Making Your Own Mineral Water
Reader Lee writes:
Hi Joe. I’m not sure if you’re done with this terrific bubbly side-trip, but if you aren’t, can you think of any way to make something that tastes like San Pellegrino at home? I spend a fortune on the stuff, and then there is the whole issue of shipping heavy boxes of water all the way from Italy, which is a bit problematic, carbon-footprint-wise. I know a bunch of hip urban restaurants have started to make their own — artisanal water!! — but I have no idea how.
Nice to have you back on the scene reader Lee! That’s a very interesting question, as it’s true that you can get the bubbles of mineral water with a seltzer bottle or SodaStream, but not the flavor. To achieve that flavor you need to manually add the mineral salts that naturally occur in the various waters. Happily, over at Khymos, Martin Lersch has developed some ingenious recipes for several different popular brands of mineral water, one of them being San Pellegrino. The salts may not be easy to come by, but once you acquire them in quantity you’ll probably be set for life. Let me know how the project goes, reader Lee!
Thanks Joe! I’ll check it out and keep you posted.
My problem isn’t the taste, more that I don’t get the BITE from soda stream stuff that I get from the bottle (or if I do, it doesn’t last to my liking.) I love pure carbonated water, and when I lived in the states and worked at BK, I’d take the soda water when the syrups ran out – to the disgust of my coworkers. I needless to say, was overjoyed when after moving here, found that I could just get bottles and bottles of the stuff (2 liter bottles like cola, what I found in the states was, small bottles, not worth my time)
Any tips for keeping the bubbles sharp?
Hey Kitty!
I thought SodaStreams let you adjust the carbonation level. Hm. Well, seltzer bottles deliver quite a bit of the carbonic acid bite you like. As for keeping the soda sharp in big bottles, that’s a tough one, since once you let the CO2 in the headspace out (i.e. open it) you’ll be losing CO2 to the empty space in the bottle from there on out. That’s why small bottles are the ones you typically see in stores. But I love plain soda too…I don’t blame you for buying in bulk!
– Joe
we had borrowed my guy’s sis’s sodastream. I wonder if the bottle had a strange leak really. I guess you can adjust by how much you pump into it, and yeah, I made it with bite, it just didn’t last like that for more than a hour or two, even in the fridge, after that it was just weak carbonation. Thinking about buying a new one sometime, or building my own carbonation rig.
Hm, yes it should hold a bubble a lot longer than that. I suspect you’re right that the containers were probably leaking. Let me know what you come up with. I’m thinking of getting one of those machines myself since my seltzer bottle is rather old and has some mineral buildup in it.
– Joe