Preserving Homemade Soda

I'm thinking about making some large batches of homemade soda and have been thinking about different ways to preserve it. I feel like I'm banging my head against a wall because I don't want to use chemical preservatives (i.e. benzoate) even if they are proven safe. Just trying to get the ingredient list down to water, flavor, and CO2. Planning on using glass bottles and a wing capper. So the question is: How do I make a carbonated, shelf stable (pasteurized?) soda in glass bottles without them exploding (from heating the pressurized bottles)?

I do not want to use yeast and I do have a 5lb CO2 tank with a liquid bread adapter. However, I do wonder if you could allow yeast to carbonate the beverage, and then pasteurize in a water bath without the bottles exploding... Maybe I could pasteurize the bottles, flash chill, fill from a pressurized 2 liter bottle and quickly cap, then place them in a how water bath. Time and temp? Residual oxygen (since there's no way for air to escape as in mason jar lids)?. Purge bottles with CO2? This is maddening... Some clarity would be very much appreciated.

I assume PH is an issue here as well.

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Joel_Esposito_114224

Hey guys, just wanted to give an update on this since some people have subscribed. I called into Cooking Issues and posed the question and the basic conclusion was that you could try pasteurizing after bottling (taking safety precautions due to increased bottle pressure and risk of explosions). This is apparently why some natural sodas don't seem to be very strongly carbonated, because you can't have so much pressure present in a rest state when you're planning on heating the closed bottles later. Another potential solution was to use rowan berries since they're a natural source of preservative (although you would be making rowan berry flavored soda). There were some other things discussed, but those seemed to be the two major takeaways. If anyone wants more info just holla and I'll expound on the approach I plan on taking.

geoffrey.ellis10

i am very interested to hear of your method here. i have just got into home made sodas and would love to make a lot at once but logistics seem crazy.

Joel_Esposito_114224

I haven't gotten around to it yet, but I think I am going to shoot for a "fridge-stable" soda. So, with sterilized equipment, store the sterile bottles with the caps on until they're ready to fill, fill a 2-liter bottles (with carbonator caps) with drink mix and pasteurize them in a water bath, chill the 2 liters, carbonate, and quickly dispense through a sterilized funnel into 1 bottle at a time, quickly capping after each fill. Then store in the fridge to slow down any yeast contamination during the filling process.

I'm not saying that this is fool proof or necessarily better than other methods but I think it's probably a good way to make a reasonably stable benzoate-free soda.

Jason_Irvine_425133

I am reading up on the use of ascorbic acid and/or flash pasteurization for a shelf stable soda. Just found this. Can you update what ultimately worked best for you? Maybe some online resources on flash pasteurization?

kajol_1590646

Hey Joel,

very much interested to know if you cracked the preservation of homemade sodas