Cream Soda Recipe with vanilla extract

[GreenMan]

Had a hard time finding a cream soda recipe on here other then the packet ones sold at the LHBS so i found one online that I tried tonight. Tasted it after it cooled down and it tasted like pretty good cream soda for being flat. In keg now at 35 psi.

Recipe is from here. Only had 2 cups of corn syrup so I changed the recipe to this:

2 cups Corn Syrup
16 2/3 cups Sugar
6 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1 teaspoon Unsweetened Lemonade Kool-aid Mix
Water

Mixed everything in about 8 quarts of hot water to dissolve sugars and then poured into a keg and topped off to 5 gallons with cold water.

Looked up sugar content of A&W compared to ours and ours is about 40% more sugar so could probably be done with less sugar.

 

[billtzk]

That sounds interesting, but I'd love to see a recipe that does not utilize magic. Unsweetened Lemonade Kool-Aid Mix is "magic", in that it can't be duplicated exactly from common base ingredients.

 

[conpewter]

I just did a recipe I'm basing off of Sprecher cream soda. I watched a special on how they made their soda (didn't give a whole lot of details) and going off the ingredients on the bottle. I did not add the yucca extract or sodium benzoate but I did have all the other ingredients (that are listed...) So I'll post back on here once I've tried it. I'm doing this as a syrup recipe that you mix with soda water. For the acid part I used 10% phosphoric acid solution, lemonade mix is interesting though.

 

[phred_02]

That sounds interesting, but I'd love to see a recipe that does not utilize magic. Unsweetened Lemonade Kool-Aid Mix is "magic", in that it can't be duplicated exactly from common base ingredients.

I can't say for sure, but I'm guessing that the Kool-Aid is being used for the acid content. You should be able to use something like acid blend in place of it.

 

[mysteryberto]

Anyone have good links to resources on making home made soda from scratch? Extracts are good but I'm looking to experiment. What is the function

Costco has vanilla beans for $12 for 10. I want to make cream soda from scratch with real beans.

 

[Jeebs]

Hi guys! I've been making soda the past few months, and here's a couple of websites I've used:

Do it yourself: Brew Better Soda at Home

Brewing Root Beer

They don't provide a lot of useful recipes, but still, it's a decent starting point. I think Creswell's book is also a great reference.

Amazon.com: Homemade Root Beer, Soda & Pop: Stephen Cresswell: Books


I haven't made cream soda, but I hope to very soon. Here's a source I found for inexpensive vanilla beans. Good quality, and fast shipping too.

25 MADAGASCAR VANILLA BEANS PREMIUM TOP QUALITY BEST - eBay (item 320312629110 end time Jan-19-09 08:04:11 PST)

 

[PsiWulf7]

Go to their website, top vanilla beans - the price is about the same, but there are minor discounts for ordering in bulk. Still uses paypal.

I ordered a bundle, so I'll post a review once I get them.

 

[GreenMan]

Jeebs or mysteryberto, did you ever get around to make some cream soda? I just listened to a podcast that talked about vanilla beans and how vanilla extract is basically as good if not better then vanilla beans since they use a different bean that has more "vanilla" flavor too it. If you still wanted to do it with vanilla beans you would have to make an extract from the bean before adding it to the soda or let the bean soak in the soda for a long time to pull out the vanilla flavor.

I am going to try and make another batch of this again now that I have more kegs to use up. This will be the recipe I'm going to try:

9 cups Sugar
6 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
Some amount of lemon zest/juice to make up for the Kool-aid Mix
Water

 

[mysteryberto]

Jeebs or mysteryberto, did you ever get around to make some cream soda? I just listened to a podcast that talked about vanilla beans and how vanilla extract is basically as good if not better then vanilla beans since they use a different bean that has more "vanilla" flavor too it. If you still wanted to do it with vanilla beans you would have to make an extract from the bean before adding it to the soda or let the bean soak in the soda for a long time to pull out the vanilla flavor.

I am going to try and make another batch of this again now that I have more kegs to use up. This will be the recipe I'm going to try:

9 cups Sugar
6 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
Some amount of lemon zest/juice to make up for the Kool-aid Mix
Water

It's still on my things to do list. A lot of vanilla extract I've used is sub par to vanilla beans. The expensive extract is pretty good. I think I might experiment with making vanilla extract with some Everclear I have.

