welcome friends since we've been doing
the pop series a lot of people have been
asking us about the carbonated water
what's this thing that I keep grabbing
from just off-screen so I thought I'd
explain it
the thing that I'm grabbing is called
a picnic tap and the picnic tap is
connected to a kegging system that I
have in this slightly modified freezer
so this is a regular chest freezer I
think I got it at Home Depot and I've
modified it slightly so that it
maintains a constant two to three
degrees Celsius so just above the
freezing point and inside I keep beer
kegs and pop kegs and any sort of keg
that I need to have under pressure for
carbonation so here's effectively what's
going on inside that freezer I'm using
Cornelius kegs or corny kegs for short
and this is a true corny keg made by the
Cornelius manufacturing company of
Minnesota Anoka Minnesota and these are
both corny kegs but they're slightly
different this one is called a pin lock
keg because the lines are attached to
the posts by these pins now these pin
lock kegs were used by coca-cola
and associated coca-cola brands and I
know them inside note because in the
1980s I worked in the second or third
busiest movie theater in North America
and changed hundreds of these every week
and did a lot of troubleshooting with
them because there were always problems
this is also a Cornelius keg or corny
keg it's called a ball lock keg slightly
different shape same volume
they're both 19 liters or 640 fluid
ounces US fluid ounces I think that
works out to about five US gallons this
one is slightly different though these
were used by Pepsi same volume slightly
different shape a little bit taller and
not quite as wide which is important for
some people and it uses a different
style of post they use little balls
inside the connectors in order to hold
it
now this is a brand new one you can
still buy these made today brand new
I've bought all of the pin locks used I
got a really good deal on them and I
bought 25 or 30 of them a couple years
ago they all still had popping them and
the pop was all still good even though
the pop was put in in the 1980s which I
thought was really kind of strange now I
use these for home brewing beer and
within the homebrew community there are
people who are tied to one or the other
I'm sort of agnostic whichever ones
cheaper at the time I will buy it's
really not that hard to change the
connectors on the ends of the lines they
just screw on and off so I have both
people prefer the taller Pepsi ball lock
corny keg because you can fit more into
a small fridge those little bar fridges
you can only fit two of these in but you
can fit into three sometimes four so a
lot of people will buy these they're
relatively inexpensive now for gas I've
got a few of these co2 tanks I've got
them in a bunch of different sizes this
is a five pound tank and for home use it
will last a very long time
this tank costs about $10 to get it
refilled and it's really easy to get
refilled and then this is a regulator
and there's two dials on here one tells
you how much gas is left in the tank and
this dial tells you how much pressure
you're putting into the beverage
container now I'm kind of glossing over
a few points because for a lot of people
this just isn't going to be very
interesting and this isn't a solution
for everybody it's a solution for me
because I have the space to use it I'm
using it for beer and it works for me
for a lot of people SodaStream is going
to be the way to go but I was never
happy with the SodaStream because I
really like very high carbonation in my
carbonated water and you just couldn't
get that with the SodaStream so here is
a smaller corny keg
this again is a brand new one this is
two and a half US gallons so a little
bit smaller a little bit more manageable
for a lot of people and I just fill it
with water you
the lid and you put this lid on and this
is the end post for the gas to go in you
just connect this on open up the valve
and for carbonated water I go to 30 psi
now this will have to go into the fridge
carbonated water or carbonating water
works better when the water is super
cold hence the two to three degrees
Celsius and it will take two or three
days to come up to full carbonation if
you shake it can you hear the gas going
in
it will carbonate faster and I like to
use this valve on the top just to purge
out any oxygen that's left inside so all
that's in there is water and co2 the
water will last a very long time now I
guess the thing you want to know is what
does all of this cost so a full set up
like this in a kit from a Canadian
distributor is about three hundred
Canadian dollars and I'm not sure what
that is an American money and you could
probably get it cheaper you could
probably shop around and find this set
up cheaper and this is all you need to
get started with this style of
carbonation so the initial cost is
higher than going the SodaStream route
but the cost of gas refills for
SodaStream are very expensive so in the
long term if you've got some place to
keep this if you've got a beer fridge or
a second fridge in the garage or in the
basement and you can handle this kind of
setup this in the long run is cheaper
than a countertop SodaStream not as
elegant but you know it works so now
I've glossed over a lot of information
in order to keep this short and just
give you an idea of what we do if you
want more information about this system
we've got some keg videos on our brewing
channel and I'll link to that and you
can also find this at any
homebrew or home brewed beer shop
anywhere in the world pretty much thanks
for stopping by hope to see you again
soon
now when I worked at the movie theater
these kegs came only with syrup in them
and the co2 pressure was just to push
the syrup out to the fountainhead but
there were a lot of places where the
syrup and the water was mixed into the
keg and carbonated at the factory and
then that carbonated mixture was sent
out and just kept under pressure to be
pushed out to the fountain so there was
no mixing at the store and we're gonna
do that with a lot of our pops here once
we sort of nail the recipe we'll put in
the amount of syrup that we need fill it
with the rest of the water and then
bring this up to probably 12 to 15 psi
30 is great for water but not when you
start mixing in sugar and foaming agents
30 pounds per square inch you would just
get foam in your cup you wouldn't get
anything else so and of course these
tanks are under a lot of pressure so you
need to treat them with care you don't
want to knock them over because if you
knock them over they become like a
rocket which isn't great