Tiny Bubbles ...

[bloodyrosemccoy]

My sister says she loves the way I collect hobbies. I got a new one for Xmas, too! Dad was having so much fun making wine that I decided I wanted to have some fun too, of the nonalcoholic kind.

So I got me some soda-brewing stuff!

Mostly I got it on the principle of Why The Hell Not. Brewing always seemed like it'd be a lot of fun, but you may remember that I am not terribly fond of alcohol, what with the way it mixes with my Fukitol and makes me fall down.* Plus, I always wanted to see for myself how you get the bubbles into the soda. (I can't have been the only kid who wondered this.)

So I have been testing it out! So far I have only been working with the ready-made extracts of ginger and sarsaparilla** and such, because they're quick to make and it's less disappointing to fuck 'em up. And since I'm just starting, I'm fucking up some, though I think I'm doing it on a precisely calibrated learning curve. The mixtures seem okay, but I am not getting the carbonation I want from it. Partly that's because I have yet to form any frame of reference for how carbonated to get it, and partly it's because, as I realized only after I had started to bottle the first batch, that I have one rather awkward hangup that might become a liability to this hobby: I am terrified of balloons.

No, really. I have no idea why, of all the traumatic events in my life, a half-remembered, possibly unreal incident would be the one to burn its way into my autonomic nervous systerm. That terrible car crash when I was six? Eh. The time I had the police looking for me and failed at Stranger Danger? Traumatically embarrassing, but hey, I was seven and anyway it all turned out fine. The day I watched Dad staple Mom's big scary head wound back together? I thought that was pretty entertaining. But ONE ill-advised attempt to carry a balloon in my teeth at age two, and ever after that I'm doomed to have physical anxiety attacks around the stupid things.

And, as it turns out, my fear of loud pressurized bangs extends to the possibility of exploding soda bottles. (Especially the plastic ones--for some reason I'm LESS afraid of shards of glass erupting all over the place, because this is not a rational fear. But I don't have any glass bottles. Yet.) So I've been extremely conservative about when to turn off the yeast, which has so far resulted in undercarbonated beverages. (Mom pronounces them to be just fine, but since Mom likes lukewarm flat soda, that means I've got a long way to go.)

But! I'm continuing on, because learning through experimentation is FUN, (like I did with pizza!) and anyway soda is delicious. I've ordered some more complicated ingredients to try when I get this carbonation thing figured out, and now that my sister has left again, we can use her bathtub to store the bottles so that if they DO explode, they will be 1) contained, and 2) upstairs, far away from my Bat Cave, where they will only scare OTHER members of the family. This is an improvement.

Anyway, I'll let you guys know how it goes! And if you hear loud bangs from my house, don't worry. It's just exploding sody pop.


*This is a handy excuse, but the truth is I just don't like alcohol very much.

**One problem with this hobby is that I really hate the words "sarsaparilla" and "sassafras." What the hell, Spanish? Why you gotta make it sound like people's mouths are full of marbles? Maybe I can start referring to the sassafras as saxifrage, because that's slightly less annoying to say and also reminds me of Kim Stanley Robinson's fun character Sax Russell.

Comments

[cjtremlett.livejournal.com]

There's a group that comes to our local Cons who do Open Soda - open source recipes, and they do demos at the cons and such. They've been doing this for years and they've got a whole slew of flavors and they'll have people suggest combinations and try them out during demos. Pretty awesome!

Experiments are fun! Especially edible/drinkable ones!

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Ooh, that does sound fun! Do they do it with a carbonator?

I like edible experiments, especially as I get better at them! The pizza was fun to improve upon and practice, but the results weren't always delicious. (AndI am now firmly convinced that calzones were invented by someone who, like me, had trouble sliding the pizza from the paddle onto the stone and was just like, "No, it's SUPPOSED to look that way!") Looks like the soda is going to be the same way.

[cjtremlett.livejournal.com]

I bet that is the origin of calzones!

Yup, they've got a carbonator. Of the flavors people were suggesting, they rejected a few combinations (I can't remember what, though) on the grounds of having tried that before and it not being good. What they made was sometimes weird but at least a few people in the room liked each different combination. So more a matter of taste than a real failure, though they'd had some of those in the past.

This is at the same con where we get people making liquid nitrogen ice cream in some bizarre combinations as well. Edible science!

[dinogrrl.livejournal.com]

Globophobia is the worst ever. One of those phobias you can't tell many people about because so few will take it seriously. :/

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I kind of don't take it seriously. I mean, the anxiety attacks are unpleasant, and I do tend to avoid balloons if I can help it, but up above the limbic system I'm always thinking it's kind of hilarious. It's a vicious duality.

But you're right, trying to avoid balloons does become difficult when nobody believes you about your sudden fight-or-flight reaction to colorful floaty party things. I remember a particularly hectic team-building exercise at work where I gamely tried to join the balloon exercises and wound up admitting my phobia and making my boss feel just awful and ... argh, it was awkward.

(The Nostalgia Critic's review of the Stephen King's It miniseries makes a lot of fun of King's apparent misapprehension that balloons are menacing. I have to admit his little sketches with the intimidating googly-eyed balloons made me laugh WAY too hard. Yeah, THIS IS MY LIFE)

[dinogrrl.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's one of my phobias that I can generally manage, and even conquer in certain situations. My biggest problem is when someone knows I have a phobia and they insist on coming at me with balloons because they think it's 'funny' or they're 'helping!!1!'. That's when I get panic attacks.

Which is why I don't tell people about that particular phobia as a general rule.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

WOW. That's just not awesome. I have yet to encounter that, but possibly that's because it doesn't come up very often ...

[dinogrrl.livejournal.com]

Well as long as you're not telling it to assholes, like I was stupid enough to do, you should be fine.

[dark-phoenix54.livejournal.com]

Are you using yeast to carbonate the soda or a carbonator? Using yeast can result in some explosions but if you're using a carbonator, they really shouldn't increase in pressure after bottling. And this might relieve you a little: the 2 liter plastic bottles rarely explode. They'll puff up like blimps, but that's *normally* the extent of it.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm yeasting it. Mom bought a carbonator too (and then made it go BANG because she overcharged it, because that's how she rolls), but I want to do it the old-timey fun way. The fun is outweighing the anxiety; it just hadn't even occurred to me that there might BE anxiety.

[dark-phoenix54.livejournal.com]

I feel I should point out that the live yeast continues to create carbonation as long as there is sugar, which includes in your gut. Yes, yeast carbonated soda makes you fart WAY more than that done with a carbonator. Husband used to make it and we had very vivid proof of that. (husband may have been pitching too much yeast; I don't know. I just know one couldn't drink it before going anywhere where one would be around people. Or small animals. Or plants, for that matter)

[kittikattie.livejournal.com]

I am terrified of balloons.

I'm terrified of popping balloons. I blame the baptists.