On Sun, 4 Apr 2010 13:54:45 -0700, Bob F wrote:

The guage will then show approximately the equilibrium
pressure at the current temperature of the water in the bottle. You can repeat
this until you reach the desired carbonation.

I was able to carbonate (explained in a thread where I corrected the
spelling of "build" in the title).

Basically, there are two fundamental methods:
1. Tire valve with the stem intact ... or ...
2. Tire valve with the stem removed.

It takes only about a minute to fully carbonate a liter of liquid with the
stem removed. The "flow" I had trouble understanding was a static
"infusion" of carbon dioxide molecules into the fluid based on the partial
pressure of C02 in the air space above the liquid and the partial pressure
of C02 in the liquid; not a literal air-stream flow that was discernible.

Method 1, as you noted, will work; it just takes a LOT longer with static
C02 pressure because it takes about 4 volumes of C02 (i.e., 4 liters) to
fully carbonate 1 volume of liquid (i.e., 1 liter).