I drink a lot of pop (for those of you outside of the upper Midwest, ‘soda‘; for those of you in the south, ‘coke‘). I’m also a huge nerd, so the idea of a home carbonation system, particularly one shaped like a penguin, struck my fancy right off the bat. Being shameless like I am, I contacted SodaStream to see if they would send me one to review, and they quite graciously did.
What’s in the box?
The normal packaging contains the Penguin Carbonator unit, 2 glass carbonation carafes, and 2 CO2 cylinders which do the carbonating work. Each of the CO2 cylinders contains enough gas to carbonate roughly 60L of water. The package I received for review also contained several full-size containers of flavorings: “Cola Zero”, Energy, Orange Mango, Tonic, and Diet Lemon. They also sent a 12-flavor sample pack of soda flavorings and a sample of flavor additives that you put directly into water that has been carbonated. You can find links to each of the individual items, flavors, and samples at the end of this review.
How does it work?
The process is pretty straightforward: Fill the glass carafe with water and insert into the carbonator, depress the ‘beak’ of the penguin an appropriate number of times (depending on the level of carbonation you desire, but a minimum of 3-4), and add your flavorings. After the first 2 presses (3 as the cylinder starts to deplete), you’ll hear a whistle from the unit. This is your indicator of how much carbonation you desire. 1-2 whistles gives you light carbonation, 3-4 whistles gives you a much higher level. At the highest recommended (seeing as the carafes are glass, I wasn’t feeling daring enough to super-charge the carbonation, since I enjoy having things like eyes and fingers) level of 4 whistles, I found the carbonation relatively equivalent to commercial soda, maybe a bit stronger.
How does it taste*?
Since taste is something entirely objective, I can only give you my opinion and comparisons with flavors that everyone is familiar with.
Cola Zero—Very much like Coca-Cola’s Coke Zero, kind of an amalgam of Coke and Diet Coke, but without the aspartame harshness hanging in the background that you still get a bit of with Coke Zero.
Energy—I place this somewhere between Red Bull and Monster. It doesn’t lean quite so strongly to tart like Monster does, but also stays away from some of the bitterness that you get with Red Bull.
Diet Energy—Very much like energy, but on the sugar-free side of things. Though I do find this one to lean more toward the Monster (blue) side of things, but this could be due to Monster blue being my preferred energy drink to begin with.
Root Beer—Reminds me of a slightly-milder Barq’s. It has a bit of the ‘bite’ to it, but not as strong as the ‘real’ stuff. Definitely sharper than the milder mixes like A&W or Mug.
Orange—Tastes like just about every other orange pop I’ve ever had.
Diet Cola—More like regular Diet Coke than Coke Zero. Very close to commercial Diet Coke.
*The interesting thing about all of SodaStream’s mixes is that they stay completely away from High-Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) and Aspartame (NutraSweet is the most familiar brand name). All of the non-diet flavors are made with plain old sugar, but not just sugar. In an effort to keep calorie counts down (which we call all use in this country, amirite?), SodaStream has opted to replace half of the sugar content with sucralose. This also has the added benefit of reducing packaging size, since sucralose is much sweeter by volume than regular sugar (sucralose that you buy off the shelf, such as Splenda, are ‘cut’ with maltodextrin, which is a flavor-neutral water-soluble fiber that adds bulk for measuring). All of the diet flavors are sweetened exclusively with sucralose.
What else can you carbonate with it?
Anything you want. Well, specifically, anything that you can easily dissolve into plain water. SodaStream states specifically to only carbonate plain water in the carafes, adding your flavors after the fact. So anything that’s pre-mixed and non-carbonated will require you to find a different way.
I did make some carbonated cherry Kool-Aid, which worked out pretty well. Well, the second time worked out. The first time, I carbonated all of the water (2 Qt), and then mixed in all the dry ingredients (Kool-Aid powder, and Splenda). The massive surface area of the powdered ingredients caused about 95% of the carbonation to instantly fizz out of the mix, leaving it feeling really flat. The second try worked much better, as I mixed all of the powdered ingredients into about 8oz of non-carbonated water before mixing in the carbonated water.
Anything you don’t like about it?
I only have one nit to pick with the Penguin version of the carbonator, and it’s really quite minor, but it’s an annoyance nonetheless. The glass carafes are really nice, and they work well with pre-refrigerating the water before carbonating. But, their size and shape makes them a bit larger than one-half liter (630mL, specifically). This doesn’t seem like much of a problem at first, but it becomes an issue when all of the flavors carry their measurements in 1/4, 1/2, and 1 liter increments. To get it ‘perfect’, you need to carbonate, then measure your water out (leaving a little bit of carbonated water in the carafe), and then add your flavorings. As I said, it’s not a big deal, but it is a bit strange. However, most of the time, I don’t run into the issue, as I’m carbonating a large amount of water anyway.
Final notes?
The SodaStream Penguin is a very cool piece of kit. It already has its own spot in our kitchen, and has managed to survive several counter clearings when most other gadgets do not. At $250, it’s not a small investment, but it’s one I think is definitely worth it if you consume a lot of pop like I do. There are also units that cost quite a bit less than the penguin, but don’t look as cool (the older models also have the advantage of being able to use larger CO2 cartridges, and use much less expensive plastic bottles). Overall, the economy roughly matches picking up 2L bottles on sale at your local grocery, so you don’t save a whole lot in money, though you get a huge benefit in flexibility by being able to make whatever flavor you want when you want it.
You said there would be links.
That I did, and here they are:
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