Experimental Beer hard root BEER!

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NIZZLE

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I get a lot of request for this recipe so here it is.this is originally Fuzzymittenbrewings recipe.
(2 gallons)
1lb. brown sugar
8 oz lactose
2lbs light DME

Boil DME, brown sugar, and lactose with about 8 cups water for 30 minutes. Pour in primary. Top off. Let cool and pitch yeast (I used WLP001). Ferment for 5-7 days. Stabilize (if kegging). Wait another week.

at bottling-
2 cup sugar boiled in 1 cup water
10oz wildflower honey
2 tsp vanilla extract
1.25 tbsp root beer extract (McCormick) taste after adding 1 tbsp then proceed to your taste.
Pastuerize if your bottling. I have thick flip top bottles and didn't need to pasturize but regular bottles probably couldn't hold it.
Enjoy!
-NIZZLE-
 
You got a good review on untappd for this, going to have to try it since it seems pretty easy!
 
Hey all, I'm kind of new to this and I am not sure how to pasteurize the bottles after they are done carbonating. Does anyone have any advice or a link that could show me how to complete this process? Thanks in advance.
 
Hey all, I'm kind of new to this and I am not sure how to pasteurize the bottles after they are done carbonating. Does anyone have any advice or a link that could show me how to complete this process? Thanks in advance.

I have also heard you can use the sanitize/heated dry setting on your dishwasher. I have never done it personally but I like the idea because it keeps any potential bottle bombs contained.
 
You can heat the bottles in a water bath on the stove to 160 for 10 minutes or you can put them all in the dishwasher on the sanitize setting. Some dishwashers don't get hot enough though. Search stove top pasteurization for a detailed walk through
 
What do you mean by "Stabilize (if kegging). Wait another week"

How are you stabilizing and why wait a week? Are you carbing it at the time you keg it but waiting to condition?
 
After stabilizing do I put it on the CO2 (at what pressure?) and wait a week for it to carb up and condition?

I'm just trying to figure out why it says to wait another week.
 
You stabilize, then wait a week for fermentation to stop, before adding the sugar and root beer extract. You bottle/keg at that time.

The reason you wait a week after stabilizing is because you only fermented for 7 days, then abruptly stopped the yeast before it fermented EVERYTHING, hence there are still fermentable sugars in your mixture. You wait a week to make sure no new fermentation has started up again to eat the leftover sugars and let the remaining yeast drop out of suspension. THEN its safe to add EVEN more sugar and root beer extract, and pressurize in the keg.

If you dont stabilize, or you do but add sugars right away, the yeast might keep working on initial sugar and bottling ingredients while it sits in the keg, leading to your beverage devolving over time into something overcarbed and potential for your flavor to evolve nasty hot alcohol and off flavors from a little bit of stressed yeast gorging itself on lots of sugar.

Hence why you have to either Stabilize (and wait) or pasteurize soon after bottling. Alcoholic sugar water tastes nasty when the yeast is allowed to eat all the sugar in it without stopping
 
This was my first ever brew. At first the flavor was not that great, but after it sat for a while it is amazing!
 
So if you aren't kegging you don't stabilize? Do you wait the two weeks for fermentation to run its course if you're just bottling or do you add it all in at the one week mark?
 
How is the honey measured? As I was pouring my honey into the measuring cup. I wondered if maybe I should be weighing it instead. Kinda confused I guess, it's sold by weight, not by volume. Just wanted to make sure for the next batch. Thanks
 
I brewed this two weeks ago and bottled on Saturday. I used one PET bottle and 10 glass bottles. The PET bottle is clear and I can see the separation that others were talking about in this thread (which used to be many pages longer than it currently is). Taste at bottling was great.
I'll post back after we drink some. If the separation is an issue I'm going to bypass the rootbeer extract and give licorice and sassafras root a shot in the brew.
 
