Posts Tagged ‘carbonated water’
Understanding Sparkling Water
Sunday, December 13th, 2009Sparkling water sounds like something shiny and bright and much too hard to make. Sparkling water, sometimes referred to as carbonated water, is also known as seltzer water. But it is just normal water to which carbon dioxide gas has been added. This is the number-one component of soft drinks. This process of adding carbon dioxide gas forms carbonic acid and this is what gives all these drinks, including soft drinks, their fizzy taste.
Sparkling water is not always mineral water, but is considered by most people to be just that; but mineral water is classified as water containing more than 250 parts per million of dissolved minerals. So, some mineral water can be classified sparkling water when carbonated, but not all sparkling water can be called mineral water.
The process of carbonating water began sometime in the 1800’s. A brewer observed that a very interesting taste was made when passing water over fermenting beer.
Today, pressurized CO2 is put into bottles, or can be made with a soda maker at home or in bars and restaurants. When the bottle is opened, the pressure is released, and this forms bubbles. It is no secret that shaking, and then opening, a bottle of sparkling water will make a considerable mess as the water escapes the bottle. This also happens with soda pop.
Soda gets its famous fizz from the very same process. A discovery was made by (I assume) some kids with nothing else to do. This curious individual mixed Mentos breath mints with the aspartame from a diet soda. The CO2 to react violently, shooting straight up rapidly out of the bottle, and expelling all the fluid. This little experiment may impress the kids, but it ’s very messy, so I would advise not to do it. Instead, if you visit YouTube you can find hundreds of videos of others doing it – often in some very creative ways.
Sparkling water was once used as a drink to cure stomach issues. However, now most doctors recommend that people with acid reflux or other chronic stomach complications avoid sparkling water. But, it is helpful in calming nausea.
Sparkling water can also be home made in a reusable seltzer bottle; it is filled with water and then carbon dioxide is added. A large assortment of calorie free flavors to flavor sparkling water to great taste is sold at allfreightfree.com.
Some sparkling waters originate from sources that produce natural carbonation. There is a brand of sparkling mineral water with 100% carbonic acid from the source; this means that no CO2 has to be added to the water. This certain brand comes from an area with notable volcanic activity. Owing to the fact that the magma gives off carbon dioxide, the water there is rich in minerals. This combines with the water, increasing the solubility of minerals. A naturally carbonated sparkling water is the result, and is considered quite delicious, and is also very famous.
So now you know everything you wanted to know about sparkling water and how to make this refreshing and calorie free drink.
What Is Soda Water?
Thursday, July 9th, 2009What is soda water? Carbonated water, also known as sparkling water, and seltzer, is plain water into which carbon dioxide gas has been dissolved, and is the major and defining component of most “soft drinks”. The process of dissolving carbon dioxide gas is called carbonation. It results in the formation of carbonic acid (which has the chemical formula H2CO3).
In the past, soda water, also known as club soda, was produced in the home by “charging” a refillable seltzer bottle by filling it with water and then adding carbon dioxide. Club soda may be identical to plain carbonated wateror it may contain a small amount of table salt, sodium citrate, sodium bicarbonate, potassium bicarbonate, potassium sulfate, or disodium phosphate, depending on the bottler. These additives are included to emulate the slightly salty taste of homemade soda water. The process can also occur naturally to produce carbonated mineral water, such as in Mihalkovo in the Bulgarian Rhodopes.
Sparkling mineral water is a negligible cause of dental erosion. While the dissolution potential of sparkling water is greater than still water, levels remain low: by comparison, soft drinks cause tooth decay at a rate of several hundred times that of regular sparkling water. De-gassing of a fizzy mineral water reduces its dissolution potential, however the total levels are comparitlivly low , suggesting that carbonation of drinks may not be the only factor per se in causing dental erosion.
Intake of carbonated beverages has not been associated with increased bone fracture risk in observational studies, and the net effect of carbonated beverage constituents on the amount of calcium in the body is negligible, leaving carbonated water as harmless as regular water
Club soda has a higher sodium content. Virtually same thing.
Water that comes from the ground – usually from artesian wells – and passes through layers of minerals containing some form of carbonates may absorb the carbon dioxide gas released by the carbonates. This water is known as natural sparkling water. If the water also picks up sufficient quantities of various minerals to impart a flavor to the water it becomes sparkling mineral water.
Carbonation can be naturally induced into beverages by fermentation. Fermentation occurs when yeast, either wild or cultivated, is introduced into a liquid containing almost any form of sugar. The yeast converts the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide gas. When the gas is then absorbed by the liquid a carbonated alcoholic beverage is the result. If the fermentation is done in an airtight container, the carbon dioxide gas will saturate the beverage and it will be carbonated. Many carbonated beverages were originally made through this type of naturally induced carbonation including beer, wine and early types of soda.
