DIY Soda

  Soft drink makers are charging a lot. You can make it yourself, though.



  "Soft drinks" consist of a few things. They have carbonated water (the actual "soda"). They usually have a lot of sugar. They also have some sort of flavor.

  Sometimes, the last two can be the same, such as adding fruit juice to carbonated water, or having a pre-prepared syrup.

  The traditional method of making carbonated water is simply short-duration fermentation. If one uses a non-brewers' yeast, such as a toothpick-tip sample from a living bread culture, and just a teaspoon or less of sugar, and lets it sit in a pressure-tolerant container for just a few hours (as opposed to large amounts of sugar, brewers' yeast, and a few weeks), one will not have any signifigant amount of alcohol whatsoever - less than the average fruit juice. One will still have carbonated water, however.

  Simple syrup is simply four parts sugar to one part water. One can mix them more readily with a bit of heating on the stove. It is a ratio which will act as a preservative, since sugar is as drying as salt.

  If one slices up a bit of fruit, dips it in boiling water briefly to sterilize it ("blanching"), and chucks it in a jar of simple syrup with any spices one likes, one will have a flavored syrup... and carbonated water with flavored syrup is a soda-based soft drink.



  One can use fruit juice instead of syrup, and root beer was traditionally sassafrass tea which had a small amount of sugar added and fermented for a few hours for mere carbonation. Unsweetened carbonated water is often bitter, however.

  You can now have unlimited soda drinks in better flavors for free. Enjoy saving money.

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