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DIY Soft Drinks

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Re: DIY Soft Drinks

#21

Post by nulld3v »

I've also been dabbling in this recently in an attempt to avoid buying SodaStream syrups (which are on the BDS boycott list).

Tips for working on sugar-free recipes: In some countries (like Canada), soft-drink manufacturers are required to disclose the exact amount of each artificial sweetener they use in the drink. So you can easily grab those numbers from Canadian product listings for use in your own recipes. E.g. 355ml of Diet Coke contains 131 mg aspartame + 15mg ace-K.

Also, aspartame can be difficult/slow to dissolve. It dissolves better in solutions with a low pH and a warmer temperature.

Re: DIY Soft Drinks

#22

Post by mattmaroon »

One pro-tip as I now somehow have a commercial bottling license these days: get pre-hydrated gum Arabic. Much easier to work with. Almost everybody who messes this up will make the mistake at the hydrating the gum Arabic stage. Blend it with any dry ingredients like sugar before using.

If you can’t source it, I’m not going to tell you that you SHOULD pretend to be a bottling company and ask a gum provider to send you some free samples, but you could and the amount they send you will last the rest of your life. TIC gums is pretty awesome and if you’re into frozen desserts has some incredible gum mixtures for ice creams, sorbets, etc.

Also, consider just using water soluble flavor concentrates and skipping emulsification all together. That’s what most pros do and it’s why Sprite isn’t cloudy like it would be if you used oils. My favorite suppliers that sell in consumer and pro-sumer qtys are Apex Flavors and Nature’s Flavors.

This probably won’t work for Cola as I think some of those ingredients have all of their flavor molecules in the oils, but as a general rule, if you can buy it at the store and it is clear, it is made using water soluble. If it is brown it probably isn’t, hence the caramel color additive.

Re: DIY Soft Drinks

#23

Post by LightBug1 »

nulld3v wrote: post #21

I've also been dabbling in this recently in an attempt to avoid buying SodaStream syrups (which are on the BDS boycott list). Tips for working on sugar-free recipes: In some countries (like Canada), soft-drink manufacturers are required to disclose the exact amount of each artificial sweetener they use in the drink. So you can easily grab those numbers from Canadian product listings for use in your own recipes. E.g.…

Well done for the BDS attempt ... had to get my Mum to return her Sodastream as she had no idea.

But I have to say, this whole thing is enough to turn me off soft drinks altogether.

Maybe that's the point?

Those bags full of crystals look like something out of Breaking Bad, lol, but I appreciate getting rid of the sugar and caffeine.

Some sparkling water and some cordials or dilutes has to be ~ better!

Thanks for the reminder to switch!

Re: DIY Soft Drinks

#24

Post by peaxkl »

I recently started getting into homemade ClubMate production. The goal was to create a drink that has caffeine, less sugar than regular mate and is still tasty.

It took me 4-5 tries to get to a recipe that tastes good. Earlier tries involved cooking the mate, which led to a bitter taste. Cold brewing led to way better results.

Here is my current recipe for 5 bottles (á 0,5l):

  - 60g mate tea leaves (coarse) [1]
  - 500ml water
  - 65g cane sugar
  - 1 squeezed lemon
  - soda water

  1. Add 60g of mate to a 500ml bottle and fill up the rest with water
  2. Let it sit in the fridge for 12-24h
  3. Then strain the mate from the liquid
  4. Use a filter cloth or a tea towel (soak with water first)   to filter out the remaining suspended solids
  5. Put sugar and the lemon juice together into a pot and start caramelizing the sugar
  6. Then add the filtered mate tea and take the pot from the stove
  7. Now distribute it equally on the 5 bottles and fill up the rest with soda
The mate tastes less sweet than the original mate, but is still a great drink to keep you awake.

[1] Mate tea that I'm using: https://www.amazon.com/Playadito-Traditional-Colonia-Liebig-...

Re: DIY Soft Drinks

#25

Post by varispeed »

I thought this would be for people who cannot drink commercially available drinks due to mandated addition of sweeteners.

I stopped consuming these, any that I tried was leaving awful chemical aftertaste that I just cannot get used to.

So instead I was DIY drinks by mixing concentrated fruit juice (with no added sweeteners) with sparkling water.

Also be careful if drink says "natural flavourings" - it's a loophole to add sweetener that is not classified as sweetener, so they don't have to put it on the label, but still tastes awful.