Let me know how your recipe goes

 

[dontman]

I haven't made cream soda, but I hope to very soon. Here's a source I found for inexpensive vanilla beans. Good quality, and fast shipping too.

25 MADAGASCAR VANILLA BEANS PREMIUM TOP QUALITY BEST - eBay (item 320312629110 end time Jan-19-09 08:04:11 PST)

Thanks for the link. I paid $17 for 2 beans at the supermarket just today. I just bought 2 bundles (50 beans) for $25.50 delivered.

 

[dontman]

I just listened to a podcast that talked about vanilla beans and how vanilla extract is basically as good if not better then vanilla beans since they use a different bean that has more "vanilla" flavor too it.

This might be true under ideal circumstances - i.e. highest quality extract from a place like Penzeys' spices but in my experience you get much better vanilla flavor from beans than standard supermarket extract. This is not to say that I don't use extract for almost all of my cooking but when the food product is vanilla-based, such as cream soda or vanilla ice cream or a vanilla custard I use beans.

Meh, I don't know. Not all beans are created equal either so I'm kinda talking out of my butt here.

Still I bought 50 beans for $25! You can't beat that with a stick.

 

[Joe C]

Well, I made up my own recipe, so who knows how it's going to work out - I used what I had in my stock of stuff.

18 cups of brown sugar
6 tablespoons of costco pure vanilla extract (I realized I did this afterwards)
1 1/2 tablespoons of lemon juice
Water! Lots of it.


We shall see how it turns out, but it smells amazing. It might not be classic or correct, but hopefully it's good, lol!

 

[Matrix4b]

For vanilla extract you want an alcohol of 35%-45% ABV. Everclear is way too high for it. Or rather too high to be efficient. You get the same amount of flavor extracted from the 35%-45% ABV. Making Vanilla Extract is easy. Cheap Vodka or white Rum is the most recomended. All you do is slit and scrape 6 vanilla beans into 1 cup of alchohol. Shake each day for 2 weeks and then let sit for about 1 1/2 months. Strain through a screen and then you have your vanilla extract of higer quality than you would get from the store. You can also use the screening beans again with one more batch. But I would let it sit for 3 monts following the same process. So you should end up with about 1 1/2 cups of vanilla extract as some volume is lost in the beans. Time to make about 4 months but hey, 1 1/2 cups is a lot.

My best price online that I found for Vanilla beans is off of organicvanillabean.com and there I found that I got 3/4 a pound of vanilla beans (7 inch long quality A) for about $34 and that included the shipping. I found that this was 98 beans. I ordered 1/2 of Bourbon and 1/4 of Valenca(?) beans. That turns out to be 35 cents a bean.

Hope that this helps.

 

[conpewter]

For smaller amounts i found an OK deal at Costco, 10 beans for $15. I still haven't perfected my cream soda recipe, too many other things going on.

 

[BBBF]

I just did a recipe I'm basing off of Sprecher cream soda. I watched a special on how they made their soda (didn't give a whole lot of details) and going off the ingredients on the bottle. I did not add the yucca extract or sodium benzoate but I did have all the other ingredients (that are listed...) So I'll post back on here once I've tried it. I'm doing this as a syrup recipe that you mix with soda water. For the acid part I used 10% phosphoric acid solution, lemonade mix is interesting though.

How'd this turn out? I buy my honey from the same place that supplies Sprechers, so it would be cool to try and replicate their recipies.

 

[Joe C]

I tried mine today, and I love it! I will post pictures later.

 

[stoneman]

Well, I made up my own recipe, so who knows how it's going to work out - I used what I had in my stock of stuff.

18 cups of brown sugar
6 tablespoons of costco pure vanilla extract (I realized I did this afterwards)
1 1/2 tablespoons of lemon juice
Water! Lots of it.

We shall see how it turns out, but it smells amazing. It might not be classic or correct, but hopefully it's good, lol!

Joe, how big is your batch 1 gal, 5 gal...?

 

[Joe C]

5gal. Even flat it's awesome!

 

[Joe C]

Crappy picture, I snapped it quick:

This one is out of focus, but you get it.

 

[stoneman]

Thanks Joe, I was assuming it was for a full corney, but I just wanted to double check.

 

[dontman]

I make a 3 gallon batch of cream soda with:

1/3 cup chopped raisins
7 vanilla beans
1 cinnamon stick
5 cups dark brown sugar
2 cups white sugar
3/4 tsp cream of tartar

I serve it with a dollop of cream or as the absolute bestest Ice Cream Soda I have ever had.

