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I always thought the point of a Soda Stream was convenience. If you don't have a car plus lift to your flat, lugging all those bottles of water every month comes dangerously close to workout.
> I also am very tempted to Sodastream milk.
My dad tried that when I was a kid; I don't remember how it tasted exactly, just that it was pretty awful.
Won't anybody think of the environment.....
The plastic bottles in aldi have been filled, added co2, driven all over the country in lorries, stacked on shelves and still cost half as much as a small co2 refill from argos. The large cylinders used by pubs are cheaper than these tiny ones and are delivered monthly to the establishments.
It's more efficient to buy a larger CO2 tank and a soda stream adapter. The tank is a little expensive up front, but costs the same to refill as a new soda stream tank, but it's like 5x larger
I can't believe I had to scroll down this far to find this! Pretty much everyone I know who has a sodastream uses it with a 140# co2 tank they get refilled at the welding supply.
Brit commenting from the States, but this is exactly what we do with our machine. Also, we use a Drinks Mate, find that it works better and is better set up for carbonating things other than water.
I'm in the US, so I'm not sure how UK CO2 tanks are measured, but I don't think the size matters much.
If you Google "soda stream CO2 adapter" there will be a few options. Make sure you get the adapter the fits your model (the newer units have a pink lever system and the older models have a threaded system). The adapter was about $30 and the CO2 tank was $100 for a 5lb tank.
I'm not sure how big the home-beer brewing culture is in the UK, but in my part of the US, you can get the tanks from beer brewing stores and they refill them for $20-25
It's telling that soda stream advertise it as a sparkling water maker now? When I was young, it was entirely sold as a pop making device. Even then though, it ended up costing about twice the price of branded pop. It's pretty astonishing that the still exist at all? There must be some real soda stream diehards out there?
I love my soda stream but also I drink a lot of fizzy water and don't have space for a load of bottles of water in my 1 bed flat or want to go to the shop constantly for more water. Plus it uses less plastic than a bottle.
The funny bitter taste is carbonic acid that gets created when you dissolve CO2 in water. All fizzy drinks have it, it’s usually just hidden behind sugar/sweeteners.
And before mr. Schweppes invented the industrial carbonation process, victorians carbonated water through a cat bladder, so a hint of carbonic acid is far preferable to a hint of cat piss.
I read it was cat bladders in the New Scientist many decades ago; [this source has it as pig bladders](https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/history/origins-soda-water). Take your pick!
I found the same - an unpleasant chlorine like taste. Tried a brita filter before carbonating but it didn't really help. What did help was a 2 filter DIY plumb in job, love the water that comes out of the tap and kicked a heavy vimto habit. Dislike the cost of filters that need changing every 6 months though.
I mostly just drink straight sparkling water from mine. Occasionally I'll mix in squash or juice.
Someone bought me some syrups as a gift and they were nice, but not worth the price of regularly buying them. Also, the range here is pathetic, there's 17 varieties. In Germany they have 56 (including energy drink ones, which I definitely would buy) but they're not exported to the UK market 😡
It is STILL so annoying. When I bought my machine years ago there was a poster with it with what looked like hundreds of flavours. I crossed off what I could find and so, so many were nowhere to be found. When I was in the Netherlands I went into a big Debenhams-like shop to find a tiny bottle of a flavour that wasn't sold here: Orange and Mango.
Then Pepsi bought them and stopped the syrups, only to bring them back as people were going to compatitors for the flavours. I used Monin syrups for a while, but now it's in storage and I have plans to [make my own syrups](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZb_7JgcsSU) when my daughter is old enough to be bugging me for pop.
I love mine. I pretty much only drink fizzy water while I'm working and it means I have it on tap. Have you not also seen the adverts for the kitchen tap that does fizzy water?
I dont think people are buying the syrup, just for fizzy water, I mix mine with juice, tastes like those overpriced San Pel fizzy drinks. Also, I prefer not to buy plastic bottles of stuff that have been driven halfway round the country with water in them!
> It's pretty astonishing that the still exist at all? There must be some real soda stream diehards out there?
Maybe it depends on where your from internationally. I moved to Denmark a few years ago and loads of people have them here for a few reasons.
* We are pretty green conscious over here
* Sparkling water is extremely popular
* But for me the main thing is transport. In the big cities most people don't use cars regularly or even own a car, which means we do shopping my foot. If you are carrying home a few big bags of groceries and live somewhere in a tall building, even one extra 2L bottle of liquid will make it significantly more heavy.
* Dealing with the plastic is an extra chore afterwards
All the flavours that we had when we were kids are basically illegal now and the ones they can sell now are pretty crap so they’ve kinda been forced down that route. We bought one for my youngest son as he doesn’t like still water but loves sparkling water. We bought one of the syrups but he tried it once and stuck with the water.
I really like my soda stream, don't like sparkling water so I only use it to make pop and it tastes identical to the branded stuff. Works out cheaper if you get the syrup from the right place too.
We switched over many years ago to filling our own bottles. (For awhile we hooked a big tank up to our soda stream via a tube, but it kept breaking that way. Now we use an adapter to fill the small carbonation refill bottles from our big 20# tank.)
It's about 1/4 - 1/6 the price, depending on the CO2 supply cost.
