Let's make some OpenCola!

[Paul Bonser]

TL;DR: who wants to pitch in to make some OpenCola at/for the space?

I've been reading up on OpenCola recently, and I would like to get a group together to do a couple things:

1. Make a batch of OpenCola according to the recipe.

2. Experiment with modifications to the recipe to make other flavors (vanilla opencola, openpepper, cherry opencola, etc.).

3. Experiment with making sugar-free variants, ideally with Stevia as the sweetener.

I've created a google spreadsheet breaking down the cost of the ingredients: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AsNYeGMObQ-9dDBhRzZSQ0RCSjBXLW43Z2x6bEk0OUE#gid=0

All of the linked ingredients are from Amazon, but I bet we could find local sources for most of them, probably for cheaper as well. Even so, with the costs I found, the price comes out to $116 for the initial set of ingredients, but the majority of them come in larger quantities than we need for a single batch, so the actual cost of a single 24 liter batch is $10.90, or $0.16 per 12oz serving. The remainder of the ingredients could go toward more batches and experimenting with different flavors.

Ideally we would get a soda fountain to dispense the resulting beverage, but we could make do with a bottle of syrup and some source of soda water (again, ideally a bartender-style soda-water dispenser, but a soda stream or soda siphon would work as well).

Who's in? I figure we can start collecting the ingredients, and then fund the project going forward in a similar way to the soda fund in the fridge.

--
Paul Bonser | http://probablyprogramming.com | @pib

[Mandie Kramer]

Yessssss!

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[Mert]

I'm in!

Most practical initial setup will probably be a bottle top pump and soda syphon.  But if we ever progress to a carbonator/ cold plate/ soda fountain setup I'll chip in...

[Tim Fredlund]

The idea sounds awesome, especially with as many soda-drinkers as we have.

I did a bit of research into the soda fountain offerings in the area, and they're unfortunately pretty pricey :/

Tim Fredlund | @ethosrot | #tc

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[Martin Bogomolni]

What about using a SodaStream?   When you combine the SodaStream with a 24oz paintball bottle, you can fizz up well over 100 bottles of soda for $3 worth of CO2.  

Instead of making fully diluted soda and trying to CO2 it up, we could make OpenCola syrup, and add it to soda water for on-demand consumption... a la 50's Soda Shop style.  

It could be a lot of fun, and practical too.

-M

[Paul Bonser]

Yes, any way we do it we will want to just have the syrup sitting there, ready for on-demand usage. Mert's suggestion of the bottle-top pump and soda siphon is what I was assuming we'd be starting with, though I'd prefer the type of soda siphon that takes a tank rather than the little charges.

Something like this would be nice to start with: http://www.ebay.com/itm/330843299738

Plus, then we can have different flavors and allow people to mix them :D

[Mandie Kramer]

Wow!