SodaSteam Source: Review

Sodasteam Source is a home carbonation system. You can carbonate water and turn it into soda at home as an alternative to purchasing pre-packed soda in bottles or cans. No more hauling empty cans and bottles to the recycling depot anymore.

When I received the Sodastream source a few months ago and wanted to how this device can create soda that’s comparable to store-bought sodas.

The Sodasteam Source model is designed by Yves Behar and has a sleek look compared to their previous models. It’s not an eyesore at all in the kitchen. It has a clean and modern look, that can fit into small spaces if you have a small kitchen. Plus, no electricity needed to operate the device. You can take it on a picnic if you really wanted to.

The particular model I have is the SodaStream Source Plastic Starter Kit in black. It retails for around $150. Depending where you go buy it, it can be cheaper. I’ve seen it at Walmart for around $129.

In the kit, you will find:

• the machine
• sodasteam carbonating bottle
• 1 60L CO2 Cylinder
• sodamix taste sampler

Unlike previous models where you need to screw in the bottle, you now push the bottle opening into the mouth of the machine until it locks into place. It’s so much easier than before!

Do not carbonate anything else but water or else you may have some cleaning up to do.

To carbonate, you just push down the top of the machine for a set amount of time. There are 3 bubble indicators that light up to show you how fizzy it is. You can have it slightly fizzy, moderately fizzy or quite fizzy. Some times the LEDs are inaccurate depending on what your standard of fizzy is.

The machine will make high pitched squealing buzzing noises indicating the water is now carbonated. It can get annoying and initially it scared my cats, but they got over it quickly. Once it’s done, you can take the bottle out by pulling the bottle forward and removing it from the mouth of the machine.

To get the most fizziness, make sure you:

• Use very cold water (I refrigerate mine)
• 1 buzz for very light carbonation (good for fruit flavours)
• 3 buzzes for average carbonation
• 5 buzzes for strong carbonation (works well for colas and other dark syrups.)

Once you have the carbonated water, you can dump a capful of your favourite mix into the carbonated water. In M’s case it’s cola. Shake it around, serve it and its done.

It tasted ok, but you probably want a lot more carbonation in your water if you want it to be somewhat similar to coke.

One thing I didn’t like about the big bottles of syrup is that you don’t always know which ones you will like. The sampler that comes with the machine has a good variety, but it is missing many flavours.

I would suggest you go buy a 12pack of samplers which contain their most popular flavours. It’s good to try them before buying a big bottle. It’s $11.98 at Wal-Mart.

For myself, I love to try new flavours, so I would opt to start out with these.

The syrups are $6.99 at Wal-Mart and they have a pretty good selection.

Of course, you don’t have to get the syrups that are for the SodaStream. You can make cocktails or any drink you can imagine. You combinations are endless and thats why I love this machine.

Ribena Soda with Lemon

Ribena is a blackcurrant drink from Asia. I grew up on this stuff and it’s pretty awesome if you add it to carbonated water with a bit of lemon. The Ribena syrup can be a bit hard to find, but you can buy it at Save On Foods or T&T. Add enough syrup until its to your liking, then throw in a few lemon slices.

Shirley Temple

Another drink I made with the lemon-lime mix is a Shirley Temple. You can make it with ginger ale too. There’s a lot of recipes online, so you can make it however you want.

It wasn’t too bad. It’s pretty fun to make my own drinks and showing off the machine.

Overall, I do like the SodaSteam Source. It fits well in my kitchen between my knives and my microwave. It isn’t as an eyesore unlike other versions. I enjoy my occasional sodas once in a while, so its great not having all the bottles build up in my kitchen until its time to go to the return-it depot. It’s been 3 months and we don’t have a stack of cans in our kitchen.

The downside is that the CO2 cartridges are pretty expensive at around $40 each. You can bring in your empty cylinder and the store will exchange it for a discounted price. Sometimes they are located in the customer service area rather than on the sales floor. Its pretty confusing sometimes.

Website: http://www.sodastream.ca/en/machine_source.php