A little more than a year to the day that I freed myself from the international seltzer cartel, I finally drained my CO2 tank, and swapped in a replacement.
I figure we’ve been averaging two to three liters of carbonated beverage a day (mostly water, though some juice, and a few other weird experiments), which is pretty much in line with the 1000-liter estimate I’d seen for a 20-lb tank. So my initial $240 investment worked out to a cost of about $0.24/liter over the first year.
From here on out though it really starts to pay off. The tank exchange cost only $18 with tax; that’s less than two cents a liter from here on out, compared to about a buck a bottle for two liters of the store brand variety. Sweet. (Well, actually, fizzy.)
I had all sorts of strange digestive tract problems until I kicked the CO2 habit. Voila! Overnight cure! If you don’t drink carbonated water, your cost is ZERO, nada, nothing, no cents! So, while you’re a pretty good businessman, Goldy, I’m even better! And healthier, too. Really, Goldy, take it from me … drinking that stuff fucks up your plumbing. Really. It does.
In other news, the owner of an Oregon bookstore called the “Tea Party Bookshop” has changed the name of her business to Tigress Books, because the old name was attracting an undesireable clientele.
http://www.aolnews.com/nation/.....d/19528419
Roger Rabbit Commentary: She should’ve hired a lawyer and sued the Tea Partiers for trade name infringement instead! If I were on the jury, I’d give her 5 million bucks, just on principle.
Goldy,
What is required to make your own fizzy water?
@1
I rarely drink anything carbonated, but I keep a couple of Cokes in the back of the fridge as every couple of months I get a really bad stomach pain and the best cure I’ve found is a can of Coke.
4
Beer often works, too.
@5
Beer eases plenty of other aches and pains, but not this one.
6
Beer most certainly helps with the dire condition of existential angst. Even Martin Luther, his wife a home brewer, recognized that.
Rog @ 1–
Excellent advice.
Goldy’s excessive Co2 also explains his chronic “bubbleheaded” threads.
Hey Goldy…. does this work with glass bottles as well as the 2-liter variety?
@4 Coke reputedly eats rust off chrome bumpers, too.
@8 “Goldy’s excessive Co2 also explains his chronic “bubbleheaded” threads.”
What explains yours?
If you’ve ever worked in a fish processing plant, a can of original formula coke in with your laundry will remove the fish odor.
Chris @3,
I got the regulator, hose and carbonater cap from Keg Connection, and the CO2 tank from Central Welding in Georgetown.
Nindid @9,
I’m not sure how one would attach it to a glass bottle, as the carbonater cap screws on to a standard plastic soda bottle… but I’m not sure I’d be willing to try it with glass. A plastic bottle fails, and you get seltzer all over yourself and your kitchen; a glass bottle fails and you’re covered with glass.
What Goldy’s not going to pay the bottled water tax? And if this has carbonation, there should be a carbonation tax also. And a per plastic bottle used tax, and a gauge tax and a air bottle disposal and refill tax.
Add some greens from Lee and Goldy could become a rich man!
Many years ago, we rented the tanks from Coca Cola to sell beverages for a non-profit event. I was shocked to find how cheap it was. They delivered a booth with signs, Co2 tank & syrup tank, and valves & faucet connectors, and set it all up. The next day they came back, broke it down, and removed it. We charged the normal retail price for the beverages, and made back ten times our money.
Ever since then, I’ve never understood restaurants who try to ding you for the price of soft-drink refill – especially the serve-it yourself ones in fast food restaurants. The cost is de minimus, and the trouble caused by policing the policy and engenering bad customer goodwill far outstrips any savings.
Personally, I’ve pretty much kicked the Coke/Pepsi habit. I’ve found that it distorts my appetite, gives me too much salt and caffeine, and generally makes me feel sluggish.
@17: Restaurants make most of their profits in the beverages you consume.
I always drink water (with lemon wedge). My wife always insists on diet coke or a cocktail or two, unfortunately.
Joseph Priestly, chemist, religious dissenter, and author of many political pamphlets (the blogging of its day) invented carbonated water in 1767.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Priestley
nindid @ 9
you could use glass bottles but it would be trickier. Goldy’s carbonator cap simply makes a seal on the top of the PET bottle (I presume it screws on) and them he cranks up the pressure and the gas eventually disolves into the liquid. Indeed you might not want to put so much pressurized gas directly into a glass bottle (even if there were a device for making the seal) but homebrewers can put pre-carbonated beer from a 5 galon soda (Cornelius) keg into a bottle using a counter pressure bottle filler or a Blichman “Beer Gun” http://www.homebrewing.org/Bli.....p_778.html
and then cap it.
and while I’ve never done it, I sure like the idea of a beer gun.
LD @15,
Well, I don’t believe I declared the use tax on the regulator, hose and cap, which I bought mail order (but I’m one of those weirdos who used to declare and pay use tax back when I had a business and was filing with the state), but I certainly paid sales tax on the tank and the exchange, which constitute the bulk of my costs. And of course I pay Seattle Public Utilities for the water I use.
Poster Child @20,
Yes, the carbonator cap screws on to standard PET bottle. Fill the bottle with cold water to a couple inches from the top, depress the ball valve on top of the cap and squeeze out the remaining air, then pressurize to 30psi and shake vigorously for about 10 seconds (for a 1 liter bottle) to dissolve the gas.
And yes, a beer gun sounds like a great idea.
@4 – I think you can actually still get cola syrup from your local pharmacist, though they may not have it onsite. I find that or bread, the grainier the better, works best for myself with respect to non-stress-related stomach upsets.
Ezekiel Bread is very good for you.
I thought CO2 was the end mankind as we know it. Goldy likes fizzy water at the peril of melting glaciers. Loser. Why dont you man up and burn some tires with a match.
Goldy favors gassy water. Not unlike the diarrhea he spews out in the blogosphere.
Hey Goldy,
Make sure you use plumber’s tape (teflon tape) on the threads between the tank and the regulator. It will prevent wear on the threads of the regulator when you change out tanks, and prolong the useful life of the regulator. Just a helpful hint from someone who spent years changing out high-volume gas cylinders for gas chromatographs…..
(you may have done it but I don’t see any tape on the tank threads in the photo)