Hard Root Beer recipe

Man this sounds good, I can bottle in plastic root beer bottles too!! Any 5 gal recipes out there? (I love root beer)

Wambatfarms- yes, what I did was put about half a gallon in the pot, add the malt and brown sugar. let that boil until everything is pretty well dissolved, and add to the primary. Top off with the remaining water and pitch yeast when cool enough.

gibiore-i would say you could just multiply the ingredients by 5 for a 5g batch since the recipe was for 1g. I did omit the nutrient and energizer from current batch because i read theyre not needed. Now I would probably add more fermentables because when I checked the OG for the current batch, it was low. Maybe more malt or dextrose in the primary.

Thanks for the reply. Could someone possible add an updated recipe with any changes?

Just brewed 2 gallons. Just doubled everything. I will report progress. Using harvested WLP001

Wombatfarms- there is a complete 1g recipe on page 2 of this post. I think the only update would be the addition of more fermentables to raise the OG.

Fuzzymittenbrewery- Looking forward to you're results!

My og was 1.068

Did you add any additional fermentables?

Bauerbrewery1989 said:

Did you add any additional fermentables?

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Went with 1lb brown sugar for 2 gallons.

Bauerbrewery1989 said:

Wombatfarms- there is a complete 1g recipe on page 2 of this post. I think the only update would be the addition of more fermentables to raise the OG.

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Thanks. For some reason I just looked right over it.

Fun recipe. Will be trying this soon. Thanks.

Fuzzymittenbrewery - You said you doubled everything for your 2 gal batch except the Brown sugar you used 1 lb. correct?? Do you think it will effect the flavor? I'm curious as to how it turns out.

tnorman93638 said:

Fuzzymittenbrewery - You said you doubled everything for your 2 gal batch except the Brown sugar you used 1 lb. correct?? Do you think it will effect the flavor? I'm curious as to how it turns out.

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Correct. Wanted to up the gravity a bit so used a total of 1lb brown sugar. Usually fermented light brown sugar will contribute a slight caramel flavor but it should work well in what we are going for here.

Fyi at the higher gravity use a blow off tube. It went nuts on me last night and my airlock was filled with krausen material this morning lol. Im using washed WLP001.

Happened to me too, even with the lower gravity.

Just an update, the FG for the current batch was 1.015, so the abv would be around 4%. Gonna get my CO2 tank filled on Monday and keg this for the next poker night.

Just bottled with all the same sugar additions as Bauerbrewery including a plastic one to monitor pressure. Will be pasturizing this. It looks a thing of beauty! And tastes fantastic ( having the last 8 oz or so over ice that didn't fit in bottles) will report on carb time and pasturization.

Oh and The WLP001 I used was hungry so it came down to 1.004 ending up a whopping 8.4%abv. So definately be mindful of what yeast you use. But WLP001 is my go to for any experiments, its strong, clean and aggressive. That's why its part of my farm

I just brewed this up today.
Did a full 5 gal boil based on the original recipe, However omitted the yeast energizer as I didn't have any. Ended up with an OG of 1.058

That looks amazing fuzzymittenbrewery, and the abv sounds dangerously good. Definatly keep us posted on the pasteurization. I think my yeast was higher on the FG was because the yeast was pretty old and I might have stabilized prematurely (not a normal problem). Definatly going to try WLP001 next time.

Fuzzymittenbrewing said:

Oh and The WLP001 I used was hungry so it came down to 1.004 ending up a whopping 8.4%abv. So definately be mindful of what yeast you use. But WLP001 is my go to for any experiments, its strong, clean and aggressive. That's why its part of my farm

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I'm curious what your starting gravity?

I'm wondering because I attempted your version as a gallon batch for the added gravity but ended up using the whole pound instead of half! I ended up with about 1.065

I'm going to use nottingham though so I doubt I'll get that low.

pkrath84 said:

I'm curious what your starting gravity?

I'm wondering because I attempted your version as a gallon batch for the added gravity but ended up using the whole pound instead of half! I ended up with about 1.065

I'm going to use nottingham though so I doubt I'll get that low.

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Hmm that's odd because mine was 1.068

Yeah, I'm sure I messed something up somewhere. Oh well, not a big deal. I'll pay closer attention next time I make this. I was probably multitasking a bit too much while I put this together.