 

[Joe C]

5gal. Even flat it's awesome!

It was actually a 6gal carboy that i filled.. whoops!

 

[mordantly]

Had a hard time finding a cream soda recipe on here other then the packet ones sold at the LHBS so i found one online that I tried tonight. Tasted it after it cooled down and it tasted like pretty good cream soda for being flat. In keg now at 35 psi.

Recipe is from here. Only had 2 cups of corn syrup so I changed the recipe to this:

2 cups Corn Syrup
16 2/3 cups Sugar
6 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1 teaspoon Unsweetened Lemonade Kool-aid Mix
Water

Mixed everything in about 8 quarts of hot water to dissolve sugars and then poured into a keg and topped off to 5 gallons with cold water.

Looked up sugar content of A&W compared to ours and ours is about 40% more sugar so could probably be done with less sugar.

is this one pretty good cold and carbd??

 

[zorcy]

just a tid bit. the creme part came from the smooth mouth feel you get from lactose, a milk sugar. i think if you looked up a milk stout, used the sugar ratios, you would get a better flavour. i tried a dozen single batches of rootbeer. using all kinds of sugars. the best that i found was a mix of brown sugar and lactose. it gave the right taste and feel. very similar to good creme soda.

 

[dvidakovich]

We just the yeast method recipe from http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Cream-Soda

Easy instructions and we scaled it up to 2 Liters and used our beer brewing bottles:

4 Tablespoons of Penzys Spices Pure Vinalla Extract Single-Strength Alcohol 35%
1/4 teaspoon yeast
2 Quarts of water

Mix everything together and bottle (we used our beer brewing kit to secure the caps).
Wait 48 hours (they say until the their plastic bottle is hard, but using bottles will be impossible to tell)
Then put in back of refrigerator undisturbed for 24-48 hours

Sounds good and I'll let you know how it turned out.

 

[pdbreen]

Not sure why I waited so long before attempting to make soda. Gave it a shot today using the following recipe (based on prior posts and what I had on hand and wanted to get rid of):

2 cups corn syrup
4 1/2 - 5 cups light brown sugar
4 1/2 - 5 cups sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice
6 teaspoons vanilla

Create the syrup, add to a keg, top off with cold water and put on the gas. I think this took all of 15 minutes.

I also put 2 mixer nozzle inserts (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/cure-your-short-hose-troubles-100151/) in the pickup so I can carb it fairly high and still serve.

Tastes good, but defnitely a bit sweet for me. If that doesn't change when it's carbed up, I'll cut back on the sugars next time.

And, even though I hate better living through chemicals I also hate the thought of drinking that much sugar. So I think I'll be picking up some Splenda next time I'm at Costco.

 

[dvidakovich]

pdbreen can't wait to hear how it turns out.

The recipe I did above wasn't good at all. I bought cola and cream soda extracts and so far the recipes turn out pretty good.

 

[Omegagodly]

i made a 2 liter batch of cream soda today using partially my own recipe from what i've gathered off of here. i used

about 10-12oz of light brown sugar
6 teaspoons of pure vanilla concentrate i got in mexico
i mixed this together in water i heated up in a pan on the stove, no particular measurement but about 1/4-1/3 of a 2 liter bottles worth of water.
cooled it, poured it in the 2l bottle and added 1.5 tablespoon of lemon juice, fresh squeezed.
topped it off with water and pitched about 1/8 teaspoon of yeast(just regular very high active bread yeast i made some ginger ale with, it works lol)
it tasted really good before i closed her up, but i plan on letting it sit at room temp for 2 days or until it gets about rock hard, and then storing it in the fridge for about 2 days, or until i can't stand waiting any longer lol.

when i made my ginger ale, i opened it up after letting it sit for approx 2 days, and it kept becoming flat after opening the bottle a couple times, im hoping letting it sit in the fridge will correct that problem a little.

 

[zorcy]

I heard that it takes about 24 hours in the fridge to get the CO2 to lock into the liquid. They have also suggested rolling it a bit, to agitate, to give it more surface area i guess, when you force carbonate with a special cap and CO2.

 

[Omegagodly]

well ill see how much it makes a difference. ill also pick up some brewers yeast soon to see how much better it works than my bread yeast. lol