Brewing my own cola?

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rockout

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Is it possible for me to brew a Coca-Cola clone? (The reason for doing this is to use real sugar instead of their high-fructose corn syrup) Has anyone done this? If so, can you point me to some instructions/recipes?

I imagine it's possible to make it happen using all my beer-brewing equipment, I just have no idea where to start.

Thanks.
 
you dont need hardly any of your equipment. there are quite a few brands of soda extracts. pretty much just add water. you'd need a kegging system to carb, or bottle with soda water. if you want to get fancy and clone coke, googling "cola recipe" produced this site. if you try any of these recipes let us know how they turn out.
 
What if I don't have a kegging system? Will bottling with soda water and the same capping I do with beer preserve the carbonation?
 
If you don't have kegs, then you can bottle carbonate using yeast. The key is to chill the soda after the carbonation level is right and NEVER let it warm up in the bottle. Typical sweetening levels for soda can result in several hundred psi.

Much safer to bottle in plastic.
 
I make my own root beer. 2 lt plastic soda bottle, add 2 cups of sugar, 1 Tbsp extract, 1/4 tsp dry yeast, any type will do, I use whatever is handy. Add water, shake until all the sugar is in solution and then sit it somewhere 1-2 days until the bottle is good and firm. Now place in the fridge and enjoy your own rootbeer.
One caution, if you forget and let the bottles sit out too long you have the potential for serious bombs. All the obvious disclaimers apply.
AP
 
NEVER use a beer keg or beer line + tap for home made soda...ESPECIALLY ROOT BEER.
its a huge pain to clean the keg of the odor, and you'll have to replace every single o-ring to do it. Your beer line will never come clean and you'll be hard pressed to get the tap deodorized as well.
 
I have a recipe for home made root beer, a 1910 flischmann's recipe, that is brewing. I only found one place on the net that sold all of the roots. Fun, but locking a 1/4 cup of sugar in a bottle with yeast can be interesting.
 
I saw a neat technique over on instructables.com (cool site, btw).

A guy takes sugar and yeast and water in one bottle, and uncarbed soda in the other bottle. Then, with nothing more than a couple of caps, some pressure fittings, some tubing and a pressure gauge, the guy transfers the CO2 into the soda until fully carbed.

No yeast in your soda, no fancy kegging equipment. I don't know how practical or wasteful this technique is, but it sure seemed like a clever way of getting a little carbonation.
 
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