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We reviewed our selection and tested nine new soda brands. We now recommend the Drinkmate OmniFizz as our top choice.
For fizz lovers, there’s nothing better than a refreshing glass of soda. Home soda makers offer a potentially more economical and environmentally friendly alternative to store-bought soda. It also allows you to be creative with your carbonated drinks and ensures you get soda at the touch of a button. Of the 26 soda makers we’ve tested over the years, Drinkmate OmniFizz stands out for its great soda, easy carbonation process, and ability to do more than just carbonate water.
A good soda maker injects carbon dioxide at high pressure, producing a smooth soda solution without a slight fizz or sourness.
Different drinks and drinkers require different degrees of effervescence, and our selection lets you decide how effervescent you want.
Soda isn’t the only carbonated drink you can make at home. We were looking for a car that would gas anything.
The Drinkmate OmniFizz produces lively, fizzy, delicious sodas and carbonated non-carbonated drinks better than any machine we’ve tested. The kit includes Drinkmate carbon dioxide cylinders, which you can exchange through the mailing program.
If you don’t want to participate in the mail-in canister replacement program, be sure to purchase the soda dispenser separately and not as part of the CO2 package. You can then purchase and replace compatible cylinders from the SodaStream store.
In our tests, the Drinkmate OmniFizz did a great job of consistently carbonating water, juice, and wine in a way that no other soda maker we tested could. Sparkling, husky, satisfying and long lasting in both bottle and glass, OmniFizz Sparkling Water is one of our favorites. Offering a simple user interface, customizable soda levels, and amazing results with a variety of liquids, OmniFizz is the best soda maker we’ve found. This model will work with any spin-on CO2 bottle, not just the Drinkmate bottle, so you can easily find and replace bottles in person or online.
Whether you just want to carbonate water or are a big fan of SodaStream, Art’s retro design, easy-to-insert air tank, and high quality carbonated drinks make it a great choice.
The SodaStream Art is the best SodaStream model we’ve tested, producing a reasonably carbonated soda with a pleasant bubbling tingle. The Art uses SodaStream’s quick-release CO2 canisters, so it’s a great option if you want to avoid the repetitive wrist movement of screwing in the CO2 canisters we recommend to other countertop soda makers. With Art, you simply place the cylinder on the back of the machine, then lower the pink plastic lever to lock the cylinder in place. Artistic retro styling, including sleek metal trim and a large lever instead of buttons, gives the car a vintage soda store vibe. In addition, SodaStream CO2 cylinders are the easiest to buy and exchange at a store (rather than mail order); keep in mind that Art only works with SodaStream quick-release bottles, not the more versatile screw-on bottles available in several brands of bottles.
The machine is sleek and inviting, and the sparkling water it produces works well, though assembly can be labor intensive and the bubbles lack the premium staying power.
At this price point, the Philips GoZero Sparkling Water Maker is a surprisingly elegant looking machine that makes richly flavored sparkling water. While the soda tasted good and the bubbles were alive in our tests, it faded faster than the sodas from the more expensive desktop soda machines we’ve tried, going from crackling to fizzing after about five minutes. While this Philips soda machine looks sleek and unfussy, its ergonomics aren’t perfect: you’ll have to turn your bottle and carbon dioxide tank at awkward angles. If you don’t already have CO2 tanks, you’ll need to buy them separately, so be sure to factor in the extra cost when comparing prices: Cylinders cost around $30, and if you have empty ones, they’re cheaper on closer inspection. up to 15 dollars. Take advantage of discounts.
We’ve tested the best portable soda makers that produce a pleasantly fizzy drink with a slight twist but not particularly long lasting.
OTE Portable Soda Maker is the best portable soda maker we’ve ever tested. If you have a special purpose for your portable soda dispenser, such as wanting to keep something on the bar cart or on your desk, then the OTE soda dispenser is the perfect choice for you. Building other manual soda machines has been a nightmare for us, leaking during use and producing soda at best, while the OTE model makes a great soda in just a few steps. Water: Screw on sealed inner lid and spout mechanism. , put into the 8 gram CO2 charger, screw on the outer cap, and the machine quickly carbonates the contents of the bottle. At first, the soda from the OTE machine was as tasty and fizzy as our favorite soda on the table. However, it doesn’t last long, taking on the characteristic sour taste of non-alcoholic soda after about 10 minutes, so if you choose this model, be sure to drink your soda right after it’s made.