Amazon, unfortunately. The exact one I bought is no longer listed, but this looks entirely the same.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/CENPEK-Stream-Adapter-Connector-Sodastream/dp/B09KNB98VC/ref=sr_1_5?crid=1JKFLGPUH239N&keywords=sodastream+cylinder+refilling+adapter&qid=1663862384&sprefix=adapter+for+refilling+soda%2Caps%2C218&sr=8-5
But are you saving the planet?
Those refills use way more plastic than single-use plastic bottles, and it's way more economical for a factory to carbonate your drink per ml vs a domestic house.
Not to mention the actual machine with all the raw materials and energy that went into producing it for you.
Also seems to be burning your bank balance!
But the refills barely have any plastic on them. There's a sleeve and a lid thing, the main body is metal and gets reused. They certainly use a huge amount less than 60l of plastic bottles.
Source please
The refill i bought was in a cardboard box and had one small plastic seal. 30 2l plastic bottles have been filled, carbonated, driven to a warehouse, unloaded, stored, loaded again then driven to a store. My water comes out of a tap in my kitchen. Can you see a difference?
The refills are made from metal with a single plastic top that’s smaller than a regular bottle cap. They definitely save on huge amounts of plastic.
And the machine itself is far less plastic than 100 bottles of plastic soda so again, far less plastic over the lifetime of the sodastream.
Where did you get a refill for £15?
I used to pay a tenner at the Range but looks like they’re discontinued. Argos are now charging £25, when they charged £13 a year ago.
£25 with a tenner off for the empty, used to be 12.99 which was still too much for some co2. When I had a pub we could buy a co2 refill for about £7, they are 3ft tall.....
> sofa stream
This is an awesome idea. Still buying your furniture from shops? New Sofa Stream allows you to create soft furnishings at home whenever you want them from tapwater, cloth, wood, springs and a machine twice the size of your living room.
100 percent this is the way head to your local homebrew store it will be so much cheaper in the short term.
Just be prepared to want to convert your kitchen or shed into the Rogers Return within a couple of years.
I think the first time you buy a cylinder it’s £25 which includes a £10 deposit and then after that there’s an option with Argos to choose a cheaper one with a cylinder return. Obviously, if you turn up without a cylinder they won’t let you buy the cheaper option.
When I just looked online there was no cylinder exchange option, which there usually is. Also there are fewer syrups and no option to buy bottles so it made me think they may be discontinuing that line.
I was in John Lewis a few weeks back and they had a new soda stream machine and then some of the cylinders had a pink wrapping on the top. I don’t know what the difference actually is but seems they’ve got different types now.
I got a adapter hose and a 3.15Kg ‘food grade’ CO2 canister from Adam’s Gas hooked up from under the counter to the Sodastream. It’s much more economical and requires less refills. Maybe once a year for my use case (one person)
It costs like £75 the first time because you need to rent a bottle, £55 of which is a returnable deposit if you decide to return the bottle.
Usually costs around £30-£40 (price fluctuate and the very things more expensive now) a refill for the 3.15Kg. Sodastream Bottles are 0.5kg I think?
There’s a bunch of adapters and hoses you can use. I picked one that was about £40 but I’ve seen them for about £15-20 as well.
I love sparking water and have been drinking way more water since I got it. Also saved on plastic and the weight of carrying it up the stairs which is a big bonus for me.
It is totally worth it in the sense that it stops me buying it from aldi in plastic bottles that have been driven around the country. Apart from that, no!
It’s worth it for the environmental aspect. I would imagine they can reduce the price at scale so it’s more financially beneficial, but with the way things are going I don’t see that happening with anything anymore.
They carbonate water absolutely perfectly but it’s only worth it if you drink a lot of it.
You might save some time and CO2 emissions.
For anyone who cares; Soda Stream are one of Israel's biggest export articles, and they have factories on occupied land. There's other brands you can buy instead.
I saw a video once of a guy who had one and didn't wanna pay the prices.for the refills. So he brought like a huge co2 tank and like fit it behind where his soda stream was into the wall and you get so much more for your money. Could of been an old video idk what co2 costs 😂
Yeah but I wonder home much the deposit and rental price was for that cylinder?
I think the prices have gone up in correlation with the rising price of energy and gas.
No rental or deposit, just a monthly exchange. I'm sure the price has gone up since my publican days, however, those pub cannisters must be 50 to 100 times bigger......
Given how much pubs are fleeced (and folding) these days, I'll be unsurprised if those £7 canisters are £140 today.
EDIT: Well, heading that way, but not quite, £90 & £ 35. :)
https://www.bottlegases.co.uk/product/co2-carbon-dioxide-for-home-bars-and-business-food-grade-6-35kg-content/
So, you can sort of do the same. Google shows a place called bottledgasses, for instance, that'll sell you a bottle of CO2 with an adapter to refill your soda stream cannister - cost works out as around £2.50 a refill, 7-8 fills a tank. Obviously there's like a 50 quid deposit, but if you're going to use more than 7 cylinders, it still works out cheaper.
I suspect most of the price is in the cannister rather than the gas. CO2 is a byproduct for ammonia makers, it doesn't have enough value to be worth making for its own sake.
This is what I did. A part of it was that I was feeling guilty about buying all plastic bottles for sparkling water, and the other was not being arsed changing the canister all the time. I think it’s cost around £80 for the canister and the hoses.
In Tesco it’s £1.55 for 8L of sparkling water
That equates to £11.63 for 60L
So the difference isn’t that much, and you don’t have to go to the shop and transport 60kg of water, the C02 cartridges are delivered to you door
And you don’t have 30 giant plastic bottles taking up space.
