"Harvest beer" soda pop

Due to equipment issues, we have not recently made a new batch of real beer. However, we read a book about homemade root beet and soda pop and tried a recipe that seems to me like sure disaster. It involved soaking several pounds of grated apples and raisins in a cheesecloth covered crock for a week at room temperature. After that you spice it, mix in a few pounds of regular sugar and ferment for 12 hours then bottle and refrigerate.

The brew is continually open to the environment and relies on wild yeast. I have no idea how it won't turn out horribly infected with bacteria and other nasties. If you read my obituary several weeks from now, you'll know why.

Presumably it produces a sweet pumpkin-pie-tasting naturally-carbonated soda with about 1% alcohol. I'll believe it when i see it.

PS When my wife wasn't looking, I poured an ounce or two of vodka into the two gallon crock, hoping the drip of alcohol may be enough to protect from some bacteria yet still let yeast ferment.

it's pretty common to rely on natural yeast to produce wine here were i'm from (haven't heard of pop though)...mash up a few litres of blueberries, top up the bucket with water, throw a towel over it, and a few months later you get some of the tastiest blueberry wine you'll find anywhere...no messing around with lab produced yeast strains, chemical clearing agents, preservatives or anything like that...i don't see why your pop wouldn't turn out fine...unless the fruit wasn't organic in which case the pesticides will have destroyed any natural yeast on the fruit and left you with a solution of fruity pesticide mix...