Ever wonder why customers in the beverage aisle of your local grocery store walk past a 2-liter bottle of SunKist priced at $1.25 to pick up a six-pack of SunKist 12-ounce single-serving bottles? for $3.50? They both have about the same amount of soft drink. So why pay almost 3 times the price of bottles? Well, the answer is simple: comfort. Single-serving sized bottles are convenient and portable, meaning you can grab one on the go. And six people can suck on them without exchanging saliva. But here’s another reason: 2-liter bottles are doomed to go flat the moment you open them. Yes, it is a scientific fact, a bubbling principle. Guys who are cheap and fat (like me) understand this fact. We’ll buy 2-liter bottles (because they’re cheap) and drink them fast (which makes us fat). So what’s a cheap skinny person to do? You be the judge. These are the facts you need to know when deciding. They’re pretty simple, actually.
Invisible and odourless, the oxygen in the air we breathe keeps us alive. But oxygen is the enemy of food and drink. Google for “FDA oxygen foods” to get the facts. What a bummer, huh? Oxygen is highly reactive and chemically bonds with compounds found in food, changing their properties. Yes, you guessed it: flavor is one of those properties that can change. A freshly bottled, unopened soda has relatively little oxygen and a lot of soda (carbon dioxide). When you remove the lid, guess what? Yes, air goes in and co2 comes out. Congratulations! Your drink is on its way to running out.
“Can I get rid of the air and replenish the co2 that is lost”, you ask? Yes! You can get rid of most of the air by burping the bottle (squeeze it until the liquid rises to the rim, then cap it). Replacing co2 is not that simple. But there are several ways to do it, some more cumbersome than others. If you have easy access to dry ice, drop a 3-4 gram pellet the size of a pinto bean into a 2-liter bottle that is one-third empty, burping the bottle completely before capping. Use 8-10 grams if it is half empty. If there isn’t enough liquid in the bottle to completely burp the bottle, expelling all the air, forget it! Doing one or the other just won’t work. You must get rid of all the air #AND# replace all the co2 that was lost for it to be effective. If you want to go to the trouble of pouring the remaining contents into a smaller bottle that you CAN burp out completely, you’re in business. That may be too much effort to recarbonate 80 cents of pop – you decide. A simpler method is to purchase a home carbonation unit. Many dot com companies sell them for between $100 and $250. There are dozens of home soda makers. Some companies do a lot of astroturfing, other soda makers can be hard to find on Google. The problem with many of these companies is that they void your warranty if you use your soda machine to carbonate anything other than plain water. Unfortunately, that eliminates the possibility of carbonating apple, grape, watermelon, melon, and pomegranate juices. Countertop units cost between $100 and $250. Handheld portable soda makers sell for around $30.
For the cheap at heart, a teaspoon of sugar and a pinch of brewer’s yeast will recarbonize your drink if you leave the mix in a warm cupboard for a couple of weeks. Remember to burp him! I am not sure about that? Try connecting 2 bottle caps with a piece of clear tubing and screwing them onto two bottles: one bottle containing a drink, the other vinegar + baking soda. The CO2 from the vinegar bottle goes through the tube to the beverage bottle. This device is sold online for around $7. However, this type of arrangement makes it almost impossible to bleed the air. Many companies advocate heavy scuba-bottle-sized CO2 tanks, high-pressure hoses, fittings, and heavy-duty industrial clamps. This kit works well and allows you to do your carbonation in bottles that can be burped beforehand. It represents a substantial investment, and you may have trouble choosing an industrial gas tank that will go well with your kitchen décor.
This author’s recommendation is to use dry ice, brewer’s yeast, or purchase a handheld soda maker that allows you to burp your bottles to purge oxygen. Be careful when using dry ice. Never exceed 16 grams (about the weight of 6 cents) in a 2-liter bottle no matter how flat your drink is. If you don’t have a scale, you can make one out of coat hangers (http://www.alysis.org/rocks/scale.html). Never buy a soda maker or home carbonation system that doesn’t allow you to burp your bottles before carbonation. Can I get away with one more? “Never?” Never let a hot and sultry summer go by without making your own deliciously refreshing and icy homemade carbonated drinks. A special gift awaits you.