The Drinkmate OmniFizz produces lively, fizzy, delicious sodas and carbonated non-carbonated drinks better than any machine we’ve tested. The kit includes Drinkmate carbon dioxide cylinders, which you can exchange through the mailing program.
If you don’t want to participate in the mail-in canister replacement program, be sure to purchase the soda dispenser separately and not as part of the CO2 package. You can then purchase and replace compatible cylinders from the SodaStream store.
Whether you just want to carbonate water or are a big fan of SodaStream, Art’s retro design, easy-to-insert air tank, and high quality carbonated drinks make it a great choice.
The machine is sleek and inviting, and the sparkling water it produces works well, though assembly can be labor intensive and the bubbles lack the premium staying power.
We’ve tested the best portable soda makers that produce a pleasantly fizzy drink with a slight twist but not particularly long lasting.
This guide is based on years of testing and research by soda makers, drawing on the knowledge of experts including water sommelier Martin Riese. Emma Christensen, Deputy CEO of Simply Recipes and author of Real Beer: How to Make Fermented Cider, Beer, Wine, Sake, Soda, Mead, Kefir, and Kombucha at Home; Gavin Sachs, professor of food science at Cornell University.
The latest update to this guide was provided by Mace Dent Johnson, staff writer for the Wirecutter kitchen team, who loves soda and has an opinion on which grocery store sells the best regular soda, opinion, and has made and tested so much soda for it. . The guides, they had to rest for a week. But only for a week.
We’ve polled all the soda brands widely available on the internet, and in our latest update, we’ve tested a dozen of the most popular and up-and-coming models.
If you love sparkling water and drink it regularly, homemade sparkling water can be a more economical, environmentally friendly, and more convenient alternative to buying soda or sparkling water in cans, boxes, or bottles. It can also be more fun by giving you the freedom to play with different bubble options.
First, let’s talk about cost. Depending on how you buy your soda, a liter of soda can cost anywhere from 80 cents to $2. Both SodaStream and Soda Sense promise that their CO2 tanks (about $15-20 each if you have empty replacement tanks, or about $30 each if you buy and don’t replace them) can carbonate 60 liters sparkling water, which reduces gas costs to as little as 25 cents per litre. This Consumer Reports tool shows that buying a soda machine will pay off compared to the amount of packaged soda you normally drink. There are several ways to self-fill CO2 tanks at home, such as the dry ice method, but they can be quite difficult, and there are more risks than you would like when working with compressed gases or concentrated chemicals.
In addition to the potential savings, a soda machine can also allow you to be more self-sufficient when it comes to drinking carbonated drinks. If you like carbonated drinks, you were probably disappointed when you opened the refrigerator and found yourself emptying the last can of your drink. Having a soda machine at home means you can always have your soda on hand (assuming you have a spare carbon dioxide bottle) and saves you the hassle of lugging your soda home from the store. Some people find that having a soda machine at home helps them drink more water and cut down on sugary sodas or alcohol.
Homemade Soda Maker also allows you to be more creative as it provides soda drinkers and bartenders with a constant source of personalized sparkling drinks. Our top pick, the Drinkmate OmniFizz, isn’t limited to water – it can carbonate any drink you pour it into. Maybe you want to add grapefruit juice to your palomas for gassing, or make a fizzy mix for margaritas, or add a splash of soda to the diluted apple juice you give your kids.
To maintain the process of making soda at home, you need to have a CO2 bottle on hand. Selling empty bottles at a local shop seems to be the easiest and cheapest way. SodaStream bottles are readily available in stores, and the standard screw-on barrel is compatible with any brand of soda maker using a 60-liter bottle (with the exception of some SodaStream models, which use the company’s proprietary quick-release bottles). However, if you don’t have a store offering a trade-in program near you, SodaStream, Soda Sense, and Drinkmate offer a mail-order tank exchange program where you send in empty tanks and receive full ones (although they can be a bit more expensive). more expensive than in person). If you want to mix and match cylinder brands and machine brands, be sure to buy the soda dispenser separately rather than deal with cylinders from the same company as the soda dispenser.
