Carbonation System

I bought this after reading many reviews of different carbonation cap products. My first inclination was to buy a stainless cap, but I read so many mixed review of those, that I decided to choose this solution instead. Well, after 3 months of constant frustration, I gave up and bought a stainless carbonation cap and all our frustration has been fixed.The problem with this cap, is two-fold. First they failed to design an inner gasket where the top of the water bottle meets the inner top of the CarbaCap. Consequently, you have to crank the heck out of this thing to keep it from spraying water everywhere when you're charging the bottle. Then, good luck unscrewing the cap. With added pressure, it is a real challenge. My wife was constantly frsutrated and mostly had to ask my son or me to help her, because it would leak every time. The second flaw is in the ball lock fit. It takes a healthy amount of force to get the ball lock securely on it, to the point that if fully snaps in place. Even with an application of special lubricant that is for food devices, it was very difficult.Additionally, we found that most of the cheap 2-liter soda bottles just didn't mate well when threading onto this cap. We had to get some higher quality water bottles, and even those would frequently mis-thread and require repeated attempts to get them to squarely screw on.So after 3 months of frustration, many messes of leaks water on the floor, and expletives from my wife, I broke down and bought the stainless carbonation cap. Wow what a difference. I seals effortlessly, because it uses a gasket. It threads perfectly on all our bottles - no mis-threads. And the ball lock slips on and off, perfectly. No more leaks, no more frustration. Happy wife...happy life!!So, if you're like me and trying to figure out which way to go, I'd like to save you the grief that I went through and suggest that you get one of the stainless caps. Surprisingly it was $4 less expensive then this crummy plastic cap. So even if I have to replace it every 6 months, in the event that the gasket wears out, I'm happy to do so, because it is the better solution.

UPDATE March 23, 2016 - reduced to 1 star.I have tried bottles from Coke, Pepsi, Faygo, and a number of store brands and cannot get a reliable seal. The gas nipple is also pretty tight getting it into the quick connector so I can only conclude my cap is defective. Plastic parts are made HOT and plastic shrinks as it cools to room temperature. If the part or mold is not designed with this shrinkage accounted for, if plastic recipe is changed, or the molding process done too fast or slow the part will be the wrong size. I was told to read the CarbaCap FAQ but that's not gonna make my cap work any better. I was told to trim my bottles - I shouldn't have to. It will cost me additional time and money to send it back for determination of defect. Instead I have since purchased Stainless Steel caps with real rubber seals that work every time with no fuss or bother on any 2-liter bottle I have and they cost less than this one. I don't like my purchases to be a crap shoot and this cap has gone to the rubbish bin were it belongs._______________________________________________________________Original Review: "It works if you are careful or get a better one than I." 3 stars.I just got mine and charged three 2-liter bottles to 40 psi. Getting it to seal is a bit IFFY due to the loose fitting threads.Instead of an O-ring, it has a circular ridge that's supposed to seal on the inside edge of the bottle opening. If your CarbaCap is loose fitting like mine that ridge won't center in the opening and leak. You'll have to fiddle with it as you tighten to get it to seal. If you crank it down while the ridge is not centered you could damage the cap. I have submitted a crude drawing to illustrate my point.I am tempted to rate this as 2 stars for touting it as "Made In USA" with such poor fit and finish. It's embarrassing. However, it does work after a fashion. I will try getting a proper replacement from them and revise my review as needed.

Had my adapter about 5 months at time of this review, paired with a 5LB tank, regulator, and ball lock assembly it completes the puzzle for carbonating your own soda water and lets you use cheap off the shelf PET bottles (think 2liter soda bottles, 1 liters, etc.) I've used mine exclusively for carbonating plain water which I then mix AFTER carbonating with Bag In Box soda syrup products at the standard 5-1 ratio. I can't speak to beer carbonation and I've always chosen to simply carbonate only water and add syrup/flavor later. I am sure it's perfectly safe/fine to carbonate things that already have syrup in them but I figured the best way to keep everything clean and running smoothly was to insure nothing ever got exposed to anything besides plain natural water. I've filled over 200 bottles at this point using the carba cap and have not had any issues to date. Things I would point out though.-Don't re-use bottles forever, bottle fatigue is a real thing, over time that bottle gets tired of being put under pressure so rotate them out and buy fresh bottles every now and agin-Colder is better, C02 doesn't magically bond with water, you have to agitate the gas while it's in the "headspace" of the bottle and C02 prefers to bond with colder (closer to freezing the better) water.-For maximum carbonation repeat the cycle of pushing out excess gas (including air), filling with gas, agitating, and then filling back up the headspace, when you reach the point where the pressure no longer decreases with agitation you are the top point of carbonation for your rig (given your max PSI, etc.). If you simply fill the headspace and agitate once and think your done, you might find your water is less carbonated then you would like so repeating the agitate/fill cycle will help you get closer to "coke can" like maximum carbonation.