Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

DIY Soft Drinks

blinry.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 253 posts

Re: DIY Soft Drinks

#211

Post by jfengel »

jolt42 wrote: post #210
jfengel wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how they pulled off Crystal Pepsi. A neat trick, even if nobody cared.

Why? Is it just not put caramel coloring in it? It didn't taste like actual Pepsi to me, which I suppose might be more difficult?

The OP said (in the last paragraph) that the ingredients that go into colas are the kind that make the drink cloudy. Crystal Pepsi was clear, even without the coloring.

Presumably it's because they changed to use flavors that are completely water-soluble. That would explain a difference in taste.

(I know they tasted different with my eyes open, but I never did a blind taste test between the two. It would be interesting to know how close they really got to the original flavor.)

Re: DIY Soft Drinks

#212

Post by anang »

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…

If I may ask a question…

Nature’s flavors sells both extracts and concentrates that are water soluble. For a brown soda, like rootbeer, is an alcohol based extract preferred or should I go the concentrate route?

I’ve been toying with the idea of making commercial style rootbeer at home, and making soda from roots just doesn’t cut it (even if it’s pretty good). I’ve been eying Nature’s flavors for a while, but since I’m not in the US it will be VERY expensive.

There are no domestics providers of food safe wintergreen or sassafras.

Thanks, and cool career switch!

Re: DIY Soft Drinks

#214

Post by dzhiurgis »

krisoft wrote: post #121
dzhiurgis wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pigment from soils?

Not sure what you are asking. The stone age way of making paint is to find some place where the ground has a weird colour, dig it up, clean it and you have a pigment. Even to this day many of our paint pigments are mined this way. Red/yellow ochre, umber, sienna. If what you are asking is the dirt in question geologically speaking a soil? Sometimes, sometimes not. It can be a sediment or a regolith too. But in the mo…

Yeah I’ll probably stick with coca cola corporation

Re: DIY Soft Drinks

#215

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

hattmall wrote: post #89
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…

What do you use to bottle things in, like what bottles?

Bottles are easy to find. I homebrew my own ginger ale and use Grolsch-style sealing caps to withstand the pressure. Buy them on Amazon.

Re: DIY Soft Drinks

#216

Post by mattmaroon »

anang wrote: post #212
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…

If I may ask a question… Nature’s flavors sells both extracts and concentrates that are water soluble. For a brown soda, like rootbeer, is an alcohol based extract preferred or should I go the concentrate route? I’ve been toying with the idea of making commercial style rootbeer at home, and making soda from roots just doesn’t cut it (even if it’s pretty good). I’ve been eying Nature’s flavors for a while, but since I…

That’s a good question and it probably depends on the ingredient. Most of what we call flavors are a mix of volatile aromatic compounds. Some of those are fat soluble. Some water soluble.

Alcohol is great for extracting as it can pull out both.

The flavor extracted depends on what you’re extracting with and even the concentration.

So really, you’d have to buy it and try. I’ve only ever made root beer a couple times for my own experimentation with oil.

Nature’s Flavors is awesome though and you might ask them.

Re: DIY Soft Drinks

#217

Post by lizzard »

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 just made some this morning, and it came out delicious even with only 6 hours of cold brewing in the fridge! Thanks for the idea!

Re: DIY Soft Drinks

#218

Post by foresto »

manwe150 wrote: post #86
foresto wrote: post #41

If you want to carbonate water but don't want to buy a countertop carbonator or its overpriced CO2 refills, you can get a ball lock valve cap that screws onto 1L or 2L soda bottles for around $8-16. That valve will attach to a standard female fitting, which you can put on the end of a hose coming from a pressure regulator, which will attach to a full-size CO2 cylinder available from a brewing or gas supply shop. CO2…

Here you go: https://www.kegoutlet.com/carbonating-kits.html

Hmm... Those steel growlers look appealing, if a little pricey, but their 45 psi relief valves would prevent carbonating with as much fizz as I like. I wonder if the PRV could be swapped with a different one that holds more like 75 psi.

Thanks for the link. This gives me a direction worth investigating, at least.

Re: DIY Soft Drinks

#219

Post by subscribed »

jolt42 wrote: post #210
jfengel wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how they pulled off Crystal Pepsi. A neat trick, even if nobody cared.

Why? Is it just not put caramel coloring in it? It didn't taste like actual Pepsi to me, which I suppose might be more difficult?

Nile Red recreated "cola" drink close enough to the good stuff and of course published the recipe. Might want to try that :)

Re: DIY Soft Drinks

#220

Post by bryceacc »

cogman10 wrote: post #74
detritus wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

IDK if it'd apply here, but there are technically laws on the books in the US against price and purchase discrimination for grocers. It was specifically one of the things Lina Khan was investigating on the way out of office and something I believe she's going to be using for the NYC grocery stores. A food seller isn't allowed to cut out a grocer because they are too small. However, I believe they get around this toda…

Greatly detailed here:

https://youtu.be/odhVF_xLIQA?t=338

In this case, Pepsi has reduced promotions and increased wholesale cost for "small groceries" which in this case was a regional grocer with ~1000 of stores across 10 states. If Pepsi is strong arming regional giants like that, imagine how the ant of a real local grocer feels. They are algorithmically getting destroyed

Post reply on HN