Today the exclusive method of making soda and several commercial beers is by the introduction of carbon dioxide gas under pressure. The first uses of artificially induced carbonation date back over 250 years and were done to improve the drinking quality and preservation of water.
In the United States we have many references to carbonated beverages. Oftentimes people request a specific product name, like Pepsi, Coke or 7-UP. Sometimes it is more general, like ginger ale or root beer. Then there are regional nicknames which include soda, pop, soft drink, tonic, seltzer, sweetwater, carbonated beverage, sparkling water and fizzwater.
One thing to remember about adding any carbonated liquids to cocktails: generally they are added last. The only exception is if the drink is topped with a float of spirit. Do not shake a mixture with soda; this will cause the beverage to go flat and lose most of its effervescence. If the drink calls for blending you may chose to shake the other ingredients with ice first then combine in serving glass with seltzer and gently stir.
Basically, it’s water and carbon dioxide. Sparkling mineral water is a naturally-occurring carbonation, as described above. Thomas Henry produced the first forced carbonated water using an apparatus that utilized a pump to impregnate water with fixed air. In the year 1794, a jeweler of Geneva made an innnovative device to produce a highly carbonated artificial mineral water. His name was Jacob Schweppe.
Cocktail conducted a side-by-side tasting of several carbonated beverages. Among the reviewing criteria were: crispness, flavor, clarity and fizz release. We found that Perrier, a sparkling natural mineral water, maintained its fizz the longest, especially its lemon and lime flavored varieties. Canada Dry and Schweppes Seltzers came in a close second.
For those who find seltzer to be a bit harsh, club soda is a kinder, gentler fizz water. As part of our tasting we found club soda to be much milder and slightly sweeter tasting than standard carbonated water. The main difference is the introduction of potassium bicarbonate and potassium sulfate, which dulls the sharp burn of effervescence.
Club soda, sparkling mineral water, seltzer and carbonated water have no calories, which make them a dieters alternative for 7-UP, Mellow Yellow, Mountain Dew and tonic water. A large assortment of calorie free flavors to flavor sparkling water to great taste is sold at http://allfreightfree.com.
Tonic water is a carbonated drink containing water, sugar, carbon dioxide and quinine. Quinine was mixed into the tonic water inorder to help cure or prevent the disesase malaria. It comes from the bark of the Cinchona tree that grows in the rain forest on the eastern slopes of the Andes. To make tonic water more palatable, it was commonly mixed with gin and lemon or lime.
If you run out of tonic water but still have seltzer, 1/4 lemon, 1/4 lime and 2 tbs. sugar you can make a passable substitute.
An In Depth Look At Seltzer Water
Sunday, July 5th, 2009Carbonated water, also known as sparkling water, fizzy water, soda water, club soda, seltzer water, or pop water is plain water into which carbon dioxide gas has been dissolved, and is the major and defining component of most “soft drinks”. The procedure when carbon dioxide gas is dissolved in water is known as carbonation. It results in the formation of carbonic acid (which has the chemical formula H2CO3).
In the past, soda water was produced in the home by “charging” a refillable seltzer bottle by filling it with water and then adding carbon dioxide. Club soda may be identical to plain carbonated water or it may contain a small amount of table salt, sodium citrate, sodium bicarbonate, potassium bicarbonate, potassium sulfate, or disodium phosphate, depending on the bottler. These additives are included to emulate the slightly salty taste of homemade soda water. In the UK Soda Water is nearly always made with Sodium Bicarbonate. The process can also occur naturally to produce carbonated mineral water, such as in Mihalkovo in the Bulgarian Rhodopes
The quality of carbonated beverages including soft drinks, seltzer and beer is affected by the amount of dissolved CO2 (the gas that causes carbonation) and the amount of carbonic acid in the drink. Carbon dioxide (CO2)has an infrared absorption wavelength of 4.27 micrometers and can be measured online using an infrared carbonation sensor.
In so many consumer beverages soft drinks like (famous examples include 7 Up, Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Fanta and), carbonation is used to give “bite”. In contrast to the popular belief, the sparkling taste is result of dilute carbonic acid perceived as slight burning sensation, and is not caused by the presence of bubbles.This can be proved by having a fizzy drink in a hyperbaric chamber at the equal pressure just what the beverage is having. This gives much the same taste, but the bubbles are completely absent.