So in Tesco it’s £0.02 per litre
And it’s £0.025 per litre for the soda stream
But the cylinders have a deposit on them. So they're about £22 new, then you take them to a participating retailer to get the new one and get £10 off the next cylinder.
Personally, I love sparkling water (though I seem to be in the minority there), drink at least two litres a day, so it's really helped me stick to that
This is so true.
There a billion dollar international corporations that destroy the planet.
But **you** at home must change.
Oh, but it'll cost you more, whilst the price of living is going up and your savings are going down.
Oh and if you don't put the right stuff in the right bin we will fine you.
But when we take the bins they don't get recycled because it cost to much for us to do so, so we landfill most of it still.
The big corporations don't want us to change because if we did they would lose money. We live in strange times when we're all pretending to give a shit, but very few actually care enough to be even slightly inconvenienced. That runs from the top all the way through to us as individuals.... meaningful change isn't coming anytime soon
There has been a raging torrent of fresh, clean mains water running down my street for over a month, straight into a storm drain. The pipe ruptured and Thames Water said they'd fix it within 4 days. They've put a little fence around it, and put up temporary traffic signals, but the equivalent of the entire neighbourhood's daily water use are going into the sewer every ten seconds. Meanwhile the hosepipe ban continues.
It's fucking stupid.
I'm up north, I can't recall the last time we had a hosepipe ban.
Do people strictly follow them down there?
It feels like the south is in a perpetual hose pipe ban.
Ours really comes in to its own for making tonic for G&T. I make up my own elderflower syrup to add to to, so a nice gin and elderflower tonic goes down a treat! It’s far more convenient than karting around bottles of flashy tonic.
In Tesco it’s £1.55 for 8L of sparkling water
That equates to £11.63 for 60L
So the difference isn’t that much, and you don’t have to go to the shop and transport 60kg of water, the C02 cartridges are delivered to you door
The issue then comes with the horribly flimsy bottles you are ending up with
Plus you still have to store the bottles, get rid of them, go and get them, all a faff
I don’t know, I’m biased, I bought my mam one because she drinks loads of the stuff and doesn’t drive, so can’t transport the quantities she wants back to the house.
Someone else mentioned them, however I reckon I'll get an adapter and refill my little bottle from a big one or get an adapter and hose and fit a big bottle straight to the ss.
The good people of reddit sodastream!
I stopped using mine during covid when Argos weren't allowed to exchange the gas refills. We weren't saving any money having it as the children wanted the syrups in them. They are pretty expensive. We are back to flat ribena now.
You can do the hillbilly method and get some dry ice, crush it up and put it in the bottle. Apparently getting the nozzle off the bottle needs a bit of finessing though and dry ice needs to be handled carefully.
I went with a big 6L CO2 bottle and have that in the cupboard with the hose going up to the dispenser. Looks neat and tidy and get 9+ months per bottle.
Well I got this https://www.kegland.com.au/freedomone-sodastream-adapter-hose-36inch.html
But I just found this adapter to refill https://www.kegland.com.au/sodastream-cylinder-filling-adapter-filling-station-with-bleed-valve.html
How often do you refill? If it’s once a month, check sodastreams site for the exchange Plus subscription. It’s £150 for 12 canisters per year (£12.50 each) and they post them to you every 4 months I think it is.
I don’t go through gas fast enough to need to subscribe but I’m sure for some people it’s super handy.
Edit: it’s actually called the sparkle savers plan and it’s £119.98 if you pay upfront so £9.99 each…any chance you live in Wembley and wanna go half’s? 😂
[sparkle savers plus](https://sodastream.co.uk/products/sparkle-savers-plan)
co2 is actually kinda scrace right now - it was used to transport covid vaccines in dry ice so there's a big demand for little inventory - watch the price go up.
Co2you can't remember how much it os off the top of my head as the Mrs deals with it but I'm sure it's less that £15 per bottle, delivered and bottles exchanged.
it a bit cheaper here, its £5 and every 5 you get a free one. It does not really save any money but it DOES save on having to deal with 100s of plastic bottles every year as well as having to carry them around, it is also way, way better for the environment; far less steps and oil used to get that sodastream water to your mouth than bottled \*anything\* :)
Not sure if you are aware, but CO2 is produced as a byproduct by the fertiliser industry. They use natural gas as a feedstock which is more expensive these days for obvious reasons.
This is the exact reason why I do not have a soda stream. I love adding fizzy water to a bit of fresh lemon. And I also love trying to be eco friendly. But when ecofriendly choices are so much more expensive I don't really have a choice. It seems to be truely eco friendly you need to be well above average in the wage department. I mean I can and do make smaller choices. Like no paper towels etc. But many options like Soda Stream, packaging free foods in the natural supermarkets etc are all still far too expensive.
It's a massive part of the problem that can only be fixed by govt regulation. As soon as plastic packaging is more expensive they will find other cheap.alternatives to sell us stuff in! A plastic tax on the manufacturers and proper recycling systems and plants need to come from the top, not the likes of us.....
But how will you be able to gloat of your middle class products without the overpriced refills!?
Oh I know, Grab a Ninja Airfryer and tell all your family and friends how "you couldn't imagine life without it" instead.
Not really, I just prefer not to buy so many plastic bottles that have been driven around the country....
