root beer?

I make my own beer, cider and mead, but I was thinking on doing a root beer batch for my sons. Something they can help me with. Ive looked up many root beer kits online but I havent yet seen what you do with them?
Can anyone give me an idea of what a root beer kit entails?

I assume you use sugar, yeast and some root beer flavor extract?
How do you stop the fermentiation?
Do you fermentate just like a beer in a primary/secondary etc?
DO you use grolsch bottles or 2 litres etc?
thanks

In the spice section of your grocery store, with all the extracts, you should find root beer concentrate. Add water and sugar and off you go. It is fine and the kids will love it.

blg and i didnt have any luck when we made some and had to pitch it out.

Generally, you stop the fermentation by chilling the bottles after a very short fermentation. Or sorbate & campden tablets. It is not recommended to bottle a live root beer, as it will resume fermentation & explode if allowed to warm up.

If you keg, you just use sugar, water, concentrate and force carbonate.

Allowing a root beer to ferment fully results in something really vile.

OH !!! now i know what went wrong.

I buy Root Beer Extract at my LHBS. It's enough for a 5 gallon batch and the directions are on the box. I substitute dark brown sugar for the granulated sugar and steep two vanilla beans in hot water and add that to the mix. I then keg and force carbonate. The brown sugar and vanilla add an extra richness.

I tried this once too, and it never fermented. I got my supplies from my LHBS and did two, two liter bottles at the same time and neither one fermented. After that I gave up, since it cost the same to just buy it on sale at the grocery store.

Brewtopia said:

I buy Root Beer Extract at my LHBS. It's enough for a 5 gallon batch and the directions are on the box. I substitute dark brown sugar for the granulated sugar and steep two vanilla beans in hot water and add that to the mix. I then keg and force carbonate. The brown sugar and vanilla add an extra richness.

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If I had a keg system, that is the way I'd do it.

Without the kegging equipment, get an Igloo cooler, and a 2 pound chunk of dry ice. Mix up how you want, and pour into the cooler, with the dry ice. In an hour or so, it is ready to drink.

Note, this method only works for a large group of people, since it's going to go flat, a few hours after the dry ice evaporates. (Well, sublimates, really, but it's gone.)

I used to do this method, as a youngster, for large church gatherings. I think that is what started me on my hobby of homebrewing.

steve