Breville has staked out a place as one of the most reliable makers of well-designed small appliances out there. You’ve seen the brand garner top marks in so many of our Epicurious product tests: best food processor, best home espresso machine, and best hand mixer are just a few examples. So when the Breville InFizz—the brand’s foray into soda makers—was announced, many of the people on our product testing team were eager to try it out. Soda makers have mostly used the same technology for decades, and there are plenty of affordable options on the market that we love, but because we’ve found that Breville takes the little details of appliance design so seriously, we wanted to see what it would do and how the InFizz would fare against the tried-and-tested soda makers we already knew.
How does the Breville InFizz Fusion work?
When it comes down to it, a soda maker, a.k.a. a water carbonator, a.k.a. an inject-CO2-into-liquid-to-make-drinking-it-hurt-in-a-good-way machine, is a simple appliance. Every machine is designed around the industry standard CO2 gas canister, and most models (the InFizz included) feature a single button or lever that releases pressurized CO2 into a bottle of water via a plastic nozzle. That’s pretty much it. After several injections of gas, you untwist the bottle from the machine, cap it, and you have a freshly carbonated liter of water.
The most significant distinction between carbonators is whether they can carbonate only water or whether they can handle other liquids such as juice, tea, coffee, wine, or cocktails. In the past the Drinkmate Omnifizz was the only soda maker that could carbonate anything other than plain ol’ water. But with the InFizz Fusion, there’s now a second machine offering that versatility.
Like the OmniFizz, Breville’s InFizz Fusion can carbonate other liquids due to its detachable carbonation nozzle, which Breville calls a “Fusion Cap.” (Note that there is a model called the InFizz Aqua that doesn’t include the Fusion Cap and carbonates just water.) The nozzle screws on to the bottle during carbonation and, because it isn’t attached to the machine, you can easily clean it. The InFizz Fusion also has an adjustable valve that lets you depressurize the contents of the bottle, releasing the unabsorbed CO2 slowly. This controlled gas release matters because liquids with sugar or fat produce more foam than water does during carbonation, which makes overflow or an unexpected burst of fizz possible. All other soda makers, including everything from carbonator giant SodaStream, have nozzles built directly into the body of the machine. You can’t effectively clean them or depressurize the bottle with the precision you need to handle any liquid beyond water. And if you do try to carbonate anything other than water in a SodaStream, it will void your warranty.
What we like about the Breville InFizz Fusion
In keeping with the brand’s general design philosophy, the finer details of the InFizz Fusion are quite useful. The carbonation cap and nozzle are clearly marked with arrows that indicate how to properly secure the bottle into place (if you don’t, the bottle may overflow or pop out from the cap). The machine has a tilting head that locks the nozzle into place as well, with a clearly visible ring pull to move the head in and out of the locked position. As with all soda machines, as soon as you hear a hiss of excess gas, you know you’ve pumped as much gas into your drink as it will hold. The soda maker is straightforward and easy to use with safeguards to prevent issues with overflow or minor soda explosions.
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