Guest Post by Jay {Part I} - How to Make Your Own Sparkling Water

I have been wanting to write a guest post for some time now, and since today is the last day of my winter break, it’s probably now or never! Because this may turn into a long post, I will break it up into two parts - part one being on how to make sparkling water from home, and part two on the quality of the water going into the keg.

PART 1:

This may sound like a lame gift, but I gave Laura her own sparkling water system for Christmas. It is kind of like a Soda Stream on steroids. I simply added another home brew kegging system to our current kegerator. You can purchase all this equipment online and convert any refrigerator or freezer.  (If you are interested in building your own kegerator, you can find instructions here.)

My kegerator resides in the garage.  Here is what it looks like:


Laura has been putting lemon-lime water in the keg, although you can use just about any fruit or vegetable to flavor the water. Not only is this habit delicious, it's also a very good way to keep your antioxidant levels up. Here is a great video by nutritionfacts.org that explains why this is important:

I like to think of the recommended daily allowance for antioxidants as a steady amount flowing in the bloodstream, rather than a giant bucket that needs to be filled up just once per day.

Making lemon-lime sparkling water is simple!

Step 1: Add lemon and/or lime juice to your keg. We used roughly one cup of fresh squeezed lemon and lime juice for a 5 gallon ball lock keg. A great trick for getting more juice from the lemon or lime is to microwave it for about 15 seconds before squeezing.

You could also use other fresh fruits or juices to flavor the water.  We plan to experiment with pomegranate juice, berries, and more.

Step 2: Fill up the 5 gallon keg with water and cool it to 32 degrees (or as close to it as possible).  You can use ice or just put the keg in the kegerator for a while to cool. Leave a little bit of room at the top for carbonating and shaking purposes.

Step 3: Pressurize the keg to 30 psi and shake for about 5 minutes. This will carbonate the water. 

Step 4: Reduce the pressure to 12 psi and serve!

Cheers!

Jay