Re: DIY Soft Drinks

#26

Post by SamDc73 »

I switched to zero sugar about a year ago, but all the zero sugar sodas use aspartame (yeah yeah not proven to cause cancer, but still not a great sweetener)

for now (out of laziness), I just grab plain sparkling water and add Stur drops

Also didn’t expect to be pulling recipes off GitHub, but I’ll take that any day over those paywalled sites

Definitely want to give this a try!

Re: DIY Soft Drinks

#27

Post by DonHopkins »

It's almost impossible to get root beer syrup or extract in the Netherlands, but I found the solution (ha ha) in Darcy O'Neil's "Art of Drink" videos. He wrote a book about soda fountain history, "Fix the Pumps: The History of the American Soda Fountain" (which malfist recommended in the sibling comment), and he gets into the science and history and culture behind drink flavoring.

https://www.youtube.com/@Artofdrink

First of all you need to make quality carbonated water (de-aerate water by boiling it, carbonate it when ice cold, use heavy cold glasses, don't use ice):

Carbonating Water: The 2 Most Important Things To Do

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBNJ7yzIvtw

Here's his root beer forumula:

How to Make Root Beer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIUMFkDV4FE

>Making root beer is really quite simple and anyone can do it in about 20 minutes. The core flavour is wintergreen oil and then there are additional complementary flavours that give the root beer its character.

He has several videos about formulating cola and many other flavors too:

How Coca-Cola Gets Its Iconic Taste

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yi8o06qv7m8

The Origin of the Coca Cola Flavour

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-1tGNobqi0

How to Make Cola, like Coca-Cola or Pepsi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2yLvseG5UM

What Coke and Pepsi Don’t Tell You About Caramel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7CFZAw3dkA

And if you want old school Coke flavor, here's one on how to simulate the smell of cocaine:

Coca leaf and Cocaine Aroma Used in Coca-Cola

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMcaYtOIbes

>Cocaine, or at least the aroma compounds in coca-leaf is an important flavour component of Coca-Cola today and possibly other colas, historically. So the question you might ask is "what does cocaine smell like?" And here is the answer. If you've ever thought about making your own version of Coca-Cola and thought something was missing, this might be that piece to the puzzle.

You use the same stuff they train drug sniffing dogs with (methyl benzoate and methyl cinnamate). Also there's another ingredient, truxilic acid, that's extremely hard to get, and is much more expensive ($300/gram) than real cocaine.

Re: DIY Soft Drinks

#28

Post by BoredPositron »

peaxkl wrote: post #24

I recently started getting into homemade ClubMate production. The goal was to create a drink that has caffeine, less sugar than regular mate and is still tasty. It took me 4-5 tries to get to a recipe that tastes good. Earlier tries involved cooking the mate, which led to a bitter taste. Cold brewing led to way better results. Here is my current recipe for 5 bottles (á 0,5l): - 60g mate tea leaves (coarse) [1] - 500m…

I've never found the right tea leaves. Most of them were to bitter and some had just a totally different profile than the original clubmate. How close are the ones you are using?

Re: DIY Soft Drinks

#29

Post by peaxkl »

BoredPositron wrote: post #28
peaxkl wrote: post #24

I recently started getting into homemade ClubMate production. The goal was to create a drink that has caffeine, less sugar than regular mate and is still tasty. It took me 4-5 tries to get to a recipe that tastes good. Earlier tries involved cooking the mate, which led to a bitter taste. Cold brewing led to way better results. Here is my current recipe for 5 bottles (á 0,5l): - 60g mate tea leaves (coarse) [1] - 500m…

I've never found the right tea leaves. Most of them were to bitter and some had just a totally different profile than the original clubmate. How close are the ones you are using?

For me using the cold brew method instead of cooking the leaves had the biggest effect on the bitterness.

The taste goes in the direction of ClubMate, but has a stronger tea taste than the original ClubMate. I think reasons for that are the reduced amount of sugar and the fact that ClubMate uses natural flavor in their tea extract.

Re: DIY Soft Drinks

#30

Post by detritus »

mattmaroon wrote: post #22

One pro-tip as I now somehow have a commercial bottling license these days: get pre-hydrated gum Arabic. Much easier to work with. Almost everybody who messes this up will make the mistake at the hydrating the gum Arabic stage. Blend it with any dry ingredients like sugar before using. If you can’t source it, I’m not going to tell you that you SHOULD pretend to be a bottling company and ask a gum provider to send you…

Posts like this are why I read HN comments first.

Posts like this remind we how much better it is to be as part of a large trading bloc to be able to easily order/sample these sort of things, rather than it likely being a pain in the arse to get locally.

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