00:29 - Hello, welcome to Reading Sodaworks.

00:32 - My name is Denton Connor.

00:34 - I'm one of the owners of our small family business.

00:38 - We've been doing it about nine years now.

00:41 - Company is 103 years old.

00:43 - And we're looking forward to showing you how we make our craft made soda.

00:48 - Today, we will be back.

00:48 - With the PCN.

00:50 - So come on in with us, and we'll give you a show.

01:02 - And here's where it all starts.

01:04 - As you can see, there's lots of cardboard here.

01:07 - We make 21 different sodas, four different seltzers, and a new line called botanicals.

01:14 - Each of them obviously has its own cardboard box.

01:17 - So we probably have, you know, 80 or 100,000

01:21 - boxes in here, which comes in by truckloads.

01:24 - We now purchase our boxes in 10,000 out of time.

01:28 - When we first got the company, we are happy to do 10,000 a month.

01:32 - So we've grown significantly in that area.

01:34 - And we needed to spot the put on.

01:36 - So this is where we put them.

01:38 - We also do variety packs.

01:40 - So when you come into a store and you want three

01:42 - or four of them, there's variety packs up there.

01:45 - You can see now there's 100,000 of those going forward.

01:48 - So we've grown in a lot of different areas.

01:50 - And we needed the space.

01:52 - And this is where we put our cardboard.

01:56 - And here's where we store our labels.

01:59 - Just like the cardboard, we now have 100 to thousands of labels

02:03 - that come in rolls like this, which are 2,500 on each roll.

02:08 - And we get, as you can see, boxes and boxes of them.

02:11 - We have our own labels.

02:12 - But we also do some special labels.

02:15 - We do... this is McDade's football special, which is Ireland's most popular soda.

02:21 - And we make that for them and ship it over.

02:23 - To Ireland.

02:24 - So we do private label stuff, the Dobbin house.

02:28 - This is soda that's at the Liberty Bell.

02:31 - This is in Gettysburg National Park.

02:33 - So there's all sorts of different spots that we make soda for.

02:37 - We just have to say, brewed and bottled by Redding

02:39 - soda work so that they know where it came from.

02:42 - But I'm going to say, 500,000 labels are here.

02:46 - So you can see as we grow, we've had to increase our capacity for labels as well.

02:57 - Well now, after we have labels and boxes, now we have to start making our soda.

03:02 - So our soda has 3 main ingredients.

03:04 - Basically, as you can see from all the blue tubs, these are the flavorings.

03:08 - And in the flavorings, we're a pure cane sugar company.

03:11 - That's very important to us.

03:13 - No high fructose, no junk in it.

03:15 - So there's a skittest of sugar.

03:18 - We go through about one of those a week.

03:20 - And as you can see, we have a couple more over here.

03:23 - Like I said, as we've grown, we've needed more and more capacity.

03:28 - So we hoisted up here and then we combine the flavor, the

03:33 - sugar in our tanks up there, which I'll show you next.

03:37 - Let's go to there.

03:42 - Well, now we're in the mixing room.

03:45 - As you can see, it's a small room.

03:46 - And what we do is we take those ingredients.

03:49 - This is jotty.

03:50 - She's our mixer.

03:51 - And what she's going to do is she's already put the sugar in.

03:55 - 100 gallons of water in there.

03:57 - She now is going to add the flavoring.

03:59 - Go ahead, jotty, add the flavoring.

04:02 - And what she does after she adds this flavoring, see how she rinses it out?

04:08 - We want to make sure we get all the flavoring in there.

04:10 - It's not off.

04:11 - But it's got to be done properly.

04:13 - Then she'll mix this for, I know, it could be five, ten

04:16 - or fifteen more minutes until it gets thoroughly mixed.

04:20 - And then when it sits thoroughly mixed, she drops it through this pump into the

04:25 - grondie room where it gets cold brew for two days.

04:29 - So the mixing is water, sugar, flavoring mixed in these tanks for

04:35 - it takes about 45 minutes, jotty, about 45 minutes to make a batch.

04:39 - And then we send it downstairs for mixing.

04:45 - Now we're in the grondie room.

04:47 - This is where the magic happens, as I always say.

04:50 - We take this syrup.

04:51 - We take the water and we take the sugar and we turn it into our soda.

04:56 - What makes our soda special is what happens in here.

05:00 - So for two days we cold brew it.

05:03 - We cold brew it by shooting CO2 through a carbonation stone into this 200 gallons.

05:10 - The perfect temperature is always 34 to 38.

05:14 - Bam, 38.

