PieFedPerfectly Replicating Coca Cola [00:25:07]
sga
www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDkH3EbWTYc
The Coca Cola secret formula is one of the best kept secrets in recent history…and I hate secrets. So, naturally, I deciphered it with the help of mass spectrometry and created a chemically-identical replica!
The previous flavor concentrate giveaway has concluded, and the promoting segment in the video has been removed. All research samples have been sold!
A massive thanks to Vince from @Neptunium and Ben from @MassSpecEverything, their mass spectrometry work is truly what made this video possible!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYN5sNOiA6s
An additional shoutout to @GlenAndFriendsCooking and @HowToCookThat, who put out excellent videos on making cola, and especially to @Artofdrink, who has several highly educational beverage-related videos, as well as one of the best colas I’ve tasted!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWaNiwcQK2M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VG-gvzr-8g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2yLvseG5UM
Finally, thanks to @Nighthawkinlight for demonstrating orthogonal (Taguchi) arrays in his video!
CURRENT RECIPE: same as video, no changes yet!
Here’s the research paper I referenced throughout this project:
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/jf504954p?ref=article_openPDF
WARNING: concentrated phosphoric acid is mildly corrosive and undiluted flavors and essential oils can be irritating or toxic. Never consume, unless properly mixed and diluted to safe levels. Tea tree oil is not GRAS (generally recognized as safe to eat), although the few microliters added to this cola shouldn’t cause health issues due to the low dosage and similarity to the chemical makeup of other sodas.
0:00 - Secrets secrets secrets
1:18 - A fool’s errand…or not?
2:56 - What’s in Coke?
3:29 - Coca (but not cola)
4:10 - Flavor basics and early trials
7:17 - Mass spectrometry (thanks Vince and Ben!)
9:12 - Research papers and key discoveries
11:54 - Spreadsheet time
12:20 - The missing flavors
13:44 - A year of testing
14:23 - A BIG discovery…we nailed it
15:27 - How to make Coca Cola
17:16 - Mixture A: 7X flavor
18:47 - Mixture B: water-based ingredients
19:46 - Mixing up the cola
21:41 - What do other people think?
23:27 - Looking forward
31 Comments
Comments from other communities
TL;DW:
The flavor mostly comes from essential plant and spice oils such as nutmeg, cinnamon, lemon, lime, and quite a few others.
Surprisingly, there seems to be a small amount of vinegar that’s essential to getting the correct flavor.
There’s also a mandatory heating step that allows the phosphoric acid to “develop” some of the raw flavor compounds from the essential oils into more complex compounds with different flavors.
In the end, it’s all stuff you can buy yourself. The start-up cost of getting all the ingredients and equipment is high, but once you have them you’d basically be set for life and could make your own coke for much cheaper than buying the “real” stuff at the store.
Sounds great but also sounds like a lot of work…
If all the really cheap off brand soda companies could start using his recipe that would be amazing 😅
kaduThis guy made pure fluorine in his home and toyed around with it, which any chemist would clench their ass just reading about.
Messing with Coca-Cola might be more dangerous than that.
verity_kindleI would do it if the ingredients would be cheaper.
It isn’t expensive per bottle (he mixes 100ml of flavouring that is good for 5000l) but the available quantities are just too big of an purchase and I don’t know how else I could use it for.
I think I tried something with the essential oils and food and because I needed only few drops the rest of the bottle still sits unused somewhere.
You make a good point. What would perhaps be interesting if we had a reliable supplier of a premixed concentrate, but with known ingredients of course. Then you order however much you need. In my country, problem is nothing other than just straight coke or coke zero is available. No green cola, no known healthier choice as far as I’m aware either. So this is an opportunity to democratize coke somewhat. Though, essential oils are also a problem to get, I can at least get them once and make a 5000 litre batch to last me a long time. And I’m primarily interested in sugar-free alternatives, say stevia or other kind of sugar fee sweetener. I already have corny kegs and beer equipment, so I figure it’s a good fit for me and others with similar equipment.
With sugar free alternatives is bit of an problem with taste - steviol is bitter for example. It usually needs to have some combination of 2 or more artificial sweeteners and they can affect the taste. So you will probably need more experimentation with the recipe.
I can get most of the essential oils from local supplier that sells it even to normal people and you don’t need a business. I think they can ship EU wide and the smallest quantity is 30ml.
https://fichema.cz/
phneutralThe Premium Cola Collective reverse engineered Afri Cola years ago after Afri changed their recipe which made their cola worse. Premium is selling their cola for nearly twenty years now in German speaking countries.
Once you find out it contains peppermint oil you always notice it.
I bought some cola flavored candy and cola popsicles recently. Both had a hint of mint or eucaliptus or something fresh and penetrating like that.. I wondered if that was part of the cola ingredient or if it was added.
Walk_blesseDNow do pepsi max
khannieFascinating video. Over two million views already. I’d say we’ll see large supermarkets do own brand versions in weeks.
Perfectly replicating - apart form where everyone says it tastes really like coke, but clearly not exactly.
I mean I’d definitely be buying it at knock down prices if it’s as close as it sounds, not that I drink much coke but I can see various own brands running with this.
There is no way to make it cheaper except becoming bigger than coca cola, assuming they are replication it haha
I highly recommend the This American Life episode “Original Recipe” in which they discover the original recipe visible in a newspaper photograph and attempt to recreate it. *edit: hyperbole
An interesting watch, I’d be more interested in the Pepsi recipe personally but I think I will give this a try.
Jo MiranSince carbonated water is such a big part of a Cola, wonder if there’s something that needs to be to reverse-engineered there?
Coke have killed people for less
certainly, for far less actually. His ogood thing is that he did this in public, so coke can not really go after him (trail would be obvious).
Watched this already and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Being and to craft by own pepsi max variants would be life changing
Make a crystal pepsi for me.
That LC-MS system made me sweat though.. I wished I had one for my projects.