What kind of charger should I use?
Cream whippers and soda siphons must be used with the proper charger. When making soda and bubbly drinks you need to use a 8 gram carbon dioxide (CO2) soda charger, while for making whipped cream (and using your whipper for other advanced tricks) you need a 8 gram nitrous oxide (N2O) cream charger. Of course the charger weighs more than 8 grams, which is the weight of the gas charge.
What happens when I use the wrong kind of charger?
If you happen to charge a soda siphon with a cream charger, the outcome will be far from ideal. Nitrous oxide is soluble in water but no carbonisation will happen. The drink you get will lose the gas quickly and will miss the sour taste of soda water.
When using a soda charger to try making whipped cream the cream will not get whipped at all. However the carbon dioxide will happily dissolve in the water in your cream. The end product will be runny, slightly bubbly, sour tasting cream.
How many chargers should I use?
The official guidance is to use one charger per liter for soda water, and one charger per half liter for whipping cream. This means one charger per quart for soda water, and one charger per pint for whipping cream.
When calculating the number of chargers, it does not matter how much raw material you used, only the capacity of the siphon. So if you fill a quart sized cream whipper with only one pint of cream, you still have to use two chargers to get the proper quality of whipping cream.
Can you even buy chargers?
Of yourse you can. Many Hungarian people think that chargers for soda siphons and cream whippers can not be bought anymore. Luckily this is not the case – in most hypermarkets and several webshops you can get chargers easily. In the Hungarian city Répcelak you can find one of the three large charger manufacturers, a company named LISS.
Before 2018 you could buy redeemable chargers in Hungary, which was a unique concept. So if you returned the empty chargers the manufacturer refunded the deposit of the metal cylinder. At the end of 2017 the manufacturer decided to end this exact concept because of the decreased volume of charger sales. Like in all other countries now we also have to buy single use chargers. The news regarding this change could have been interpreted by the casual news consumer as meaning that the sale of cartridges had ceased altogether.




To be able to utilize single use chargers in siphons and cream whippers made before 2018 you have to replace the part named neck rubber to a new type. You have to pay attention to this step when restoring vintage siphons!
Where can you buy soda siphon chargers / cream whipper chargers?
In large department stores, for example SPAR or Interspar. If you want to buy a larger number of chargers, most of the time you are better off ordering online.
Isn’t the disposable charger bad for the environment?
If you throw it away into household trash then it certainly is. However if you dispose of it correctly into metal waste then it can be and will be recycled. Unlike plastic recycling, metal can be recycled again and again without degrading its properties.
What brands of chargers are sold?
As far as I know, in Hungary you can buy the following 8 gram soda and cream chargers (in alphabetic order):
- Hendi / Mosa
- iSi
- Kayser
- LISS
The price of cargers depends on the brand however generally you can buy the domestically produced LISS chargers for the lowest price. The dimensions of different chargers are nearly the same. The iSi Professional charger is the exception as it is slightly larger than the others. Thie iSi charger cannot be used in vintage Hungarian siphons. Charge weight is generally 8 grams with iSi guaranteeing an exact 8,4 grams.
Interestingly, iSi’s factory manufactures cartridges using only renewable energy and has recently switched to climate-neutral production and transport. The remaining carbon dioxide emissions from the production of green iSi Eco cartridges are offset through participation in climate protection projects. You can read more about the iSi Eco cartridge on this page.