Open Sourced Cola?

May 24, 2007 Posted by Tiffany on May 24, 2007 in Featured, Recipes | 0 comments

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Just when I thought I had it all figured out and I have seen it all, something like this comes across my screen: How to Make OpenCola. We’ve got open sourced everything else, why not cola? But I really do love the whole GNU License and the freedom it’s opening up on the web.

Anyway, I thought I might share this little tidbit so I can find it at a later date…and I will have to give it a try. The recipe is actually for the soda flavoring concentrate and then you can use a soda machine or mix it yourself whenever you want. I have yet to find a cola recipe that actually tastes like cola I would want to drink, but it certainly is interesting! All the different oils like nutmeg and lavender I really wouldn’t have expected.

If you’re feeling really adventurous, you can also try out WikiHow’s article on carbonating a beverage with dry ice…which does not seem like something we will be trying anytime soon.

Ingredients

All ingredients listed are in metric units.

Flavoring

3.50 ml orange oil
1.00 ml lemon oil
1.00 ml nutmeg oil
1.25 ml cassia oil
0.25 ml coriander oil
0.25 ml neroli oil
2.75 ml lime oil
0.25 ml lavender oil
10.0 g gum arabic
3.00 ml water

Concentrate

2.00 tsp (10 ml) flavoring
3.50 tsp (17.5 ml) 75% phosphoric acid or citric acid
2.28 l water
2.36 kg granulated white sugar
0.50 tsp (2.5 ml) caffeine (optional. use caution)
30.0 ml caramel color

Steps

Flavoring

Mix together the oils.
Add gum arabic and mix completely.
Add water and mix well. For this step, use a hand mixer or blender to thoroughly mix together.
The flavoring can be made in advance and stored for use later. Place in a sealed glass jar and place in the refrigerator or keep at room temperature.
- When stored, the oils and water will separate. Just mix again before use. When used, the gum arabic will keep things together.

Concentrate

Mix 5 ml of flavoring with the phosphoric or citric acid.
Add the water and sugar and, while mixing, add caffeine if desired.
- Make sure that the caffeine is completely dissolved before moving on to the next step.
Add caramel color and mix completely.

Soda

Mix one part of concentrate with five parts water. In other words, however much you use of the concentrate, use five times as much of water.
Carbonate the beverage. There are a few ways this can be accomplished:
- Carbonate the beverage yourself
- Mix soda water directly with the concentrate, as described in the previous step
- Use a soda fountain that will combine the concentrate with carbonated water at the tap