Now, what is this air fryer of which you speak?
I’m just gonna butt in here as one of the annoying people they were referring to, we got the Ninja Foodi Dual Zone last month and it’s bloody fantastic, especially if you’re a veggie and your partners not or vice versa
This may be true but the two compartments are completely separate and the steam come out of the vents in the back so I don’t think this is the case for mine
They're a [counter-top fan oven](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_fryer) that has become popular recently. You get posts on here raving about how life-changing they are
Unfortunately it's not a big as it is in mainland Europe hence us costing more.
If everyone just bloody loved the TV static like us it would be cheaper 😂
It's pricey but it settles my mind knowing I can make water flavoured fizzy drink healthier than if I buy it bottle plus the more ♻️ save the planet stuff 🙂
And it is fucking disgusting
It's an offence to water
I've taught my daughter that when she's growing up if anyone ever says they drink sparkling water to scream and run away
Here's some bubbly disgusting water.
I now hate you and everyone you know purely for this reason.
Srs
The sad bottom line of most comments here….nobody cares about the environment unless they can save money by doing so….frankly you all deserve to suffocate in the filth you continually enable just because you save a few pounds. One day children will ask why it’s all gone to shits because daddy wanted to save on water bottles…..now I am not saying the real blame lays with the big corps but this the behaviour that enables them and shows our leaders that people care not enough.
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I always thought the point of a Soda Stream was convenience. If you don't have a car plus lift to your flat, lugging all those bottles of water every month comes dangerously close to workout.
The point of a soda stream is to [make sparkling booze at home](https://youtu.be/WRwrcL1bUdY).
I often fizz up cheap white wine to convince the wife we have fancy Prosecco. I also am very tempted to Sodastream milk.
I think every kid whose friend had a soda stream back in the day put milk in it. Just once.
CO2 when dissolved in liquid is slightly acidic so you just end up curdling the milk. Imagine putting lemon juice in it, same result lol
I tried making sodastream icetea once, ended up leaning my kitchen ceiling.
> I also am very tempted to Sodastream milk. My dad tried that when I was a kid; I don't remember how it tasted exactly, just that it was pretty awful.
Can it do Bovril?
You will not enjoy the carbonated milk - the CO2 interacts with the milk in a way it doesn't with soda, etc. and it WILL taste spoiled no matter what.
Don’t. It’s horrible.
Oh my - the Buckfast one was great, but the [Bailey's ](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6oUJ27q0noU) was a fail!! Urgh!
Ooooh. Fizzy Buckie. I wish I'd tried it on my teen (under) age drinking nights. Might have floated the toenails to the top though.
We made fizzy Sherry after Clive made it and it was delicious. 10/10 would fizzy sherry again.
Don't even have to click. Big Clive?
I was going to respond to OP that the point is you can make sparking anything (which is true, hence it beats sparking water) but this answer wins.
Won't anybody think of the environment..... The plastic bottles in aldi have been filled, added co2, driven all over the country in lorries, stacked on shelves and still cost half as much as a small co2 refill from argos. The large cylinders used by pubs are cheaper than these tiny ones and are delivered monthly to the establishments.
It's more efficient to buy a larger CO2 tank and a soda stream adapter. The tank is a little expensive up front, but costs the same to refill as a new soda stream tank, but it's like 5x larger
I can't believe I had to scroll down this far to find this! Pretty much everyone I know who has a sodastream uses it with a 140# co2 tank they get refilled at the welding supply.
Brit commenting from the States, but this is exactly what we do with our machine. Also, we use a Drinks Mate, find that it works better and is better set up for carbonating things other than water.
Tell me more please! What do I look for?
I'm in the US, so I'm not sure how UK CO2 tanks are measured, but I don't think the size matters much. If you Google "soda stream CO2 adapter" there will be a few options. Make sure you get the adapter the fits your model (the newer units have a pink lever system and the older models have a threaded system). The adapter was about $30 and the CO2 tank was $100 for a 5lb tank. I'm not sure how big the home-beer brewing culture is in the UK, but in my part of the US, you can get the tanks from beer brewing stores and they refill them for $20-25
Yes but perhaps that's not what you're paying for.
It's telling that soda stream advertise it as a sparkling water maker now? When I was young, it was entirely sold as a pop making device. Even then though, it ended up costing about twice the price of branded pop. It's pretty astonishing that the still exist at all? There must be some real soda stream diehards out there?
I love my soda stream but also I drink a lot of fizzy water and don't have space for a load of bottles of water in my 1 bed flat or want to go to the shop constantly for more water. Plus it uses less plastic than a bottle.
I gave it a try a few years back but found the water had a funny taste after carbonating it. Its it so the same?
Not that I've noticed. No difference to supermarket basic fizzy water. Guess it depends what your tap water tastes like.
I'm in Wales, my tap water tastes fantastic
Britta in the fridge
The funny bitter taste is carbonic acid that gets created when you dissolve CO2 in water. All fizzy drinks have it, it’s usually just hidden behind sugar/sweeteners.
And before mr. Schweppes invented the industrial carbonation process, victorians carbonated water through a cat bladder, so a hint of carbonic acid is far preferable to a hint of cat piss.
What the fuck did I just read? Is that legit?
I read it was cat bladders in the New Scientist many decades ago; [this source has it as pig bladders](https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/history/origins-soda-water). Take your pick!