And you’ll enjoy the fizziest seltzer on the planet. Unlike old fashioned soda siphons, you can make seltzer as fizzy as you like it with a Soda-Club home soda/seltzer maker. You can even make your own flavored seltzer with all-natural, unsweetened MyWater flavor essences.
You love seltzer … plus although you may pay price of sale, the price of seltzer still adds up. Perhaps you buy one-liter bottles of seltzer on sale at the store for 50 cents each — or as low as 33 cents each ($4 for a 12-bottle case). Even at these store sale prices, if your household drinks one case of 12 one-liter bottles per week, you’ll spend over $2,000 on seltzer over the next 10 years!
With Soda-Club, you will slash your seltzer costs to as low as 18 cents per liter — that’s like paying just $2 per case! — and you’ll enjoy fresh, fizzy seltzer at the push of a button! And if you prefer the sophisticated light carbonation of imported sparkling water, you’ll love the Penguin, which makes fresh sparkling water in elegant cut glass carafes. A large assortment of calorie free flavors to flavor sparkling water to great taste is sold at http://allfreightfree.com.
Here are several more reasons to get started with Soda-Club:
• No More Schlepping: Reusable, one-liter carbonating bottles save you from lugging (and storing) all of those cases from the store.
• Stay Fizzy Longer: Special bottle caps with hermetic seals will keep your seltzer much fizzier for longer than store-bought seltzer.
• Convenience: You’ll make seltzer in convenient one-liter bottles. Unlike those expensive, one and done soda siphon chargers, each one of our large, lightweight Alco2jet CO2 carbonators in our sleek home soda/seltzer makers contain enough C02 to carbonate up to 110 liters of fresh, fizzy seltzer. Empty carbonators are easily exchanged door-to-door, anywhere in the continental USA.
• Control Your Fizz: Whether you like a few light bubbles or serious, nose-tickling fizz, a Soda-Club home seltzer maker lets you make it the way you want it.
• Environmentally Friendly: Reusing your carbonating bottles will drastically reduce discarded and recyclable material in our environment. Also saves money on deposit fees!
• Better for You: Sodium free! Add a drop of one of Soda-Club’s all-natural, unsweetened MyWater flavor essences, or a fresh berry for a whisper of flavor. You’ll have a great-tasting, fresh beverage that’s 100% natural
Where Do Carbonated Drinks Come From?
Thursday, July 2nd, 2009In the United States, we have many flavored carbonated drinks which we call soda pop. Why does soda pop “fizz?” Carbonation. There is a lot of info about carbonation at http://tutorials.carbonatedseltzerwater.com.
The quality and different tastes of various carbonated drinks, including soft drinks, is caused by the amount of dissolved CO2 which causes carbonic acid in the drink.
In almost all soft drinks, it is carbonation which gives these drinks their distinctive taste. That fizzy taste is caused by diluted carbonic acid, not by the bubbles, as many believe.
When home-brewing of beer, over-carbonation can be dangerous; it can result in bottles gushing or even exploding.Using excessive amounts of sugar as a primer is dangerous, as well as using wrong types of bottles or an improper capping process. Perhaps it will be best to just buy your beer at the store.
Carbonated water is plain water into which CO2 gas has been dissolved; also known as sparkling water, it is the main ingredient of most “soft drinks”.
These drinks were made in the past by putting water in a seltzer bottle at home and adding CO2. Club soda, usually identical to plain carbonated water, may sometimes contain a small pinch of salt or trace minerals. Such trace ingredients may cause a somewhat salty taste in home-made soda pop. If you add some drops of concentrated flavors, what results? Soda pop.
If there are enough minerals, the drink is called sparkling water. At allfreightfree.com you can find a large assortment of calorie-free flavors to jazz up sparkling water with great tastes. This could be a great option for your family to drink instead of soda pop.
Carbonated drinks marketed as diet soft drinks offer a calorie-free way to make sure your family drinks plenty of water; after all, we all know that the better drinks taste, the more kids will drink, and the more your kids drink, the healthier it is for your family.
If anyone in your family competes athletically, this flavored drink will also make sure they stay properly hydrated while exercising. This has been an extremely hot summer; but heat or no heat, most colleges and high schools have two-a-day football practices underway. So, perhaps as a football mom, you could provide the team some different flavored carbonated drinks to make sure everyone drinks the amounts that they need and stay well hydrated.The kids will love you; possibly the coach will, too. This might be a good project for one of the booster clubs to take on.
The extreme summer heat has made drinking water extremely important – in fact, it has made it a dangerous summer even for Texas which is used to hot summers. But most people are not accustomed to day after humid day of 100-degrees-plus temperatures; infants and the elderly are especially vulnerable.