For most people, we recommend tabletop soda. Instead of disposable 8 gram CO2 chargers, the cars use 60 liter CO2 bottles that can carbonate many liters of sparkling water before they run out. We have found that our desktop soda machines are more stable in producing great tasting, well effervescent sparkling water. You can keep a manual soda dispenser on the bar cart or take it with you to the gym or on a long trip, or you can leave a manual soda dispenser on your desk to make your office water cooler even more exciting. . But we think most people are likely to get the most out of a full-sized tabletop soda.
If you want to drink at home soda that’s as good or better than store-bought soda, we recommend using an additional tool—a water filter—and making sure the water is cold before it gets carbonated. Think about these extra costs and whether you’re willing to incorporate these extra steps into your drinking habits.
If you’re unsure, a great way to try a soda machine is to find a used one. In our experience, we’ve often seen soda makers show up among people who weren’t buying anything, or randomly pile up on sidewalks.
For the 2023 update of this guide, we tested nine new soda dispensers and retested three models we’ve recommended in the past. Most of the soda machines in this test group were table top soda machines using 60 liter CO2 bottles for carbonation. We also tested a portable soda maker that uses an 8 gram CO2 charger and a soda maker that uses sodium bicarbonate and citric acid packs. When testing, we focus on the following criteria:
Powerful Bubbles, Pure Taste: We needed a soda maker that consistently produced sparkling water with rich, lively, long lasting bubbles and minimal acidity. Most home soda makers work by injecting carbon dioxide into water at high pressure, creating an effervescent solution of carbonic acid and water. Carbonation gives carbonated water a slightly sour taste; when the soda is not carbonated effectively or diluted with water, the flavor becomes more prominent.
We found that a desktop soda maker that uses a 60 liter CO2 can usually produces the purest flavor and strongest bubbles. In line with our test results in previous years, our latest round of soda makers used sodium bicarbonate and citric acid to produce a milder acidic soda. In our testing of soda siphons (hand-held soda makers that use an 8 gram CO2 charger), we found that most of them couldn’t make evenly flavored soda pops.
Build Quality: We were looking for a solid, attractive machine that could be put on the counter and that didn’t wobble or tip over during use. We weeded out the machines that had issues with spitting and leaking and recorded the ones that were particularly loud.
Less demand on arm strength and dexterity: Carbonated beverage producers may require a range of tedious hand movements, including screwing or locking CO2 canisters and water bottles, pressing and holding fragile plastic buttons, and unscrewing tight-fitting caps. No carbonated beverage machine is perfectly usable, but in our testing we noted the movement required to operate each and excluded any machines that were extremely difficult to use.
Versatility: We are looking for machines that offer a range of carbonation levels that are easy to adjust and satisfy every level. For the home bartender or anyone who wants to add syrups and sweeteners to their soda, maximum carbonation ensures that the bubbles stay in place in homemade sodas or smoothies. We also love machines that can not only carbonate water, but effortlessly produce premium sodas and other sodas.
We started the test by assembling each soda machine and installing the CO2 tank, noting the necessary steps and hand movements, and evaluating each machine for size, strength, and aesthetics.
We use chilled bottled spring water chilled to 40 degrees Fahrenheit. We carbonated the water in each soda machine and then visually assessed the bubbles in the bottles and glasses. We also tasted sparkling water, noting flavor, bubble characteristics, and bubble size. We searched for bubble life and were back to soda after five and ten minutes. For soda machines that can carbonate drinks other than water, we carbonated sweet apple juice and exceptionally dry white wine to see if the machine leaked or leaked when carbonating liquids with different solutes and viscosities. After we narrowed down our favorite machines, we made a bottle of sparkling water with each of the top contenders and compared them in a hidden-brand taste test with three members of the Wirecutter kitchen team.
The Drinkmate OmniFizz produces lively, fizzy, delicious sodas and carbonated non-carbonated drinks better than any machine we’ve tested. The kit includes Drinkmate carbon dioxide cylinders, which you can exchange through the mailing program.
If you don’t want to participate in the mail-in canister replacement program, be sure to purchase the soda dispenser separately and not as part of the CO2 package. You can then purchase and replace compatible cylinders from the SodaStream store.
