Coprinus

Recipes 

I'm really excited about this one.

For 6 Gallons;

6.6 pounds Light Dry Extract
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L
8.0 oz Chocolate Malt
8.0 oz Oats, Flaked
3.0 oz Roasted Barley

1oz Hallertau Hops (½ bittering, ½ finishing)

At beginning of boil -
4 oz Burdock Root
4 oz Roasted Dandelion Root
½ oz hops

At 30 minutes -
8oz Sarsaparilla Root
2 Sticks Cinnamon
2oz Licorice Root


At 40 minutes -
8oz Sassafras Root bark
4oz Cherry Tree Bark

End of Boil
1 tsp. Nutmeg
½ oz hops

Secondary:
2 Vanilla Beans
2oz Wintergreen?


Got it all ordered, now I just wait....
In the meantime, any thoughts?

mitch171

Recipes 

Where did you find the ingredients? I really think I want to give this a try. I have always wanted an adult root beer as it is my favorite pop.

Coprinus

Recipes 

I used two sources:

http://www.pacificbotanicals.com/

http://www.mountainroseherbs.com/

They both have extensive catalogs of high quality plant products.

I'll be brewing sometime next week - October 7th or 8th, and I'll keep updating as I proceed. I should mention that this beer is highly experimental. You can see what I'm shooting for, but I'm pretty much flying blind here in terms of the proportions of the ingredients and the boil times and everything. In other words, you might want to let me see if this works before you go out sassafras shopping.

mitch171

Recipes 

LOL I have a few brews before this one would be up. I am sure this will end up being something great even if some tweaking needs to be done. I mean people are able to make good beer with pumpkin pie spice I am sure this will turn out at least as good as that.

chefmike

Recipes 

I would love to hear what you think of the finished product

__________________
Reformation Brewery: A 15bbl community brewery coming soon...
Obsessing over: starting a local brewery (hence I am not here much these days!), CSA produce, my wife, 1 year old and 4 year old, my chevy 6.5L diesel Suburban
Reading: A Praying Life by Paul E Miller
Building: gardens, recipes, and trailer mounted smoker/ wood pizza oven

Coprinus

Recipes 

Well, I brewed it up today, almost exactly like the recipe. It's was an amazing array of aromas, and a lively boil, with hot breaks every time I added more herbs. I filtered the wort through a colander, and then a funnel filter, and it's still really cloudy.
OG=1.051
The hydrometer sample tasted impossibly bitter. I'm afraid I blew it. Maybe next time I'll use like 1/2 the herbs. Or boil them for less time.
In the meantime, I'm holding out hope that the magic of fermentation (along with a late addition of vanilla bourbon) will smooth out any rough edges. I'll keep you posted.

Eigenmusic

Recipes 

Hah, yeah, it is going to take a LOT to clear that one up, if it is even possible. I bought a lot of these same things a few years ago from MountainRoseHerbs (before I got heavy into brewing a few months ago and found that I'm doing quite well at it now), and basically made a large batch of sweetened Satan's diarrhea. I dumped it.

I still have the things around and brew myself up a cup of "witch's liver tea" every few weeks with varying amounts of: sarsparilla, burdock root, yellow dock root, peppermint (or spearmint), wild cherry bark, hops (lol, who knows what these are, exactly), licorice root, and cinnamon. Took many batches before I was able to down a whole liter of this stuff. I left half a cup out for a few days on accident once, came back, and it looked and smelled just like before. Not even wild yeasties or bacteria want in on that action. :P

Anyway, I'm sure it'll be at least drinkable, since it at least has the beer background as a base. Report back when you bite into one!

__________________
On Deck: Several Brews...
Primary: nuthin'
Bottled: #5-Cascade APA - OG 1.054 (2010-01-05 -> 2010-02-02), #4-Mega Chocolate Stout - OG 1.065 (2009-10-15 -> 2009-11-11), #2-Fresnos Tripel - OG 1.080ish (2009-08-18 -> 2009-09-30)
Dumped: #0-Improper Honey Infested Wheat
Consumed: #1-Proper Infested Wheat (bottled 08/04/2009), #3-Vanilla Porter - OG 1.062 (09/20/2009 -> 10/07/2009)
Infested Wheat: Hefeweizen made from the last, dusty bag of whole wheat from the old feed store 30 miles away.

Coprinus

Recipes 

Sounds like Satan dumped it too!

Coprinus

Recipes 

Next day, and I've got about an inch and a half of krausen, and a happily bubbling airlock. The aroma floating out of the airlock is amazing. If it doesn't taste good, at least it'll smell great!

Coprinus

Recipes 

Transfered into a 5 gallon today, and had the opportunity to taste. I'm quite pleased and surprised. The awful bitterness has mostly subsided, leaving a pleasant tannic bite. There is a wonderful complexity, with a distinctive "rooty" flavor. The licorice and cinnamon are showing more than I expected them to, but not in an unpleasant way. I look forward to trying it cold and bubbly.
The plan is three weeks in the secondary, then pre-bottling addition of vanilla bean infused bourbon. I'll let you know!