05:15 - Perfect pressure is always 19 to 21, 20, 21.

05:20 - So in this grondie room, what you'll see is 50 degrees.

05:24 - We manage to keep a real nice steady, so carbonation is at the best possible

05:30 - level through the entire two days of cold brewing.

05:33 - It makes for a really, really solid soda.

05:36 - And it comes from the mixing room, as you saw, runs all the way through this hose.

05:42 - And then it dumps in through the top.

05:45 - And then what jotty does is she comes in here, seals it, closes

05:50 - that valve to put it under pressure, opens up that valve.

05:53 - And then the CO2 comes in through the carbonation

05:56 - stone and we'll sit in here for two full days.

05:59 - And it goes from syrup and water to a craft brewed soda

06:04 - that you get to buy at your favorite neighborhood store.

06:08 - So that's the process of turning it from syrup to soda.

06:22 - We saw the grondie room and just soda coming

06:25 - down and here it's coming in to the filler.

06:27 - It comes down to this hose, goes in through here and goes into the filler over there.

06:33 - And then it gets bottled.

06:34 - And it starts getting rinsed back here.

06:36 - We load the glass back there.

06:38 - On those big pallets, we bring them here, we

06:41 - push them up, then we move them on to here.

06:43 - And there's automatic belts, which see that electric ice.

06:47 - See how they're moving?

06:48 - As soon as there's enough bottles, that electric eye picks it up and pushes them.

06:52 - We put a fine mist on it so that mist helps the bottles slide

06:57 - through quicker and easier and works with less abrasion.

07:01 - That's the first step.

07:03 - Well, as you can see here, what you're looking

07:05 - at is the bottles continue to get rinsed.

07:07 - And as they're cold for, it's automatically

07:10 - pushed through and they're all freshly rinsed.

07:13 - It starts down there just where we were.

07:15 - It goes all the way through here and there may be a turn or two.

07:19 - And then it gets sent to the filler, which is where we're going next.

07:23 - And that's where it gets the soda.

07:25 - See the soda that's in here?

07:26 - These little valves were like this and they

07:29 - get pushed down in order for the soda to fill.

07:32 - Then it hits right here and then that stops the filling process.

07:38 - It's not a real tactical thing, but it really works.

07:41 - And we do about 10,000 bottles a day this way.

07:50 - Here's where the filling process starts.

07:52 - You see this little knob?

07:53 - All storage puts your nose down.

07:55 - See the liquid filling?

07:57 - Remember how the other side it gets pushed up?

08:00 - And it's pressure in there that stops it from the overfilling, which is pretty cool.

08:05 - Here's the feed.

08:06 - Tons through here.

08:08 - It's our little star wheel.

08:10 - Pushes it up.

08:10 - Hits the seal.

08:12 - Soda comes in.

08:13 - Over here it's full.

08:15 - What Sammy does our operator is, he makes sure

08:18 - all the levels are right where they belong.

08:21 - Make sure that they tap or the crowns as they call them go out.

08:24 - See how it's pushing the crown down and see how it comes out.

08:28 - So it comes in here.

08:30 - Get the crown pushed on and heads out there to get rins.

08:33 - This is about a bottle a second.

08:35 - So all the faster we want to go because this is soda.

08:39 - It's not just syrup and water.

08:41 - So we don't want it to go too fast.

08:43 - That's the bottling process.

08:45 - So after it comes off the star wheel and comes down, we rinse it off with hot water.

08:50 - And if there's any stickiness, remember it's pure cane sugar.

08:53 - We try to get it off.

08:55 - Then we blow it off the top and the sides.

08:58 - And then it starts going around with the conveyor belt.

09:00 - On the next step, which is where we put the labels on.

09:04 - We'll go there now.

09:13 - To see the proper spacing, that's about the size of a label.

09:17 - And right here every bottle gets today's date plus one year stamped on it.

09:23 - Because that's how good the shelf life is.

09:26 - Then it goes through.

09:27 - And as you can see, it goes from no label and there's a label.

09:30 - And at the very top, you can see the date that it was produced plus one year.

09:36 - That's the shelf life of it.

09:38 - Then my guys here are my soda guys.

09:41 - What they do is they put it in 12 in it and then it goes through here and gets dated.

09:46 - And what happens is when it runs through and he'll run

09:48 - one through each and every box also gets a date on it.

09:52 - So that we can track it, we can see where it goes.

09:57 - See how it says Best Buy 71725?

10:01 - It's one year from today.

10:03 - That's how we know how long and how good the soda is.

10:06 - And we normally make about 176 to 180 cases per run.

