MrFoodScientist
Well-Known Member
Yeah. By looking at it I would guess it could be branch. But the description says root. And the bark smells like root beer. I chopped it up a little smaller and brewed with it last night. Tasted good. We'll see in a few days. Maybe since its summer they sent branch instead of root. Or maybe it's root. I froze it cause it was so moist it was making condensation in the bag so I'm afraid of mold. I'll update when I drink it.
I've personally dug sassafras that looked like that. That could easily be root.
I had a friend that had some sassafras trees on his property and I asked if I could dig some roots, he showed me little tree with a trunk about the size of my arm and brought a shovel and a pick axe. We started digging and I got a handful of roots and said that would suffice, then he tore into the thing and we ended up pulling the whole tree out and I went home with a bucket full of roots. Sassafras is invasive, so he didn't mind pulling the whole thing out, gave him more room for his driveway.
But yeah, some of the roots we dug that day were easily that thick, some were thicker. You can use only the bark, it seems to have the most flavor, but using the whole root is fine, too. I washed mine and froze it, seemed just fine. The larger pieces I let dry, some did grow some mold, so I tossed those. The frozen ones functioned a little bit better than the dry ones, but the differences were subtle.