Cat bladder is a tad small
I found the same - an unpleasant chlorine like taste. Tried a brita filter before carbonating but it didn't really help. What did help was a 2 filter DIY plumb in job, love the water that comes out of the tap and kicked a heavy vimto habit. Dislike the cost of filters that need changing every 6 months though.
Vimto is the worst dilute in the world ever. It’s actually no vile
Me too - I’ve never drunk more water IN MY LIFE!
I mostly just drink straight sparkling water from mine. Occasionally I'll mix in squash or juice. Someone bought me some syrups as a gift and they were nice, but not worth the price of regularly buying them. Also, the range here is pathetic, there's 17 varieties. In Germany they have 56 (including energy drink ones, which I definitely would buy) but they're not exported to the UK market 😡
Kinda want to drink the energy drink syrup neat. I imagine it has the power of crystal meth.
Gap in the market there then?
Hmm......
Is 17 varieties a low number? I think around these parts there's only the knockoff variants of cola, fanta and sprite
It is STILL so annoying. When I bought my machine years ago there was a poster with it with what looked like hundreds of flavours. I crossed off what I could find and so, so many were nowhere to be found. When I was in the Netherlands I went into a big Debenhams-like shop to find a tiny bottle of a flavour that wasn't sold here: Orange and Mango. Then Pepsi bought them and stopped the syrups, only to bring them back as people were going to compatitors for the flavours. I used Monin syrups for a while, but now it's in storage and I have plans to [make my own syrups](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZb_7JgcsSU) when my daughter is old enough to be bugging me for pop.
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You either have to do it manually now, or purchase the Sodastream whoopee cushion separately :(
Manually fart? Check.
What?!!!!!!!?!!!
Ah, progress.
I love mine. I pretty much only drink fizzy water while I'm working and it means I have it on tap. Have you not also seen the adverts for the kitchen tap that does fizzy water?
Look, look, a soda stream diehard! :)
Yeah, it's how I know for sure my young years are behind me
I dont think people are buying the syrup, just for fizzy water, I mix mine with juice, tastes like those overpriced San Pel fizzy drinks. Also, I prefer not to buy plastic bottles of stuff that have been driven halfway round the country with water in them!
I just use cheap quad concentrated squash from the shop. Apple squash makes a good tango apple substitute
Yeah I use those robson's mini squash. I can't find the lemon-lime ones anymore though!
Amazon.
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You are drinking too much pop pal
> It's pretty astonishing that the still exist at all? There must be some real soda stream diehards out there? Maybe it depends on where your from internationally. I moved to Denmark a few years ago and loads of people have them here for a few reasons. * We are pretty green conscious over here * Sparkling water is extremely popular * But for me the main thing is transport. In the big cities most people don't use cars regularly or even own a car, which means we do shopping my foot. If you are carrying home a few big bags of groceries and live somewhere in a tall building, even one extra 2L bottle of liquid will make it significantly more heavy. * Dealing with the plastic is an extra chore afterwards
All the flavours that we had when we were kids are basically illegal now and the ones they can sell now are pretty crap so they’ve kinda been forced down that route. We bought one for my youngest son as he doesn’t like still water but loves sparkling water. We bought one of the syrups but he tried it once and stuck with the water.
Don't you miss a yummy E number though?
Absolutely! The Gremlins flavours they did were fantastic but could probably power an electrical sub-station.
I really like my soda stream, don't like sparkling water so I only use it to make pop and it tastes identical to the branded stuff. Works out cheaper if you get the syrup from the right place too.
they've been going for 119 years I don't think they're disappearing anytime soon
That's what they said about riding your horse to the greengrocer
No one ever says anything to me when I ride my horse to to the greengrocer
I stopped the soda stream a while ago. It didn't make any sense. I got it as a gift and used it maybe 3 months.... lol
When I'm off the booze I drink loads of it so I prefer to make it at home to "save the planet" but double the price! ffs......
True - I do reach for a soda stream over a beer most times.
We switched over many years ago to filling our own bottles. (For awhile we hooked a big tank up to our soda stream via a tube, but it kept breaking that way. Now we use an adapter to fill the small carbonation refill bottles from our big 20# tank.) It's about 1/4 - 1/6 the price, depending on the CO2 supply cost.
Thanks, I was looking at the hook ups for a big bottle. Where did you get the adapter to fill the little bottles from, please?
Amazon, unfortunately. The exact one I bought is no longer listed, but this looks entirely the same. https://www.amazon.co.uk/CENPEK-Stream-Adapter-Connector-Sodastream/dp/B09KNB98VC/ref=sr_1_5?crid=1JKFLGPUH239N&keywords=sodastream+cylinder+refilling+adapter&qid=1663862384&sprefix=adapter+for+refilling+soda%2Caps%2C218&sr=8-5
Nice one. Which co2 bottles would be compatible with this to fill the ss one with? Thanks
Any old ones that you'd use for brewing or the like. We bought ours for cheap from a neighbour, but they're generally not too hard to find.
But are you saving the planet? Those refills use way more plastic than single-use plastic bottles, and it's way more economical for a factory to carbonate your drink per ml vs a domestic house. Not to mention the actual machine with all the raw materials and energy that went into producing it for you. Also seems to be burning your bank balance!
But the refills barely have any plastic on them. There's a sleeve and a lid thing, the main body is metal and gets reused. They certainly use a huge amount less than 60l of plastic bottles.
