Inside a soda siphon. (and making wine fizzy)

Where's it leaking from?

Big Clive

I have one of these. The damned thing leaks everywhere. Top tip - instead of adding water, just add more wine!

PeetieGonzalez

Carbonate the drink, then drop the CO2 cylinder in your glass as an impromptu ice cube!

mikenco

A large window manufacturer used to make a smoke vent using 16g bottles of CO2, a similar mechanism is used to pierce the bottle, the gas then actuates a piston which pulls a rod and opens the window very quickly. The mechanism is usually fitted with a steel rope to manually activate and a spirit vial to activate on heat, there is also a fire alarm interface which uses a small pin and a magnetic winding to smash the vial. They are not made any longer but there are still quite a few in service, they are slowly being replaced with electronic systems as they fail.

The Tinkering Shed

It does make a distinct whoosh noise as the carbonated water comes out.

Big Clive

I am surprised that this device works only by direct pressure on the liquid. I had always assumed (Syphon name, right?) that gas was blended in to the liquid by a second channel. Clearly it didn't only use Bernoulli's principle but in movies it had a Whoosh sound when ejecting fizzy water to ruin scotch, as was the fashion.

Bill Kerr

Maybe they just need to discover that you can put wine in them. When the eBay seller sent a complete replacement unit (while I managed to fix the first one), I gave it to my brother and he loves it. It makes lightly sparkling water like many of the designer "spring" waters.

Big Clive

We sell the CO2 cartridges for syphons as part of our Retro / Vintage business. (We also refurb the 70’s BOC Sparklets syphons...) I’m convinced a lot of the sales end in disappointment.....

They tend to pierce them into a balloon and huff that. Not going to get the concentrations required using your method. :) I wonder how many have bought carbon dioxide instead of nitrogen dioxide by mistake...

Andrew Davison

Around Cardiff you find 100's of nitrous gas cylinders, my guess is they put the car on internal air circulation and let them off. I collected about 100+ in a Morrison supermarket carpark a few months back, I am sure I will find a use for them. There must have been about 15 that had not been spiked. I wish I had kept the old cream spray unit from the 1960's that we had at the pub. Thanks Clive great memories from my past John

John Harrison

Add Marbles to make up the volume. I have "beer" here before but not with wine. The black rubber seals on the older siphons can make it taste very bad. In the 1990s I had a go at making Guinness and I bought a nitrogen mix cylinder from the homebrew store. Eventually I used to buy the strongest 30 pint kit I could get and make it up to 40 pints to give a fuller flavour and a bit less % alcohol, these days if you can buy a 500ml bottle for £1 then it is just not worth the effort. My preferred tipple is now a pint or two of Angostura tiz a bit strong at 44.7% ABV. Jesting - - - My main issue today is getting high strength 80% or higher here or in Ontario so that I can dissolve shellac for woodworking and old black Singer sewing machines. John

John Harrison

You can still get the glass ones with wire mesh sleeve. Think I'll stick with aluminium though. The glass ones are distinctly breakable.

Big Clive

The units we have here in the US with the cafes I'm associated with state in the instructions to shake up before each use.

Ryan Coleman

Actually the really old ones were made from crystal. https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2Foriginals%2F42%2Fbb%2F5a%2F42bb5a3e6095cd078b90e90d32f6f79e.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinterest.com.mx%2Fpin%2F228557749815576591%2F&docid=-RxNyR4BUKP7dM&tbnid=3rQdx0sXH7yW2M%3A&vet=10ahUKEwi49Pb5ubHlAhUDheAKHSkiBKsQMwjIAigGMAY..i&w=768&h=768&client=safari&bih=784&biw=1261&q=antique%20soda%20siphon&ved=0ahUKEwi49Pb5ubHlAhUDheAKHSkiBKsQMwjIAigGMAY&iact=mrc&uact=8

Charles Bruckner

Thanks for the offer, but it's not a good idea to send bottles here by post. I can carbonate the unfizzy locally bought wines.

Big Clive

I remember when you made red wine fissy with a soda stream. Did you know that you also can buy fizzy red wine? My uncle from Westhofen in Germany had a few at his place when i visited him. But that could just be because he lives in a large wine region. I could try to send you a bottle but i think it could be problematic because as far as i know the uk post won't ship anything about half a liter or so (whyever they did this...)

Leon Schutte