Very Hard Root Beer

[pony]

A friend of ours recently had Small Town Brewery's (?) Not Your Father's Rootbeer. She asked if I could do something similar. Being the intrepid home brewer that all of us on this forum are, I said "absolutely or I'll get drunk trying."
Well here is what I did. I will say there is not a lot of guidance about doing this. It definitely stretched my skills and I learned several new techniques from the areas of soda making, wine/cider, and high gravity brewing. I will preface this with the following: 1. I have never had the aforementioned beer, nor am I a big root beer drinker. So I don't know how close it is, but our friends liked it. 2. This is a recipe in progress and should only be a staring point or food for thought. It is far from perfect as is. 3. It is costly to source the ingredients if you want to make it from scratch. A store-bought syrup would be a lot easier, but then again so would buying pre-made beer! 4. This project definitely takes at least 2 and half months. You will also need a dedicated tap and new rubber gaskets if you want to use your keg for beer again. Enjoy!!
10% Root Beer 27 Jan 2014

3 Gal Batch size
-Stats
Planned reality
1.120 OG 1.106
1.024 FG 1.010
20 IBU Way too low
12.4% ABV 12.3%
Ingredients-
White labs WLP 099 Super High Gravity
6.6 lbs Briess Golden Light LME (Base and Carapils) 4LB
3.0 LBs Briess Golden Light DME 4 Lb
.5 Oz Nugget homegrown

25 Jan- Make starter
-190 grams of plain DME added to 1.9 liters of strater
-yeast- White labs WLP 099 Super High Gravity Exp Feb 21 2014 Lot #1002896
-about 38 hours of feeding time, used foam plug in 2L flask with intermittent shaking
-Estimated 70% Viability of yeast. Need 238 Billion cells. 100 Billion in Vial. .

27 Jan
-start boil with LME,DME, and Hops. Added 3.5 gal water. Expect .5 gal evaporation
- Wort chiller put in.
-Siphoned to Fermentor. Original Gravity of 1.106. Not as much water evaporated as expected. Poured off top of yeast starter of about 1L. At 64 deg added yeast to fermentor.


13 Feb
fermenting at 61 deg . Gravity 1.064 Would equal - (1.106-1.064)x 131.25=5.5% abv
Moved fermenter to upstairs closet. 65deg

15 Feb Took gravity reading. 1.059
17 Feb Gravity reading 1.059. Think it is stuck. Made another yeast starter of wlp 001 california ale yeast. *700ml and 70 g of Golden light DME.

19 Feb. Put yeast slurry into fermentor.
22 Feb. Can see some yeast colonies on top. But now decrease in gravity. Still 1.055
Aerated for 20 minutes with pump and stone. Not recommended but not much choice to get it going.
23 Feb. Air lock is bubbling. No krausen on top. 1.052
24 Feb 1.049
25 Feb 1.048 moved to basement.
10 March-1.045
11 Mar 1.022 gravity. Added in one package of Safale-05 dry ale yeast. Put in 5 oz of corn (priming) sugar.
13 Mar- Gravity 1.015. Taste is very sweet and fruity.
14 Mar- 1.012 grav with Hydrometer. Abv %12.3
17 Mar- 1.010 grav. Abv %12.6 added 1.5 tsp Potassium sorbate to stop yeast growth
18 Mar- put fermentor into garage to get yeast to fluctuate. Temp on fermenter at 45 deg.
19 mar- kegged 3 gal. Made root beer concentrate/tea.
12 cups or 96 fl. oz of water
3 vanilla beans- cut in half
2 oz wintergreen
3tbsp licorice root
6 Tbsp sasparilla root
1/2 inch of cinnamon stick
4 star anise
6 teaspoons molasses
8 oz brown sugar
Boiled all for 30 minutes. used cheesecloth strainer and put into Keg.

Carbonated in keg for 3 days at 40 deg and 20 Psi.

23 Mar Unbelievably astringent and sugary. It rapes the taste buds. Boiled a half gallon of water and 1 Oz of nugget hops for 1 hour. Added to keg in attempt to calm it down.
24 Mar It worked to a degree. A lot smoother and mellower than previous day. Still not perfect, but drinkable.

 

[pony]

I would make the following corrections next time.
-Use an even bigger yeast starter or just add corn sugar in early stages to ramp up alcohol.
-WLP 99 is very estery in my opinion, but manageable. I will use something drier next time and a lot of it.
-I would not add any sugar to root beer concentrate. The beer had plenty of sweetness. You can always add more sugar to taste if you don't get it right in the beer portion.
-A little Star Anise goes a long way. I would add only one next time or just stick with the licorice root.
-Sassafras bark is very hard to find. I did not use any, but you can find it at an Indian grocery
-A little cinnamon also goes a long way
-Defintely more hops a beginning of process. It worked at the end, but I think it would meld together more if done earlier.
-I would also try and add the vanilla to the boil of the beer. I need to research the whether licorice root, sarsaparilla, and wintergreen would benefit from this as well.

Please post any other suggestions. This has a lot of potential!!

 

[BL41R]

That stuff is awesome, i had it on tap at Beelowe's steakhouse

 

[5mooth0perator]

Boiling vanilla is a party foul for spice. Also it is kind of difficult to imagine but the entire spice cabinet is game for root beer. If you look up the old time recipes they had prickly ash(Sichuan pepper corns), chilies, ginger etc.

My favorites are birch bark and wild cherry bark.

 

[GPP33]

I don't really have anything to add other than I really want to find a good root beer recipe and that not your fathers stuff is nasty. Damn right my father wouldn't drink that stuff.