[cav101]

A bit of a back story: I work at a bar that currently sells a lot of drinks using the commercially available Acid Phosphate by Extinct Chemical Company that you can also find online through artofdrink.com

I am looking to make our own solution in house as the commercial quantities available to us are cost prohibitive for the amount we are currently consuming. I would like help in formulating a recipe to be able to mix a similar souring agent in 1 to 5 US gallons quantities.

Hear is what I know: the solution consists of phosphoric acid water and buffering agents to maintain a pH between 2.0 and 2.2.

Food grade phosphoric acid is available in 85% concentrations in water.
The buffering agents are some combination of calcium carbonate, magnesium, and potassium.

so I am looking for something along the lines of use X weight of calcium carbonate, magnesium, and potassium, X weight of the 85% concentration phosphoric acid, and X weight of distilled water. Which should yield a total volume when mixed equal to 1 gallon.

Thank you in advance, if I can help clarify any further I will be happy to do so.

[Arkcon]

OK, to start with, please trouble yourself to read the Forum Rules{click}.  We don't give cookbook recipes for people to consume, for liability reasons.

Your jargon threw me for a while, it was only the web page that made it clear, you're interested in the phosphate sodas.  You may be able to find some recipes on some dedicated web pages.

[AWK]

Food additive are special purity, hence should be expensive.

[cav101]

I agree, food grade anything should cost more because of its purity.

The cost for the only commercially available product for beverages is $18 for 8 OZ which $0.47  cost add to a single drink as it can only make about 40 drinks.

1 quart of food grade 85% phosphoric acid (density 98g/ml) is $20 ($0.02/ml or $0.02 /98g or $0.02/98000mg)

A 250ml of coke cola has 43mg of phosphoric acid, 1ml of the above solution can make 2279 servings of cokes making buying food grade phosphoric acid much more cost efficient.

The phosphoric acid dilution is the easy part and as shown above is a huge cos saver. I would love some help on a way to buffer the solution to maintain the same pH and stability of the commercially available product.

Also, when dealing with items of his nature I frankly would not trust some cooks recipe and would rather talk to chemists. That's why am here and I hope I can find the help.

[dsoneil]

I am the manufacturer of Acid Phosphate and I agree with the posts that working with chemicals that you are going to feed people is something that shouldn't be done haphazardly. I studied chemistry and worked in research in development for 15 years.

Using pure phosphoric acid in a drink is a bad idea, way to concentrated and having that behind the bar where confusion happens all the time is an accident waiting to happen. The buffered acid phosphate is safe, I make sure of that and yes, food grade chemicals costs more, significantly in some cases.

As for costs (sorry if this seems like a plug, but it is about safety) I do offer direct wholesale to volume users and can get drink costs down to $0.08 to $0.16 which is less than the cost of a lime.