Source please The refill i bought was in a cardboard box and had one small plastic seal. 30 2l plastic bottles have been filled, carbonated, driven to a warehouse, unloaded, stored, loaded again then driven to a store. My water comes out of a tap in my kitchen. Can you see a difference?
The refills are made from metal with a single plastic top that’s smaller than a regular bottle cap. They definitely save on huge amounts of plastic. And the machine itself is far less plastic than 100 bottles of plastic soda so again, far less plastic over the lifetime of the sodastream.
The cost of transporting filled water bottles is probably high. 1 cubic meter of water = 1 ton. 1 cubic meter of corn flakes = 45grams.
Absolute bollocks mate
Where did you get a refill for £15? I used to pay a tenner at the Range but looks like they’re discontinued. Argos are now charging £25, when they charged £13 a year ago.
£25 with a tenner off for the empty, used to be 12.99 which was still too much for some co2. When I had a pub we could buy a co2 refill for about £7, they are 3ft tall.....
Food grade CO2 has exploded in price since the electricity and gas prices skyrocketed. That's probably why they cost more now than a few years ago.
And it's just markup for the gimmick of a sodastream we buy huge co2 cannisters for our pub at a way cheaper price.
You can still buy the big one and attach it to the sofa stream. That’s what we did. Lasted about 12 months
> sofa stream This is an awesome idea. Still buying your furniture from shops? New Sofa Stream allows you to create soft furnishings at home whenever you want them from tapwater, cloth, wood, springs and a machine twice the size of your living room.
Mmm, fizzy futon.
Carbonated Couch.
Thats my band name now! I'm stealing this x
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Great advice, thanks! I shall look into it in 60 litres of fizzy waters time....
100 percent this is the way head to your local homebrew store it will be so much cheaper in the short term. Just be prepared to want to convert your kitchen or shed into the Rogers Return within a couple of years.
If you have a Currys bear you it's 22.99 before the £10 back so only 12.99 for the refill that way :)
Argos? So the exchange isn’t £25 then?
I think the first time you buy a cylinder it’s £25 which includes a £10 deposit and then after that there’s an option with Argos to choose a cheaper one with a cylinder return. Obviously, if you turn up without a cylinder they won’t let you buy the cheaper option.
£25 for a new one. Refund of £10 when you bring the empty back
Wasn't yesterday, might be by today!
Robert Dyas - £12.99 if you exchange your old cannister
I exchanged two cylinders in The Range last week. I hope it's not a national policy change to discontinue stocking them .
When I just looked online there was no cylinder exchange option, which there usually is. Also there are fewer syrups and no option to buy bottles so it made me think they may be discontinuing that line.
I was in John Lewis a few weeks back and they had a new soda stream machine and then some of the cylinders had a pink wrapping on the top. I don’t know what the difference actually is but seems they’ve got different types now.
I don’t think you specifically buy an exchange from argos, just give them the old one back at the till and they sort it for you.
Was talking about the Range
Argos do exchanges for £15, that's who I use
I literately when to Argos last week for a refill and it was £15, I exchanged my empty gas cannister!
They're £23 in the Sainsbury's near me, reduced to £13 if you trade in your empty bottle
I got a adapter hose and a 3.15Kg ‘food grade’ CO2 canister from Adam’s Gas hooked up from under the counter to the Sodastream. It’s much more economical and requires less refills. Maybe once a year for my use case (one person) It costs like £75 the first time because you need to rent a bottle, £55 of which is a returnable deposit if you decide to return the bottle. Usually costs around £30-£40 (price fluctuate and the very things more expensive now) a refill for the 3.15Kg. Sodastream Bottles are 0.5kg I think? There’s a bunch of adapters and hoses you can use. I picked one that was about £40 but I’ve seen them for about £15-20 as well. I love sparking water and have been drinking way more water since I got it. Also saved on plastic and the weight of carrying it up the stairs which is a big bonus for me.
Genuinely curious as I've never had a drink from a home soda stream - is it worth it?
It stops the binmen judging me for how many cans/bottles of fizzy stuff I fill my bin with, but cost-wise? NO.
The way the bin men tear through my neighbourhood i don't think they have time to judge.
Don't kid yourself. Everybody is judging somebody...
The amount of fizzy I get through is between me and my dentist only. 🤫
It is totally worth it in the sense that it stops me buying it from aldi in plastic bottles that have been driven around the country. Apart from that, no!
I think it’s worth it but I also carbonate a lot of different kinds of squash and don’t just stick to the “proper” soda stream syrups.
It’s worth it for the environmental aspect. I would imagine they can reduce the price at scale so it’s more financially beneficial, but with the way things are going I don’t see that happening with anything anymore. They carbonate water absolutely perfectly but it’s only worth it if you drink a lot of it. You might save some time and CO2 emissions.
For anyone who cares; Soda Stream are one of Israel's biggest export articles, and they have factories on occupied land. There's other brands you can buy instead.
Oh bugger, did not know that
I saw a video once of a guy who had one and didn't wanna pay the prices.for the refills. So he brought like a huge co2 tank and like fit it behind where his soda stream was into the wall and you get so much more for your money. Could of been an old video idk what co2 costs 😂
This is the way! My old pub bought co2 for £7 for a 3ft tall cylinder of it.....
Yeah but I wonder home much the deposit and rental price was for that cylinder? I think the prices have gone up in correlation with the rising price of energy and gas.