10:11 - And they stack them, shrink wrap them.

10:14 - And then we either send them to someone or we take it to our warehouse.

10:17 - So there's the process.

10:19 - Drop it, fill it, rinse it, label it, box it.

10:25 - We're all good.

10:26 - That's how we make our soda.

10:31 - Not only do we make soda here at Redding Soda Works and Carbonic Supply Inc.

10:37 - We also have a significant segment of our business that involves filling CO2 tanks

10:43 - for our bars, our restaurants, and some of our larger clients that take

10:48 - it out to all sorts of companies they deal with.

10:52 - We go through probably 20 of these a week that we fill.

10:58 - And then of course we do these, which are CO2 that we take to all the

11:03 - different local small business owners that we have.

11:07 - What you're looking at here is a 12,000 pound tank.

11:11 - And it's liquid carbon dioxide.

11:14 - And we fill it here at our filling station.

11:17 - Pretty simple straight forward.

11:19 - You turn your pump on.

11:21 - You wait for it to settle in.

11:23 - And then you turn the gas on, normally through here.

11:26 - But as you can see you have to prime the pump first.

11:30 - That way you know it's working.

11:31 - Then you connect this to your tank and you fill

11:34 - it from five pounds to 20 pounds to 50 pounds.

11:37 - We have 75 and 100 pounders over there.

11:40 - But this is a very important part.

11:42 - And we have beer gas down there.

11:44 - Beer gas is a combination of CO2 and nitrogen.

11:49 - 75, 25, 60, 40.

11:51 - And sometimes just pure nitrogen.

11:53 - And we get that as a wholesaler and send it out to our customers.

11:58 - They help service them as well.

11:59 - And we deliver that.

12:00 - We go out on deliveries with our stuff like that.

12:03 - I'm going to say almost every day.

12:05 - But it's a significant portion of our building and

12:08 - it's part of the spreading out of our business.

12:11 - We're trying to make sure we're not locked into just one thing.

12:14 - So that's the CO2 division.

12:19 - Well, we've done the soda.

12:22 - We've done the CO2.

12:24 - And one of the last things that we do is we handle dry ice.

12:27 - We handle dry ice for labs, the hospital, chemo caps for cancer patients.

12:33 - As well as everyday people who say, hey, I need five pounds of dry ice.

12:38 - Because I'm sending ring baloney and cheese to my relatives in Florida.

12:42 - As you can see, in this type of weather, it really, really creates a cloud.

12:49 - The best part is this is super cool.

12:51 - I think it's 104 below zero.

12:53 - And then at Halloween time, one of the best things to

12:56 - do is everybody wants to have this smoking cauldron.

13:01 - So everybody loves this.

13:02 - And when you touch this, you can feel how cool it is.

13:06 - This is literally cooling my hand.

13:09 - It's dry ice.

13:10 - People love that.

13:11 - And we do it for all the kids when they come in for their tours.

13:14 - So that's our dry ice.

13:15 - And that's pretty much everything.

13:17 - We have soda, CO2, and dry ice.

13:19 - The only thing we have left to do is to show you our retail area.

13:27 - So now we've made the soda.

13:30 - We've showed you the different processes, the different products we service.

13:34 - Now we have our retail area.

13:37 - It's our newest area.

13:38 - We built this building a couple years ago.

13:41 - And in it, we added all our sodas.

13:44 - And you can see we have our 21 flavors.

13:46 - We have our seltzer.

13:48 - We have our botanicals.

13:49 - That's called our famous soda wall.

13:51 - Over there is our beer and wine making supplies,

13:54 - which we've had ever since we bought the business.

13:57 - And one of the most things we're most proud about is that

14:01 - my wife started a small business home-based business.

14:04 - Where you literally, we go, we find the product, and

14:09 - we sell it, and we donate 100 % to small business back.

14:14 - And then a 100% back to charity.

14:17 - So it's an absolute give back program.

14:19 - We're very, very proud of that.

14:21 - That's pretty much a wrap.

14:23 - We have our soda, our beer and wine making in here.

14:26 - Our small business home-based business charity in here.

14:29 - And I'd like to thank you.

14:31 - I hope you enjoyed it.

14:33 - Once again, my name's Denton.

14:35 - I'm one of the owners along with Lisa Braden and my other son, Jared.

14:40 - And we're very glad that you gave us this opportunity.

14:42 - Visit us on our website.

14:44 - Like us on Facebook or all those other wonderful things out there.

14:48 - And once again, thank you for visiting Reading Sodaworks.

15:23 - Thank you.