Scalability of recipes?

It's been a while since I tried brewing root beer. The last few times I tried I couldn't escape a funky feet taste and smell.

I've still got all the bottling equipment and ingredients from a year ago - kept dry and sealed so I don't expect they've gone bad. I'll also be using bottled water to take that out of the equation, and making damn sure everything is properly sanitized.

Anyway, I'd like to try again using Crazy8's recipe, but I'd like to do it in small batches so I don't have to dump three gallons of a failed attempt. Is there any reason that I can't directly scale all of the ingredients? For instance, 6 star anise for 3 gallons, so 1 star anise for a half gallon?

Sounds reasonable to me. Can't think why it wouldn't work.

Thanks. Just ordered some more yeast, I'm not sure I trust the stuff that's been sitting in the fridge for for over a year haha. Once it arrives in a few days, I'll make another attempt.

I think scaling up is more difficult, though variation in ingredients may become a factor, if that one anise wasn't very good for some reason.

Have you tried making the recipe again Masterjuggler? Was thinking about giving it a go too.

I'll try making some pretty soon, I've been pretty busy and haven't had a chance. I'll let you know how it comes out.

As for yeast, unlike beer, it just has to provide carbonation. So even a pinch of bread yeast will work.