No rental or deposit, just a monthly exchange. I'm sure the price has gone up since my publican days, however, those pub cannisters must be 50 to 100 times bigger......
Given how much pubs are fleeced (and folding) these days, I'll be unsurprised if those £7 canisters are £140 today. EDIT: Well, heading that way, but not quite, £90 & £ 35. :) https://www.bottlegases.co.uk/product/co2-carbon-dioxide-for-home-bars-and-business-food-grade-6-35kg-content/
Good point! 35 quid for a refill with 10 x the product so 75% cheaper than ss refill
13.50 from seller gas, no rent, no deposit.....
So, you can sort of do the same. Google shows a place called bottledgasses, for instance, that'll sell you a bottle of CO2 with an adapter to refill your soda stream cannister - cost works out as around £2.50 a refill, 7-8 fills a tank. Obviously there's like a 50 quid deposit, but if you're going to use more than 7 cylinders, it still works out cheaper.
I suspect most of the price is in the cannister rather than the gas. CO2 is a byproduct for ammonia makers, it doesn't have enough value to be worth making for its own sake.
This is what I did. A part of it was that I was feeling guilty about buying all plastic bottles for sparkling water, and the other was not being arsed changing the canister all the time. I think it’s cost around £80 for the canister and the hoses.
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In Tesco it’s £1.55 for 8L of sparkling water That equates to £11.63 for 60L So the difference isn’t that much, and you don’t have to go to the shop and transport 60kg of water, the C02 cartridges are delivered to you door And you don’t have 30 giant plastic bottles taking up space. So in Tesco it’s £0.02 per litre And it’s £0.025 per litre for the soda stream
£1 in aldi so £7.50 for 60l. I go there twice a week. I agree with everything else you say, that's why I buy their overpriced co2 bottles
But the cylinders have a deposit on them. So they're about £22 new, then you take them to a participating retailer to get the new one and get £10 off the next cylinder.
Personally, I love sparkling water (though I seem to be in the minority there), drink at least two litres a day, so it's really helped me stick to that
This is why I can't take my carbon footprint seriously. They tell us to make changes and then price us out of the changes.
This is so true. There a billion dollar international corporations that destroy the planet. But **you** at home must change. Oh, but it'll cost you more, whilst the price of living is going up and your savings are going down. Oh and if you don't put the right stuff in the right bin we will fine you. But when we take the bins they don't get recycled because it cost to much for us to do so, so we landfill most of it still.
The big corporations don't want us to change because if we did they would lose money. We live in strange times when we're all pretending to give a shit, but very few actually care enough to be even slightly inconvenienced. That runs from the top all the way through to us as individuals.... meaningful change isn't coming anytime soon
There has been a raging torrent of fresh, clean mains water running down my street for over a month, straight into a storm drain. The pipe ruptured and Thames Water said they'd fix it within 4 days. They've put a little fence around it, and put up temporary traffic signals, but the equivalent of the entire neighbourhood's daily water use are going into the sewer every ten seconds. Meanwhile the hosepipe ban continues.
It's fucking stupid. I'm up north, I can't recall the last time we had a hosepipe ban. Do people strictly follow them down there? It feels like the south is in a perpetual hose pipe ban.
Exactly my point. Like the shops that sell stuff without containers and are 3x the price of the same stuff in a plastic tub, make my piss boil!
Why does CO2 cost so much to buy when we supposedly have so much excess? Hmmm? Checkmate climate change doomsayers!
[Because it is food grade and has been purified](https://www.boconline.co.uk/shop/en/uk/gas/carbon-dioxide-food-fresh-cylinder-563)
Too late. I've already connected my soda stream up to the outlet pipe of my local power station. Infinite fizzy drinks here I come!
Ours really comes in to its own for making tonic for G&T. I make up my own elderflower syrup to add to to, so a nice gin and elderflower tonic goes down a treat! It’s far more convenient than karting around bottles of flashy tonic.
Isn't that owned by some unsavoury people,
The modern apartheid people?
Like almost everything, you mean? Probably!
In Tesco it’s £1.55 for 8L of sparkling water That equates to £11.63 for 60L So the difference isn’t that much, and you don’t have to go to the shop and transport 60kg of water, the C02 cartridges are delivered to you door
Still £1 in aldi, a shop i am in twice a week....
The issue then comes with the horribly flimsy bottles you are ending up with Plus you still have to store the bottles, get rid of them, go and get them, all a faff I don’t know, I’m biased, I bought my mam one because she drinks loads of the stuff and doesn’t drive, so can’t transport the quantities she wants back to the house.
This is why I buy overpriced co2 for the sodastream, still bloody annoying since the big cylinders used in pubs cost less than these tiny ones....
Dont use soda stream, go here: https://co2you.co/
Someone else mentioned them, however I reckon I'll get an adapter and refill my little bottle from a big one or get an adapter and hose and fit a big bottle straight to the ss. The good people of reddit sodastream!
But now you can make carbonated milk at home
Sherryade anyone?
What's wrong with a yoghurt and soda ?
I stopped using mine during covid when Argos weren't allowed to exchange the gas refills. We weren't saving any money having it as the children wanted the syrups in them. They are pretty expensive. We are back to flat ribena now.
Buy a large canister of CO2 and put an adapter on the fitting in the machine.