So, you and your kids might find flavored carbonated drinks to be a good option; maybe your elderly neighbor might, too. We are, after all, our brother’s keeper.
Marketing Pizazz: Bottled Water With Your Label
Monday, June 8th, 2009These days, bottled water with customized labeling is available as an advertising or marketing device on many websites on the Internet; let’s see how it happened.
Water which flows to the surface from a subterranean spring is considered natural spring water. Natural spring water retains each of its minerals. Bottled spring water is better suited for human hydration needs, and that is important for your good health. This water lacks the impurities, flavors, sugar, salt, and toxins found in most water.
The human body, over 70% water, supports all of our physical functions. It regulates temperature, and also dissolves and rids your body of multipled impurities and toxins.Nothing else can clean and hydrate your body like pure spring water. Important? It’s the most important fluid you can drink.
Myriad unhealthy conditions and illnesses have been linked to forms of mineral accumulation in the body. These may range from arthritis to kidney failure. Research has determined that many of these problems are solved by removing these minerals and then flushing them out of the body.
This has lead to the biggest new fad and new industry which is that of bottled water. The first 2 pages of a Google search on bottled water, lists websites for water coming from any pure spring in our country, each claiming to be the purest and best tasting.
This then points to the newest, most popular way to get your logo , brand, and slogan into the marketplace. It’s bottled natural spring water that is imprinted with your company’s logo or trade mark on custom made labels. This type of marketing is promoted as private labeling.
it’s a clever, affordable way to get your company name, logo, or message to your customers. Savvy marketers always watch for the newest and most creative idea; with the new health fad of always carrying drinking water with you, custom labeled bottled waters or sparkling waters are a pouplar innovation.
The most unusual form of branding that I found? Private label bottled water for wedding guests. You can have custom labels made for weddings, cocktail parties, engagement parties and outdoor events, all with private labels with the name of the bride and groom and the wedding date.The bottle label can be matched to the other items commonly ordered for weddings, such as napkins. One can even make private labels– instantly and for free– at freelabelmaker.
I guess you could even use this way to announce the birth of your first son – private labeled bottled water named after the baby.I am sure, given enough time, I can think of thousands of additional ways to promote private labeled bottled water, but I am sure you already get the idea .
The SodaStream Brand of Home Carbonation Systems
Tuesday, April 28th, 2009SodaStream is a brand of carbonation makers iinvented in 1903.
In the 1970s and 1980s, when there were different concentrated syrups available, versions were made that could add concentrates to create carbonated drinks in popular flavors. After a merger with Soda-Club the company offered its product as a way to make healthy drinks for kids.
The SodaStream drink maker consists of a small device that infuses water with carbon dioxide, making it have a taste like soda pop. The system includes: a machine; a canister of carbon dioxide; and reusable beverage bottles (suitable for pressurizing). The bottle, when filled with water, is screwed on to the machine, and with a push of the button ejects compressed CO2 from a canister into the bottle, making sparkling water (also called seltzer). There are a number of flavors which can be used to create regular soft drinks by adding a tiny amount to the bottle of water that has been carbonated. When the canister is out of CO2, you return it to the market and purchase a carbon dioxide (CO2) refill.
With so many kinds of concentrate, distinct flavors of soft drinks can be made. In the era when the systems were most popular, many well-known brands were available for SodaStream in the concentrates – such as Fanta, and Sunkist.
MilkStream, a variation of the SodaStream, and was devloped for creating milkshakes. By combining ice cream, milk and Crusha syrup in a glass, and utilizing an extended wand into the glass, a frothy, delicious milkshake is made.
The first machines made were large, and were sold to the upper classes of London, even to the royal household. There was a range of flavors with odd names, including the famous sarsaparilla introduced in the 1920s. In 1955 the first home carbonation machine was introduced.
The popularity of the SodaStream was high during the 1970s and 1980s in the UK, and presently it’s associated with nostalgia for those periods of time. The advertising jingle in 1970s was, “Get busy with the fizzy”; the slogan was so popular that the company added it to its logo. It was finally dropped in 1996 after 17 years of use.
Although commercially successful, the soft drinks made by these machines were perceived by some to be but a poor version of their commercial counterparts. One of the differences noticed was that in addition to slightly different flavors of the produced drink, the SodaStream machine bubbles are shorter-lived and larger than others. Today this has changed, partly because of Aromhuset flavors for carbonated water, and Sodastream now is the leader in sparkling water.
Today, SodaStream is part of Soda-Club and there are several websites where they can be purchased and all the supplies can be ordered and reordered when needed.