The Drinkmate OmniFizz produces consistently satisfying sodas, and you can easily increase (or decrease) the flavor level to create everything from light fizz to big bubbles. OmniFizz can also carbonate non-aqueous drinks like water does, which is better than any other carbonated beverage manufacturer with similar capabilities. In contrast, our other options can only carbonate water.
We carbonate sweet apple juice and dry white wine in OmniFizz for a delicious finish with minimal leakage. Every other soda manufacturer we tested advertised their ability to carbonate non-aqueous liquids, resulting in profuse leakage, spitting, and spitting. If you carbonate anything other than water in a SodaStream model, you will void your warranty and risk damaging your machine and making a mess.
Note that some foam is unavoidable when carbonating non-aqueous liquids, even in OmniFizz. To minimize spillage, when carbonating anything particularly viscous, thick, or high in sugar, or carbonating any non-aqueous liquid for the first time, only fill the bottle half way as this will take a while. It takes some practice to find out how much the liquid will foam. Wait for the foam to settle between button presses, leave the bottle in the car for a few minutes, then tilt it forward and remove it from the soda. As soon as you take out the bottle, the mechanism on the lid will allow you to gradually release the pressure so that your drink does not foam. But we also recommend keeping the bottle over the sink just in case.
Basically, the Drinkmate OmniFizz is the same machine as the Soda Sense Sensei. (CO2 bottle retailer Sensei Soda sells the Sensei through a partnership with Drinkmate.) Cars come in a variety of colors — the Sensei is only available in gray — and the Sensei has a unique feature: an unnecessary and hard-to-clean metal grill with a smooth, solid plastic turf, while The OmniFizz has a smooth, solid plastic turf. If you don’t care about the color of your soda dispenser, we recommend checking prices for both models on Amazon, as well as each company’s own website, and pick whichever is cheaper at the moment. They usually cost around $140 with a CO2 tank, although we have seen frequent sales, especially on each company’s websites, which can bring the price down to around $100.
You can use the OmniFizz with any 60 liter CO2 screw-on tank, including SodaStream bottles sold in many major retailers; if you are using a SodaStream bottle, be sure to buy the blue labeled type and not the pink quick connect version. . Both Drinkmate and Soda Sense offer mail-in cylinder replacement programs. The Drinkmate system is coupon-based: email your empty bottle and get a coupon ($22 to $55 off depending on how many bottles you send) to use on your next used bottle. This process is a little annoying because if you remember to apply the coupon, you will have to pay the full price, $60 for two bottles. Soda Sense’s system is more automated: as soon as you ship an empty bottle, Soda Sense starts ordering the same number of new bottles at $21 each. Neither Drinkmate nor Soda Sense currently offer an in-person buyout option.
The Drinkmate OmniFizz comes with a two-year warranty, one year short of the SodaStream Art’s three-year warranty, but still not bad.
Unlike other soda makers we’ve tested that have a fixed carbonation nozzle on the machine itself, OmniFizz provides carbonation through the nozzle on a separate cap that you first screw onto the bottle and then lock into the machine. It took precision and purpose to insert and remove this cover from the machine, and it took us several tries to get it right. (The silver valve on the cap should be facing you when you insert the bottle into the machine.) But the unique cap also makes this machine effective for carbonating non-aqueous liquids, as it allows gentle pressure relief to prevent drinks from fizzing after carbonation. As with most machines we’ve tested, screwing a CO2 tank into the back of the machine is tiring, and the OmniFizz’s slick plastic sidewalls don’t buy much.
Whether you just want to carbonate water or are a big fan of SodaStream, Art’s retro design, easy-to-insert air tank, and high quality carbonated drinks make it a great choice.
SodaStream Art is another solid soda maker and is the best SodaStream model we’ve tested. If you want to limit carbonation to water or are looking for a machine that is especially easy to install and use, the Art is a great choice. Its retro design may be appealing to some, but we chose this model for more than just its looks. Several Art design details (namely the quick-release CO2 bottle, easy-to-insert bottle and large lever) make this model easier to use than many other soda brands. In our tests, the SodaStream Art soda was similar to the Drinkmate OmniFizz soda, with large, round, active soda-like bubbles, rather than the slight bite we got from some of the other machines we tested. Painful fizz. SodaStream offers an exceptionally long warranty. But unlike OmniFizz, Art only carbonates water.
Post time: Jun-27-2023