Liss 2-qt. Liss Professional Stainless Steel Soda Siphon, Red.

I have this exact model. After a year it leaks from every seal. A ridiculous price to pay for something so ill made. So much for German manufacturing.

I chose this soda siphon because I read in a Consumer Reports article that it had the most fizz. However, when I first tried it, and the first few times after that, I wasn't impressed. Then I read some reviews of other soda siphons and following the suggestions of the reviewers and doing some experiments of my own, I think I came up with a method that gives a good quality soda:1. Measure out 2 liters of water, pour it in a jar, and put the jar in the fridge for a couple of hours.2. At the same time, put the soda siphon in the fridge.3. When the siphon and the water are nice and cold, pour the water in the siphon, screw the top on firmly, and put in the first cartridge.4. Wait until the rumbling dies down (a few seconds), then shake the siphon vigorously for about 20-30 seconds.5. Put the siphon in the fridge (do not remove the cartridge) for about 20 minutes.6. Take the siphon out of the fridge, let a little of the water out, take out the first cartridge, then put in the second cartridge. Shake vigorously for another 20-30 seconds.7. Put the soda siphon in the fridge (again, do not take out the cartridge), and after about 1 hour you'll have nice, cold, bubbly soda water.Once you figure out how to make the best of this soda siphon, it makes great soda. It's very convenient to have soda water whenever you want, and as much as you want.The top part of the item is black plastic, which concerned me a bit in the beginning. Especially since first it was a little hard to screw in the cartridge and I was afraid that the cartridge holder was going to break. But now it seems to go in easier and everything seems fine.Edit: The other day I forgot to put in the second cartridge after 20 minutes, and only remembered to do so a couple of hours later. And I had the best soda water yet! So now I wait 2 hours before I put in the second cartridge, and have great soda every time.Edit II: The Mio (and other brand) water enhancers work great with the soda water! Just squirt some of the water enhancer in your glass then add the soda water.

I have owned this siphon for about a year now and use it daily. It has performed without any real problems.Positive points:- larger size (2 quarts)- stainless steel (not aluminum)- if charged properly, it will allow greater carbonization than 1 liter bottles that only use 1 CO2 cartridgeNegative points.- cartridge loader is plastic and its threads do not seem to match perfectly with the metal receiver- because of its larger size, if you leave the siphon mostly empty for several days, the seltzer will go pretty flatTips to get maximum carbonization:1. make sure release valve on top of siphon is screwed all the way down2. use cold water3. use warm C02 cartridges (but don't heat them up or they could explode)3. fill water all the way to the top (plastic sleeve will leave more than enough air gap at the top of the siphon to allow CO2 to enter when charging)4. shake vigorously after charging with 1st cartridge5. let sit in fridge for 1-2 hours before charging with 2nd cartridge6. shake vigorously after charging with 2nd cartridge7. let sit in fridge for 1-2 hours after charging with 2nd cartridge before use.A little physics behind some of the above tips:- while under high pressure, water slowly absorbs gas. The higher the pressure and the longer you wait, the more it will absorb (up to a limit).- cold water can absorb more gas than hot water- the smaller the air gap in the siphon, the higher the pressure will be when charging (up to the pressure limit of the safety release valve) but the smaller the gap, the the less CO2 you can get into the siphon: So basically, you want the smallest air gap that will not result in the safety release valve letting CO2 out.- cold water takes up less space than the same amount of warm water, and warm CO2 will exert more pressure than the same amount of cold CO2That being said, the siphon still works well even if you just fill it with water and insert one cartridge after the other.

Have used the soda club fountain jet for years to make carbonated water. I was looking for a smaller unit to use while traveling. I purchased the ISI Soda Siphon 1 liter and then saw the LISS Soda Siphon 2 qt. Didn't see any information about how it charges and I was thinking, 'hey, I can get 2 qts of water per CO2 cylinder instead of 1 liter, great deal', so I bought it too. When I opened the package and read the directions, I found that the Liss 2 qt requires 2 CO2 cylinders to charge. Makes sense, but why wasn't that information available in the description? Anyway, I have used all three units and here's my impression.The soda siphons are fine for making carbonated water, but harder to use. Ice can form on the valve when the CO2 cylinder discharges into the bottle. You have to let it sit a couple minutes for the ice to melt before you remove the CO2 cylinder or you might lose the gas charge. Also, much of the carbonation gets bubbled out of solution when they squirt thru their small discharge holes into the glass. The bubbling action would be great for a bartending show and to help mix a drink, but it leaves less carbonation in the drink. On the ISI unit I actually cut off the end of the discharge to remove a metal insert that had very small holes that forced the water to squirt even worse. The soda siphons also generate recycle material with the empty CO2 cylinder. That's why I quit buying store carbonated water to quit generating all the empty bottle recycle.For travel, the 1 liter size soda siphon is working fine, but for home use, I would recommend going with something like the soda stream unit that uses a large returnable CO2 cylinder to charge a reuseable water bottle.

Couldn't figure out why it only squirted out 1/2 the container. Then we find it's LEAKING at the neck.Can't screw it down any harder. For $80...it should work.