Root beer

Any tips on making root beer. I am waiting on the bottles. Just looking for some tips

Don't use a kit or extracts. Buy the fresh herbs. When I get home from work, I'll post my recipe for you. It's an old style root beer, but it tastes great. Looks like cream soda though.

That would be great. I manage a resturant and they have this extrac that they want to make some with. I offered to make it because I have the stuff to do it with. I was a bit weary about useing the extrac.

I don't think the extract is that bad personally and it's a lot faster. My thing is using cane sugar and not putting in as much as the extract recipe calls for. Make it to taste adding sugar in 1 cup quantities and it will be great. You can even add herbs or spices to change it a little for personal taste, but if you haven't done soda before an extract isn't a bad way to start.

My $.02

Cheers

The recipe calls for 6cups of sugar to 4 3/4 gallons water. That seems like a lot to me, would u say 4-4 1/2 cup would be fine?

Dstreetbrew said:

The recipe calls for 6cups of sugar to 4 3/4 gallons water. That seems like a lot to me, would u say 4-4 1/2 cup would be fine?

Click to expand...

You can always add less to start, and add more if it's not sweet enough. One of the reasons I like homemade soda is because I don't have a sweet tooth and commercial sodas are too sweet. I think most people DO like super sweet sodas.

One nice thing in root beer is to sub a little of the regular sugar with brown sugar. Gives the root beer a great flavor.

I used to always make a small pitcher of rootbeer, weighing the ingredients. When I got the "right" flavor, then I'd duplicate it in a bigger batch.

Maltodextrine is nice in root beer, it gives body and fullness without additional sweetness. Don't add too much though! My son accidently used too much and made root beer jello in his bottles.

I agree with adding a little at a time you can always make it sweeter. I also use the idea of starting with a 1 gallon batch and keeping track of percentages and turning it into a full 4 and a half gallon batch that the recipe calls for. Its all about creating something that you like that isn't available commercially

Suthrncomfrt1884 said:

Don't use a kit or extracts. Buy the fresh herbs. When I get home from work, I'll post my recipe for you. It's an old style root beer, but it tastes great. Looks like cream soda though.

Click to expand...

I'd love this recipe as well. My wife is pregnant and LOVES root beer. I told her I'd make her some (ya know, she is having my baby and all).

I was going to go with the extract, but after looking around, I think I'd rather make it from scratch.

Here's the recipe I used and it turned out great. It's a lot different than commercial root beer though, so if you're looking for something along those lines, then you may want to use an extract. This is great for floats too. I can't remember where I found this recipe, I just had these notes saved on my computer. I added a little extra licorice and wintergreen to give it a more modern rootbeer flavor.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

First, put about 5 quarts of water into your favorite brew pot, and then add:

•1 oz sarsparilla root
•1 oz sassafras root bark
•1 oz cherry bark
•1/2 oz licorice root
•1/2 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
•1/8 oz cinnamon (about half a stick)
•2 to 4 oz raisins (you can add more if you like their flavor)
•1/2 tsp salt
•3 cups honey
•1/2 cup molasses
•4 lb sugar
Simmer this mixture for an hour or so, until you have a 5 quarts or so of syrup left in your pot (remember, adding all that stuff increased your volume by a couple of quarts).

Once this is boiled down, strain your mixture into another pot and add:

•1 tbsp vanilla extract
•1 tsp wintergreen or birch extract, or 1/2 tsp pure essential oil

Stir a bit, and then bottle in 1-quart jars. Due to the high sugar content, this should keep fairly well, but you could always use a plastic jar or bottle and store it in the freezer (do not put glass into the freezer). To make the root beer, just mix 1:4 with water (one part syrup + 4 parts water) and carbonate4. Depending on your taste preference, variations in cooking times, and/or the spices you used, you may find that the ratio needs to be adjusted for your batch, so don't hesitate to use more or less syrup to get the flavor just right.

I am planing on putting the root beer in glas bottles little "nips" for a corse in a beer dinner my resturant is doing. Every thing I read about root beer leads me to believe that I'm gonna have 2 cases of broken bottles from them exploding. Would u suggest letting it ferment in my fermenting bucket with the air lock for about 12 hours befor bottling.

Anyone ever mess around with making a hard root beer? I like root beer A LOT but I have a feeling I'd like it even more if it got me wasted.

Dstreetbrew said:

I am planing on putting the root beer in glas bottles little "nips" for a corse in a beer dinner my resturant is doing. Every thing I read about root beer leads me to believe that I'm gonna have 2 cases of broken bottles from them exploding. Would u suggest letting it ferment in my fermenting bucket with the air lock for about 12 hours befor bottling.

Click to expand...

You don't want to let the rootbeer ferment unless it's in the bottle. Fermenting in the bottle is enough to give you carbonation without losing any of your sugar content, which gives rootbeer it's sweetness.

Do you think I will run into any problems with exploding bottles?

Dstreetbrew said:

Do you think I will run into any problems with exploding bottles?

Click to expand...

If it's in a glass bottle, yes. If you're using PET bottles, then just let them sit long enough until you can't squeeze them anymore, then stick them in the fridge.

I don't understand why they can't be put in glass bottles. I have seen other root beers in glass bottles. What do they do different that hey don't have broken bottles...because I don't have a choice the root beer needs to be put in glass for what we are using the for. Any ideas would be great

You can take a risk and put them in glass. The reason I advise against it is because there's no way to tell when the bottles are properly carbonated. Sometimes it takes a few days, sometimes it takes a week...depending on temps and yeast health. If you wait too long to put them in the fridge, the bottles will explode because of the amount of sugar in them.

Glass beer bottles aren't meant to hold the kind of carbonation that soda requires either. Have you ever noticed how thick the glass bottles are with store bought sodas?

The only way around all of this is to force carbonate your root beer with CO2 and then transfer it to glass, but even then you'll have a hard time bottling because of the amount of carbonation.

I had a glass bottle blow up in my face its not pretty or somthing I ever want to happen to me again....pulling glass shards out of your face and neck hurts......lucky I still have my eyes......embarrassing to share but it happened to me.......

Could you buy the glass soda bottles from the store, clean and use them?

If kegging to force carbonate, I imagine you could get a Turbotap for your system.. Crazy expensive, but doesn't produce much foaming when pouring.

Edit: moved to new thread to avoid hijacking

Suthrncomfrt1884 said:

•1 oz sarsparilla root
•1 oz sassafras root bark
•1 oz cherry bark
•1/2 oz licorice root

Click to expand...

So where can one find these ingredients?

Maybe your local health food store or the internet, see links below.

sassafras has been listed as being potentially harmful: roots of sassafras can be steeped to make tea, and were used in the flavoring of traditional root beer until being banned for mass production by the FDA. That is probably why it is listed as for external use only on the web listing.

sarsparilla root
sassafras root bark
cherry bark
licorice root

Around here I find Sassafras root in the woods.

funkadelicturkey said:

sassafras has been listed as being potentially harmful: roots of sassafras can be steeped to make tea, and were used in the flavoring of traditional root beer until being banned for mass production by the FDA. That is probably why it is listed as for external use only on the web listing.

Click to expand...

From what i've read you'd have to drink over 20 gallons of homebrewed root beer a day to get the levels of sassasfras (safrole) that produced cancer in the FDA's lab rats. Normal beer and wine contain greater amounts of carcinogens...