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Comment by js2 | Hacker News Reader

I’m sick and tired of paying soda stream. Mostly on principle. My wife really likes her carbonated water though. So much so she’s green lit a kegerator for the sole purpose of housing a 5 gallon corny keg of carbonated water! Carbonated water on tap. Even better, I can plumb it into the fresh water line so it’s continuous! Infinite soda water on tap… till the co2 tank runs out anyway.

I’m sure this is all old school to any home brewers. But it’s all new to me. Now to build it all…

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This is very common in Hungary, just FYI!

Especially in the countryside. The main use-case is for creating fröccs aka spritzers.

In commie times or early 90s in eastern Europe people (or at least my friend) used to have at home extremely simple device soda charger adapter with two PET bottle connectors on top and bottom, where on each end you could screw 1.5-2L PET bottle, I think one filled with syrup water, other empty, in the middle on side you screw small soda charger bomb (see link, think size you could put in small air gun, one small bomb cost around 13 cents nowadays, reasonable even for one time use 2L) and then you just release valve and I think you had to flip over bottles few times. It was incredibly simple and I'm amazed by pricey SodaStream popularity (even over soda siphon/seltzer bottle). Shame I can't find this adapter on mobile, so now think it had to be home made device which was very compact, no pipes required, everything within small adapter which fit between two bottles with bomb on side.

https://www.amazon.com/Soda-Siphon-Charger-Classic-Sodamaker...

You can use a carbonation cap and diffusion stone with any 2L PET soda bottle and any CO2 tank with regulator:

https://www.amazon.com/Carbonation-Cap-Diffusion-Air-Stone/d...

The original version of this was a plastic cap but it doesn't work all that well:

https://www.morebeer.com/products/carbacap.html

This gives me an idea. Do you think this can be used to build a small fire extinguisher? Something like this? https://youtu.be/zECUui0qi9Q

It was something like this, bottle on top and bottom and you could directly attach/screw small bomb on side in between.

https://m.aliexpress.com/item/4001271603795.html

Go for it! I experimented with adding cheap drink powders like lemonade and coconut to mine and loved it! Make sure the system and connections can handle the pressure you're setting!

TIL about corny kegs. They look like they last forever and aren’t that expensive. This will be a fun project. How will you get refills?

Refills of CO2 can be had at any local home brew supply shop, some local breweries, airgas, etc.

The corny keg I'll just fill with filtered tap water. It can be made continuous with one of these, but I'm not sure I have the water pressure for this:

https://www.morebeer.com/products/continuous-soda-carbonator...

Oh, so there is a separate CO2 container. I didn’t know it worked that way.

installed a zip hydro tap a couple years ago and i’ve never once regretted it

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