Owning a SodaStream is awesome, especially if you’re a carbonated water lover (and I am). Shelling out for those proprietary tanks and refills though, knowing that cheaper CO2 is widely available, isn’t. Luckily, it’s not difficult to hack your SodaStream and save a ton of money.
Here’s how this works:
- First, you’ll need a CO2 tank that you’ll use with your SodaStream going forward. You could even use a paintball CO2 tank. It might be bigger (and more expensive) than the tanks that come with your SodaStream, but the benefit is that it will last much much longer between charges.
- Second, you’ll need a remote line to connect the actual SodaStream with the tank, since obviously none of these will fit into the unit itself. (For example, the web site we’re referencing for this, SodaStream Hack, recommends this $24 one.)
- Finally, you’ll need an adaptor, so you can connect the hose to the SodaStream itself. They’re pretty widely available. (Check out this one and this one for the type of thing to look for.)
So we’re at a total investment of about $80-$150, but here’s the kicker: This will, once charged, last way longer than your traditional SodaStream canisters, and over time, you’ll make the money back in terms of saved trips to buy the smaller, proprietary ones.
This tweak isn’t exactly uncommon. Lots of SodaStream owners have converted their models to accept standard CO2 tanks and lines that they can easily — and affordably — have refilled whenever they want, at a fraction of the price of the proprietary ones. For example, SodaStream refills are usually around $19, and fresh, filled tanks are more than that, while you’re looking at $40 to fill even a 4.5kg tank, and it lasts three or four times as long as the Sodastream model.
SodaStream Hack [Weebly]
This post is part of our Evil Week series at Lifehacker, where we look at the dark side of getting things done. Sometimes evil is justified, and other times, knowing evil means knowing how to beat it. Want more? Check out our evil week tag page.
Comments
9 responses to “Tweak A Sodastream To Use Cheaper CO2 Containers”
If you are looking to do this, make sure you get a food grade C02 cylinder and gas, any homebrew beer shops should be able to help.
And while you’re at it, make sure to get your blinker fluid topped up, with all the other gullible fools.
You’ll find that the cleanliness/sterilization of industrial-grade CO2 tanks before they’re filled with the gas is not the same as food grade. Trace industrial oils & solvents can sometimes be found in the tank & around fixtures/fittings which are undesirable for human consumption. The purity of the gas does not tend to differ terribly between industrial-grade (99.97%), food-grade (99.98%) & medical grade (99.99%) which may be why you’re calling those that believe in the importance of these differences to be “gullible fools” however I can tell you from the position of someone who brews & kegs their beers with forced-carbonation – the differences are very real from a tasting perspective.
Same gas when it goes in, they’re all refilled from the same canisters. Just ask over a aussiehomebrewer about “food grade” CO2 if you want to see why you’re gullible.
Yeah the gas is the same, it’s just the cylinder it’s going into.
Meanwhile, in Australia… please, if you are going to use US content in Australia, please make sure links and purchasable items are available in Australia.
Oh @lifehacker mods and gods, why… if you have not provided any links for Australian purchase, did you chose to remove them from my post, it defeats the entire purpose?
Can you please re-instate my original comment or you may remove it in its entirety.
I am in no way affiliated with any of the sites mentioned, they were simply who I used for my project to achieve exactly what you described.
Hi mate,
I can’t recover the links from the comments 🙁 Just post again and I’ll approve it 🙂
As the article states, the links provided are only examples of what to look for. Everything needed can be found in Australian brewing stores. Let us know how you get on!
Hmmm, a genuine swapped cartridge contains 425g of CO2 – it’s $18
A new 2.6kg bottle of CO2 is $199
The cables and adapters are $200 – so $400 invested for 6 refills
(which would have cost $72 – and last me a year)
That means at the end of year 1 you are $328 in the red.
Based on refill of the big cylinder, about 25 sodastream refills worth of gas are needed to break even. That’s another 4 years.
So 5 years and you only get to break even point?
WARNING**
The sodastream cylinder pictured is not the same as an Australian / NZ spec cylinder.
I failed to notice this and now have an expensive pile of junk!!
AU cylinders seem to be different to US ones as well.