You guys werent kidding about that active fermentation!

I setup a blow-off into a second vessel and it went NUTS! Luckily my wife had the foresight to put the second vessel into a bigger bowl (just in case). That would have been a challenge to clean even for the steam cleaner with how sticky it was!

Well I didn't pasturize this batch. The plastic bottle seemed to max out and not need it. I'm pretty confident in my flip top bottles as well, they are fairly thick. Anyway here it is in its delicious 8.4% glory. I used only a tblsp and a half of extract for 2 gallons and may even cut that back next time and definately more lactose to mimick the "float" flavor. Thanks for the recipe Bauerbrewery!

Looks great! Thanks for letting us know how it came out!

Glad to hear it came out well for you! The great thing about this recipe is its easily tweaked to meet you're taste. It's simple and tasty.

Just poured a glass from a keg of my 3rd batch (first kegging attempt ever). Alittle overcarbed, but it tastes amazing, the head retention is crazy, I feel like I could float a bowling ball on it. Does very well when kegged, going to try to get/make a beer gun, use O2 absorbing caps, and age some of this, see what alittle time will do to the flavor.

Sounds good! I cant wait to try some of my first batch. Fermentation should be wrapping up shortly!

I am going to try this next.
I have a question tho, instead of adding a ton of sugar then stopping fermentation when bottle carbonating, can I add a smaller amount of priming sugar for a specific vol CO2 and let it carbonate that way?

Ever have non-sweetened root beer? Not very tasty. You could definatly try it, I'm not sure it would turn out very well though. You could use non-fermentables like Splenda too I guess, but I'd rather have a bottle blow up in my face then drink that stuff. Personal preference though.

Even with the lactose sugar in there?

Would I be better off making a root beer float style stout?

Yeah, the lactose is more for that float flavor, doesn't let a whole lot sweetness. I was going to try making it with crystal malt and honey malt to give the sweetness. Definatly give the root beer stout a shot though, it would be interesting to hear you're results.

I was thinking the same thing on the crystal and honey malts. I'll work on a stout recipe separately.

Ok I'll go ahead and save a plastic bottle and give it a squeeze then toss them in the fridge once that one is rock solid. Thanks!

I was thinkin maybe adding Madagascar bourbon vanilla either beans or extract to this. Any thoughts on that?

You would need to leave it in the fermenter longer if using the vanilla beans, but that wouldn't be a bad thing. The thought of adding that slight bourbon flavor sounds really good though!

Bauerbrewery1989 said:

Ever have non-sweetened root beer? Not very tasty. You could definatly try it, I'm not sure it would turn out very well though. You could use non-fermentables like Splenda too I guess, but I'd rather have a bottle blow up in my face then drink that stuff. Personal preference though.

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Agreed. I thought about just adding enough to normal prime but it just wouldn't be anywhere sweet enough

If anyone's interested, I just ordered 10 Madagascar bourbon vanilla beans off Amazon for $6 with free shipping.

I'm new to brewing how & why would you pasteurize the beer
Tim

When I pasteurize, I take a large stock pot put a grate/riser on the bottom and put all my bottles in, cover with water to the level of the fluid in the bottles at least and bring to 150F for 15 mins to let the contents come to temp. So far, so good. No bottle bombs this summer.

You would do this of you want to prime to carb in bottles and also back sweeten to leave residual sugar (fermentable).

Yeah, what pkrath said.
In the most basic of terms, you're carbonating the beer to the right carbination level, but still have sugar that the yeast can eat, which can over carbonate the beer (it could go boom then). By killing the yeast with heat (pasteurization) there isn't anything to eat the sugar, so you have a carbonated, sweetened, beer. Usually this isn't a problem, since normally most beer isn't supposed to be really sweet, but since root beer needs to be sweet, you could use this process. There's a great post on pasteurization in the cider forum, here's the link if you want more info on it-
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/easy-stove-top-pasteurizing-pics-193295/

Thats the post I adopted my method from. I just prefer to have my bottle in while I bring the water up to temp, then let them sit 10-15 mins while holding 150*

If you do it like that post you'll be just fine.