DIY Carbonated Water - unlimited, on tap, nearly free

My wife and I drink a lot of carbonated water. I got tired of buying carbonated water in 12 packs so I made a DIY chilled water carbonation system. Now we drink copious amounts of chilled carbonated tap water with berries, fruit or a splash of juice added. It has cut down on how much beer we drink and ended up saving money on our carbonated water build. Here's how it was built!

Parts list below for the important parts that I purchased. You can browse for cheaper versions of these (especially the continuous soda stream keg lid - I've now seen knock offs on amazon for 1/2 price). I'm not getting any kickbacks for these parts, so buy from wherever you like.

Note that since I posted this video I learned that you've got to keep brass out of the carbonated system because the carbonated water can etch the brass slightly and possibly leach lead or cause the part to fail (over many years of exposure). To that end I've got an all plastic check valve and stainless steel faucet listed. The Faucet really lets water out quickly though, which can decarbonate the water, so I turn the handle to 1/3 strength to avoid the "firehose" effect of turning it on fully.

[jamesbrown]

Very cool. A standard under-counter water filter before the keg would be a nice addition.

[FSblad]

I’ve been trying to think of how to do this for a while and your video just brought it all together. Just bought all the stuff to do this.

[OliverHoerold]

I also use this special keg lid and I love it. Cheers, great video!

[ericness]

Love the idea. I was just looking at how to hook up a larger CO2 tank to my DrinkMate because those refills are way overpriced for CO2. But I didn’t realize there were different grades of CO2 so I’m glad I watched this video to learn that

[drewryvoshefski]

Thank You! Thank you for this video! Following your ideas, I took my R/O line into the basement under the kitchen sink, ran it into a keg in a fridge and back upstairs to be served in a dual spigot next to tap R/O water. I am overjoyed to never have to carry kegs filled at the kitchen sink into the garage and then run back out to the garage 10 times a day to fill up my glass. I live near Corny Keg, and the owner was very nice in encouragement and ideas for getting my system up and running. Rough cost for new system when all was said and done: $500. Having cold fizzy water that requires practically NO further work: priceless!

I was a little on the obsessive side when making sure the fridge in the basement was up high so I would not have to waste a lot of Carb water waiting for it to get cold. As it turns out, I used something like 1/4" tubing from Corny Keg, and it takes no time at all to get to cold. I could have gotten by with not having the top of the fridge at ceiling level. It was a little difficult to work with the 3 tubes coming out of the fridge so close to the ceiling. My tubing goes through the top of the fridge. I was a little wary of drilling holes in the side due to possibly hitting a coolant line.

[insaneshadow]

Great video! I keg homebrew and found Bev-Seal tubing is exceptional at not allowing any plastic flavors to leach into the liquid. I used standard poly tubing and found most of my beer had a weird plastic taste; moving to Bev-Seal got rid of that completly.

[hackish]

Thanks for the detailed description. The only feedback I have for you is to avoid using the brass fittings. Our water tested at 23mg/l for lead and it took a lot of searching to find a couple of fittings like shown in your image as the source. Lead free brass they said, but it still had lead. Replacing them with 304SS brought the level down to 0.2. Something to think about.

[punkdigerati]

I would suggest only using stainless or plastic faucets for seltzer, the carbonic acid can eat away at many metals which will be dissolved into it when you drink it. Same for other soda dispensing or wine, even flat wine with nitrogen. Beer isn't as carbonated/acidic and plated brass fittings can last longer, but still wear through with time.

[MrDiscoseeker]

Yours is the first video I’ve found on this subject, I’m hoping to achieve pure (RO) carbonated water on our narrowboat (uk canal network) and this does look like a very good starting point. Cheers 👍 (the RO is installed by the way, it’s just the carbonation which is the key I’m looking for.

[pleasebitt]

I just stumbled across your channel and it literally is what I want to do as an engineer. I am currently an undergrad and watching your videos give me inspiration and motivation to do projects. Thank you!

[HanoverianEdison]

Such a great video! I'd love a parts list if you have one!! Great job!

[MatyBsAs]

Nice setup and Nice video
There are check valve with quick fittings (JohnGuest type).
Also, the "water in" get into the keg as mist. So it should not take 24/48hs to carbonate.

[SeanQuinn]

Oh jeez, now the devil in me is curious if our fridge dispenser valve/plumbing could hold this pressure 🤔 we have an RO setup, coupling it into some form of carbonation setup has beem on my bucket list, but is probably outside the realm of fitting in our current home 😅 bookmarked this for that future occasion, though 🤘

[lifeinbuyck]

Awesome find! been making my own seltzer water for year but always have to refill my corney keg by hand when it runs out.. and you dont have to deal with the mccann carbonator.

[mmr]

How did you manage to serve the soda water so nicely? 40 psi would be like a fire hose of bubbly water?

[Addarraj]

Any ideas how to improve this to make glass bottles with caps for your carbonated water to store and gift or maybe sell, 🤔, without losing carbonation or eventually flat.

[lifeinbuyck]

what ball lock are you using for the water in?

[zzresolute]

Cool Idea and I like the setup. I found all the parts except I cannot find the Continuous sparkling water keg lid with the special float valve. Do you have a parts list and source you can share?

[UAVfutures]

awesome man. ive got a DIY solution hooked up to my soda stream but your solution on tap is awesome. not you just got to figure out how to auto make the CO2 lol

[lelanddyke]

oh wow. I've looked at a ton of ways to do this, and I've never come across the keg, just a bunch of expensive pumps. not much excuse not to, now