ingredients listed on the back 2. Look up basic proportions & recipes for canned sodas online, just to get an idea about how much to use 3. Start experimenting, varying the ratios of each ingredient in each batch
And look up the product labels in different countries because they may have to break down things in ways that other countries don’t. Hopefully the formulation is the same!
Re: Ask HN: How to go about reverse engineering and deformulating a beverage at home
#101. Buy the ingredients listed on the back 2. Look up basic proportions & recipes for canned sodas online, just to get an idea about how much to use 3. Start experimenting, varying the ratios of each ingredient in each batch
And look up the product labels in different countries because they may have to break down things in ways that other countries don’t. Hopefully the formulation is the same!
Often they aren’t. The obvious one is sugar vs HFCS in Mexican vs American Coke.
Then, of course, there’s the big change from the original Coke recipe vs what we have today with cocaine being replaced by caffeine.¹
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1. I’m pretty sure that in no country does Coke still use cocaine.