Buying a SodaStream

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MurrayM

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#245163 22-Jan-2019 08:04

I'm thinking of buying a SodaStream while Brisco's have their 50% off everything sale. Does anyone have any comments/hints/suggestions on if they're worthwhile, cheapest place to get gas cylinders and syrups, etc?

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#2165100 22-Jan-2019 08:06

We have one at work and its used by 3 people a day. If you are in that 3/200 group then sure!

Dulouz

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#2165101 22-Jan-2019 08:07

I love mine. I use it only for soda water. Price to swap bottles seems to average around $14-$15. Price seems the same regardless of store.

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#2165112 22-Jan-2019 08:29

We still use ours occasionally. Syrups, hunt around, usually find them on sale somewhere like Farmers or Warehouse etc. Noone seems to stock a full range of flavors though - might find one store has all the standard ones (cola, lemonade etc) and others have all the fancy options.

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#2165128 22-Jan-2019 08:37

We use ours for water only. It is great.

The cylinders are pretty expensive for a refill (for what they are). I do know people that fill their own, but you'd want to be making a lot of Soda for that to be worthwhile (you need to get an adaptor to fill it up from a CO2 bottle you can get from gas suppliers, or buy dry ice and take to top off the cylinder and stuff it in there).

dafman

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#2165146 22-Jan-2019 09:08

We use ours for soda water only. It is expensive with continual refills, but the is the price of convenience for always sparkling water. Syrups are nasty tasting and full of sugar/non natural stuff, so we don't go there.

Delphinus

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#2165147 22-Jan-2019 09:09

A friend of mine got an adapter to plug this gas supply size CO2 bottle directly into his sodastream (via a tube into the cupboard) making it super long lasting and much cheaper 'per fizz'.

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jonathan18

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#2165156 22-Jan-2019 09:20

You'll have missed out on the Briscoes 50% off sale as I'm pretty sure it finished yesterday.

That said, there may well be other places that have the units at a decent price, as it's a regularly discount item - eg, check out https://pricespy.co.nz/category.php?q=sodastream&k=568&brand=2254 (note - there are two different sized cylinders, and I believe there are still get units that support the older/smaller cylinders).

As for syrups - don't feel you're limited to solely buying Sodastream ones - I can't think the last time I purchased a Sodastream-branded syrup, especially since they got rid of the diet tonic water one!

There is now a really wide range of syrups available from supermarkets that offer much more interesting flavours. One of the good brands is Barkers, who do a really nice low-cal cola (no caffeine though, which is good if it's for kids) and a bunch of other syrups designed for soda machines (see https://www.barkers.co.nz/shop/soda-syrups/). They also do a range of less common blends of fruit syrups like blood orange with lime and bitters as well as conventional ones like lemon and barley, black currant etc )https://www.barkers.co.nz/shop/fruit-syrups/).

Our standard, though, is a diet lime cordial (Bickford's I think) - low-cal, and incredibly refreshing.

Also, many of them taste nice at a far lower concentration than recommended - which we certainly do if they are sugar-based.

mdf

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#2165157 22-Jan-2019 09:21

Like others, we mainly used ours for sparkling / soda water. Occasionally might put in a little Barkers (or similar supermarket) cordial but don't use the syrups.

Our best idea was buying two cylinders. You then have some breathing room to wait until Briscoes is having a X% off everything sale to swap your cylinder for less.

When we got it, I worked out that it was only a little cheaper than buying supermarket sparkling water, but it's a lot more convenient and I like the reduced packaging waste.

MurrayM

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#2165161 22-Jan-2019 09:25

Thanks for the comments, guys. I think we'll be using it mostly just for sparkling water and maybe try a syrup or two if I find them on sale and just want to see what they're like. I see there are a lot of DIY syrup recipes on the web but they look like more trouble than they're worth. Looks like most places sell the cylinders for about the same price.

jonathan18

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#2165162 22-Jan-2019 09:25

mdf: Our best idea was buying two cylinders. You then have some breathing room to wait until Briscoes is having a X% off everything sale to swap your cylinder for less.

Good point - that's exactly what we do; eg, swapped a cylinder in the weekend with Briscoes 50% off sale; about $8 I think. We have the smaller (30l?) cylinders, but I'd still do the same thing if we had the larger (60l?). Some of the kits used to come with two cylinders; not sure if this is still the case, but you can buy extra ones anyway...

Buying extra bottles is a good idea too - we have three one-litre bottles (and often a couple of 500ml ones) in the fridge so there's always one available.

Handsomedan

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#2165186 22-Jan-2019 09:58

We gave up on SS syrups and started using things like Roses Lime Cordial and other such things.

We use ours almost daily over summer and have done for a number of years.

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hsvhel

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#2165188 22-Jan-2019 10:04

Handsomedan:

We gave up on SS syrups and started using things like Roses Lime Cordial and other such things.

We use ours almost daily over summer and have done for a number of years.

I second this, exactly what we do also......the SS Syrup is feral.

Lots better options that mix exactly the same out there

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BlinkyBill

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#2165204 22-Jan-2019 10:43

Sodastream continues their well known rascist and other discriminatory employment practices. I would urge potential purchasers to consider whether they should support those practices.

hsvhel

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#2165209 22-Jan-2019 10:45

BlinkyBill: Sodastream continues their well known rascist and other discriminatory employment practices. I would urge potential purchasers to consider whether they should support those practices.

Is there another home based, do it yourself fizzy water system?

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tdgeek

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#2165211 22-Jan-2019 10:48

Sodastream is a Pepsi company, so that makes a lot of products to avoid

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