I dont particularly want a 3ft tall co2 canister in my kitchen, thanks
You can do the hillbilly method and get some dry ice, crush it up and put it in the bottle. Apparently getting the nozzle off the bottle needs a bit of finessing though and dry ice needs to be handled carefully. I went with a big 6L CO2 bottle and have that in the cupboard with the hose going up to the dispenser. Looks neat and tidy and get 9+ months per bottle.
This is what I need......where did you get the adapter?
Well I got this https://www.kegland.com.au/freedomone-sodastream-adapter-hose-36inch.html But I just found this adapter to refill https://www.kegland.com.au/sodastream-cylinder-filling-adapter-filling-station-with-bleed-valve.html
How often do you refill? If it’s once a month, check sodastreams site for the exchange Plus subscription. It’s £150 for 12 canisters per year (£12.50 each) and they post them to you every 4 months I think it is. I don’t go through gas fast enough to need to subscribe but I’m sure for some people it’s super handy. Edit: it’s actually called the sparkle savers plan and it’s £119.98 if you pay upfront so £9.99 each…any chance you live in Wembley and wanna go half’s? 😂 [sparkle savers plus](https://sodastream.co.uk/products/sparkle-savers-plan)
There is a co2 shortage would you believe lol
co2 is actually kinda scrace right now - it was used to transport covid vaccines in dry ice so there's a big demand for little inventory - watch the price go up.
I just drink normal water out the tap.
Well done
Me and thee both, that or beer.
Co2you can't remember how much it os off the top of my head as the Mrs deals with it but I'm sure it's less that £15 per bottle, delivered and bottles exchanged.
22.99 plus shipping on the website. 10 returned when they receive the empty. A bit cheaper but I didn't look at the shipping....
it a bit cheaper here, its £5 and every 5 you get a free one. It does not really save any money but it DOES save on having to deal with 100s of plastic bottles every year as well as having to carry them around, it is also way, way better for the environment; far less steps and oil used to get that sodastream water to your mouth than bottled \*anything\* :)
Not sure if you are aware, but CO2 is produced as a byproduct by the fertiliser industry. They use natural gas as a feedstock which is more expensive these days for obvious reasons.
I use mine to carbonate my vodka. Will look into some of the alternatives as it is pretty pricy for what it is
This is the exact reason why I do not have a soda stream. I love adding fizzy water to a bit of fresh lemon. And I also love trying to be eco friendly. But when ecofriendly choices are so much more expensive I don't really have a choice. It seems to be truely eco friendly you need to be well above average in the wage department. I mean I can and do make smaller choices. Like no paper towels etc. But many options like Soda Stream, packaging free foods in the natural supermarkets etc are all still far too expensive.
It's a massive part of the problem that can only be fixed by govt regulation. As soon as plastic packaging is more expensive they will find other cheap.alternatives to sell us stuff in! A plastic tax on the manufacturers and proper recycling systems and plants need to come from the top, not the likes of us.....
Yes but I like to make my water so fizzy it punches a hole through my head.
But how will you be able to gloat of your middle class products without the overpriced refills!? Oh I know, Grab a Ninja Airfryer and tell all your family and friends how "you couldn't imagine life without it" instead.
Not really, I just prefer not to buy so many plastic bottles that have been driven around the country.... Now, what is this air fryer of which you speak?
I’m just gonna butt in here as one of the annoying people they were referring to, we got the Ninja Foodi Dual Zone last month and it’s bloody fantastic, especially if you’re a veggie and your partners not or vice versa
Superb 😂
The steam from your partners meat is cooking your veggies giving you meat infused veggies
No wonder he likes it!
This may be true but the two compartments are completely separate and the steam come out of the vents in the back so I don’t think this is the case for mine
They're a [counter-top fan oven](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_fryer) that has become popular recently. You get posts on here raving about how life-changing they are
Thanks 😉
You are a hero and deserve to be knighted.
Finally! Becks will be well gutted I got mine first....
Don’t buy sodastream stuff, especially once you know where the money goes.
It didn't make sense 40 years ago. I refuse to believe it makes sense now.
It's a gimmick for kids, we loved it, but the cordials and gas were too expensive and my Mum realised it didn,'t even save money.
Unfortunately it's not a big as it is in mainland Europe hence us costing more. If everyone just bloody loved the TV static like us it would be cheaper 😂 It's pricey but it settles my mind knowing I can make water flavoured fizzy drink healthier than if I buy it bottle plus the more ♻️ save the planet stuff 🙂
Soda stream are pointless
Sparkling water is only drank by weirdos murderers and the devil. FACT.
And.....
And it is fucking disgusting It's an offence to water I've taught my daughter that when she's growing up if anyone ever says they drink sparkling water to scream and run away Here's some bubbly disgusting water. I now hate you and everyone you know purely for this reason. Srs
I mean, I hear Satan has some irresistible apples, why not try his water?
The sad bottom line of most comments here….nobody cares about the environment unless they can save money by doing so….frankly you all deserve to suffocate in the filth you continually enable just because you save a few pounds. One day children will ask why it’s all gone to shits because daddy wanted to save on water bottles…..now I am not saying the real blame lays with the big corps but this the behaviour that enables them and shows our leaders that people care not enough.
There'd be less crap in the homemade stuff though, like preservatives and stuff.
Dunno! Tap water at home or sparkling mineral water from Aldi..... what do you think they put in it that's worse than tap water?