Root Beer - How to force carb?
 

I decided to make some root beer for the kids. A little extract, some sugar, a keg, and some gas. Easy, right? Apparently not as easy as I thought....

After a week at 12psi, it had no carbonation. Didn't expect much this early, but I did expect something. So I decided to use the 24 hour method. 30psi and 18 hours later, only trivial carbonation. Having made a valiant effort without reading, I can can now ask w/o jeopardizing my man card. He goes;

If 30 psi is the recommended serving pressure (wish I knew that first), what psi and for how long should one carbonate root beer? Can it be done in 24-48 hours? Is it possible to serve rootbeer and have it taste decent at <30psi? I don't mind dedicating a keg and a picnic tap, but I really don't want to commit 40ft of hose and another regulator to it. Is it the same for other homebrew soft drinks?




reading,

Last time I did rootbeer I cranked it up to 34-40psi and shook the living hell out of the keg for about 5 minutes until I could hear no more CO2 seeping into it. After it sat for about 48 hours it was fairly fizzy. I tried this with my last two batches of beer and it completely was overkill though. Took me weeks to get the stuff down so I wasn't getting all foam. But with the Rootbeer it seemed to do the trick.

For rootbeer (and other sodas), you need to carb it really well or it seems flat. I carbed mine at around 40 psi, and served it around 35 psi. Now, you need like 25-30 feet of line for this. Otherwise, if the line is short it's all foam. If it's less psi, it seems flat. Trust me on this- you need about 30 feet of line, but you'll get a nice pour! I got the beer line from McMaster Carr for around .20 cents/foot. I keep that line just for soda, since it's way too long for beer!

Listen to Yoop on this. It's the only way to do it if you even remotely want what you have come to expect from commercially available root beer, or any other soda. I have a primary regulator with two outlets. It's set to 30 psi and one outlet goes to the dedicated root beet keg. The other outlet goes to the inlet of a dual secondary regulator that allows for two different pressures for my other two kegs. I serve the root beer through 35' of 3/16" ID beverage tubing coiled up neatly with zip ties in the back of my kegerator.

The more sugar there is in a liquid the longer it takes for CO2 to dissolve into solution. I've found that it is much easier, and quicker, to chill and carbonate the plain water first and then add the soda extract and sugar and put it back on the gas.

What type of tubing should I be looking for at McMaster? I did a search for beverage tubing and I was seeing prices $2-3 per foot. There are many to choose from however and I did not look at them all.

Thanks for the info. Wish I had read before. I certainly wouldn't have dedicated a keg. I'm cool with burning one keg, but I didn't want to invest a whole second setup for a single flavor..

I can't find the thread that gave the tubing info (I found it on here) but it was cheap, and I don't have a dedicated set up, except for that one super long beer line. I just use a cobra tap, and it has a QD on it of course. I only have one regulator, so when I'm doing the soda, I end up closing the gas off to the beer.

AH... I got abotu 10 ft. of hose, so that is why my cream soda is foamy... I charged tat 30 lbs, and then dropped down to 5 lbs for serving. Guess I'll have to get more hose...

The other thing you can do is transfer to 2 liter bottles and carb those as you go. You either need to buy a carbonator cap or fashion your own using bike tire valves.

I've a keg of Gnome extract sitting at 30 PSI for close to two weeks now and it is just as flat as the day it was mixed.

15 feet of 3/16 beer line and it obviously flows out at a decent clip, but it's flat.

Should I be shaking the keg? It's not leaking gas at the fittings, I already tested for that.

I'm at a loss. Tastes excellent, but there is not fizz.