How to set up a Soda Machine?

[JaimesBeam]

I've recently come into possession of a soda fountain machine.

I'd like to adapt my dry lemon soda recipe: Lemon Sparkle to be dispensed
by this machine. And maybe a ginger beer.

See Pictures attached…

I believe this machine was set up to operate without any electricity or
running water. So, it has (what I believe to be) a water tank, a CO2 cylinder,
and attachments to various syrup boxes/kegs. I want to keep my syrup in
a soda keg, and plumb in a water supply.

Is this feasible? Crazy? Does it make sense with the pictures?

Thanks for you advice, Jim.

 

[JaimesBeam]

So I take it that the black thing on top is the guts of the thing:
mixing mechanism. Do the actual dispensing faucets have anything
to do with the mixing process?

The inside of the fountain behind the faucets looks like it is made to
contain something, maybe ice??? I think not, but I'll ask anyway.

A line with a fitting to a syrup box/bag goes to each mixing valve.
There's also a line going to each mixing valve from the CO2 regulator.
Then shouldn't here be a water line to each mixing valve? The large
keg I presume held water pushed by CO2??? I don't know where the
other soda keg fits in with this setup.

I am getting warm, or am I way out in left field???

Thanks, Jim.

 

[MrFoodScientist]

The black thing on top looks to me like a bank of syrup pumps. Those are usually operated with CO2.

It's hard to tell exactly, but I don't know that I have seen a post mix system that doesn't use electricity or running water. It's entirely possible that it was set up with the two kegs as the carbonated water source, but I think you would still need electricity to operate the dispensing valves since they typically use a solenoid. Did it not come with a carbonator?

Here's a link to a powerpoint training that may help:
http://www.lancercorp.com/index.php...t-mix/212-understanding-post-mix#.VBs4qPldUuA

You could likely also look at the manufacturer and model number on the ID plate on your machine and see if you can look up the installation manual or other literature somewhere on the web or direct from the manufacturer.

Good luck to you!

 

[JaimesBeam]

Thank You Mr Food Scientist!

The link you gave me was very helpful.
It told me pretty much how to make sense
of things. Except one thing; I don't seem to
have a carbonator…

Let me go over what I have again in a little more
detail, and let's see if it makes more sense now…

So in the first Pic we have the front of the fountain
machine with the dispensing faucets and pumps/valves.
You can see the hosing feeding the dispensing Faucets
behind and beneath them. They lead into and out of
a cold plate chiller heat exchanger.

The second pic shows the inside of the ice bin body of the
fountain machine that cools the cold plate heat exchanger.

The third Pic shows the back of the machine, and the hoses
coming from the front of the cold plate chiller. There is
one hose for each of four types of syrup, one for carbonated
water, and one for plain water (I think)

The fourth Pic shows the hoses draped around to the front
of the machine. You can see that there are four syrup hoses
and two other hoses.

The fifth pic shows the syrup pumps sitting on top of the
soda fountain. I don't know where this would normally be
installed. It also shows the syrup hoses that would come
from the bag-in-a-box syrup containers. The hose on top
must the a CO2 hose that drives the syrup pumps.

The next pic shows the hoses that come from the back of
the machine again, and three regulators that came with the
machine. The main regulator has a sticker that says set to
100 PSI. another regulator says set to 55 lbs. The third
regulator has no label. I don't know how these were hooked
up, or where they were physically installed..

The next pic shows the two extra tubes from the back of the
fountain machine hooked up to two kegs. The small one is a
regular pinlock soda keg with a hose labelled 'plain water'
connected to the CO2 connection!!!

The larger keg has ball lock fittings and one of the extra hoses
goes to the Liquid ball lock fitting (the other extra hose from the
fountain goes to the pin lock soda keg) On the CO2 ball lock
fitting is a a CO2 gas hose with several fittings in the last picture.

The CO2 gas hose has one mainline that goes to a CO2 cylinder.
One line has to go to the syrup pumps on top (currently disconnected).
One line goes to the large keg. That leaves one unused offshoot???
Should that be connected the the pin lock keg instead of the hose
labelled 'plain water'???

The other thing is that if all the CO2 connections are connected to
this CO2 manifold, why are there three regulators, with at least
two of which are set to different pressures???

There's no sign of any carbonator, or any electrical components.

What do you think?

Thanks, Jim.

 

[MrFoodScientist]

It looks like you have most of it figured out. I've never seen one that doesn't operate on electricity, but looking at the CHI company website, they do have a mechanical post mix faucet. That very well could be what you have, though it looks a bit different. If that's the case, then you might not need a carbonator.

Some of your pictures are upside down, but for the most part they make sense.

Typically with post mix systems, the syrup pumps are mounted to the rack that holds the syrup boxes. Something like a pair of these is probably what you're looking for, though you could probably rig up something yourself if you're handy. It seems like when I last worked with a post mix machine, we just had standard wire shelving and the pumps were somehow mounted to the side, I don't believe it was a special BIB rack.

The regulators and kegs seemed to make sense when I realized that it was set up to run lemonade as well as soda.

With that said, the pin lock keg has a "plain water" CO2 connection, not because plain water runs through it, but because that's the CO2 connection that pushes the plain water from the keg to the lemonade mix.

Hence the three regulators. I think it's meant to be one to carbonate and push carbonated water, one to run the syrup pumps and one to run at just enough pressure to push the plain water, but not enough to really carbonate it. I would guess that the 100psi runs the 10gal keg, the 55psi runs the pumps, and the other should be set at maybe 10-15psi. It may take some trial and error to get those right. Depending on how you want to set this up, you may not need to carbonate at 100psi.

The regulators are not really mounted anywhere, they just attach to the CO2 tank. You have one I presume? With that much hardware attached to your tank, it does end up making the tank top heavy, especially with a smaller tank and even more so as it gets closer to empty. If you have a 20# tank or larger, it might not be an issue, but a 5# or 10# will need to be secured somehow.

The one with the large brass nut attaches to the tank. This is the primary regulator and is the one to set at 100psi (though bear in mind that cornelius kegs are only rated to 130psi, so be careful, I'm still skeptical that you'd need that much pressure). The 55psi regulator goes next, I think this one runs the pumps, though you may want to check with the syrup pump manufacturer or call CHI to make sure. Then attach the next regulator as the third in line and hook that up to your pin lock keg.

However...

There may also be another option that occurred to me as I was looking at the photos of the regulators. It could be that your "plain water" connection on your ball lock keg actually hooks up to a water line for a constant still water supply. Though that would seem to make the keg somewhat unnecessary, so that may not be the case.

Now for the regulators. If you look at your primary regulator it has 5 ports. The one with the large brass nut attaches to the tank, then counterclockwise from that you have the outlet pressure gauge, showing where your regulator is set, then there's the safety blow off valve, then there's the high pressure gauge, showing you the pressure in your tank, and then there's the regulator outlet. Because the high pressure gauge is attached to your primary regulator, this suggests to me that your secondary regulators are not rated for tank pressure, and that they actually attach to the 100psi outlet of the primary regulator. Which thankfully means that you don’t need 100psi on your kegs, that seemed scary to me.
The connections on your secondary regulators don’t seem to make much sense, though. There’s a T connection on the inlet of the unmarked one, and only male connections on the other. Both pass through outlets look to be capped, so that's odd. Somehow these have to connect together and need connected to the primary regulator.

When you say there’s a CO2 main line that goes to a cylinder, does that mean it’s attached directly to the cylinder without a regulator, or is there a fourth regulator on the cylinder? Perhaps a diagram might help.

 

[pauly1]

Let check on google about company and model number sure shoot will get answer to questionss...