Did you use the whole vial of yeast when you did it? I made some non-alcohol root beer the other night with my kids and have a good portion(only took out a 1/4 tsp) of a dry champagne yeast pack left. do you think I could use that for two gallons?
 
Is the two cups of sugar that you add at bottling time table sugar or should I use corn sugar?
 
I just bottled my first batch, and even the tasting at bottling time was fantastic. I was surprised at the color; mine came out a pale amber rather than a root beer brown. But the taste is really excellent. I will definitely be making more of this.

Thanks for the recipe! :mug:
 
Just curious, planning to whip this up for my wife, but I thought lactose was better left added post fermentation?

Also to those who are pasteurizing, how long was it before yours were ready to be pasteurize? I am pretty busy this time of year and don't want to come home to bottle bombs exploding all over.
 
used 500ml PET bottles for my batch. They were rock hard after about 24 hours, and after pasteurizing and chilling, the carbonation was just right for me.
 
I'm curious as to how long everyone is letting this sit in primary?

I changed the recipe a little bit by using 3lbs amber DME, 1/2 lb dark brown sugar and 8oz lactose for 3 gallon batch. On day 5 I am nowhere near done fermenting nor is it even a little bit clear. Was a beast for the first three days.

Making this for my wife so I don't want a ton of trub in the bottles. Guess i'm going to let it sit til it clears before I add the bottling ingredients and bottle.
 
I used Amber DME in mine so it took a lot more root beer and vanilla flavoring to surface but now it taste exactly like some of the hard root beers on the market. Bottles all carbed extremely uneven. Some foamers, some flats. No geysers or bottle bombs fortunately.

Bottled at 7 days on the 4th. Checked 5 of them in the first 5 days and all just had a little spritz including my test bottle. Thought for sure that I undercarbed. Forgot about them until 3 days ago. Opened one and it foamed over. Opened another and just gave a little spritz. Tastes great but totally uneven carbonation. Usually pretty close on my carbing so I don't know what happened. Mixed everything in extremely well. Can't wait til I can talk the wife into a kegging system.
 
Does anyone think I'd have any issues brewing this in a Mr Beer LBK? I just recently moved up to 5 gallon batches and don't want to stain my new equipment. Thoughts?
 
I think it would be fine. I think mr.beer even had a root beer kit. Or at least I think I remember seeing one somewhere.

Thanks - I had just seen that some people mentioned that they needed to use a blow off tube and was concerned that it might bubble out of the LBK.
 
You say we should pasturize our bottles to stop the carbing . Do you put them in the water before it gets hot ? Because you cannot put cold bottles in 160 degree water or they will break . Would they beak if they were at room temperature going in to 160 degree water?
 
I just tried a 1 gallon batch and I substituted dark dme for the light and it came out great! I'll post a picture next time I opene a bottle
 
Well I got that English Nut Brow Brewing, should start heavy fermenting in in a few more hours.. From the smell of the mash its going to be a nice brew, has a nutty smell to it.. Cant wait...

Im going to the nearest brew shop (100 miles away) tomarrow to get a bunch of supplies for my 1 gallon wine making opperation... Currently I have 3 wines going, and need to add to that, i would like to have about 9 gallon test batches going at ones so im going to get a bunch more carboy stoppers and airlocks so I can expand my opperation.. I want to make a mead in this next batch. Im also going to get a bunck of beer bottles for this Nut brown batch.

Jason

Jason

You used dark? How much root beer extract did you have to use? I only used Amber dme and I had to use 2 bottles of flavoring. I would cut back to 1 bottle next time I make it though. Was great for about a month. After that it just got too extract chemical-y.
 
Can you use different flavor of honey, or substitute something for it? I couldn't find wild flower, so I used clover honey and it had a weird flavor. And couldn't get it to carb in the bottles.
 
IIRC, it was 2 tablespoons for the 1 gallon batch I made. I'll try to check my notes and verify that when I get home
 
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