Gnome RootBeer using seilzer water help.

[BrutalBrew]

I got a 4oz pouch of gnome root beer extract today. I can find all kind's of info on yeast carbing and keg carbing. We are wanting to make a concentrate to add to seilzer water and there is no info on this. Does anyone do this? The 4oz pack will make 5 gallons of root beer. It states to make a half gallon concentrate by heating 1/2 gallon of water w/2.5 lbs of sugar, 2 oz of the extract. Then adding that mix to water to make make 2.5 gallons and then you add yeast and do your fermentation. Im thinking of adding the same amount of sugar and extract to 1/4 gallon instead of the 1/2 water. Then adding that to seilzer water. I need to do some math to fig out how much of the concentrate to use in the seilzer water but you get the idea. Has anyone done this and does my plan seem ok?

 

[KevinM]

For some reason, I'm not sure what type of concentrate that ratio creates. It could work.

I usually go with a method of making a simple syrup (1g sugar/1 ml water) and adding the concentrate to make a flavored syrup.
I like to re-use torani syrup bottles, which are 750 ml (25 or so oz.) What I would do is to use 23 fl.oz water and 26 oz (weight) sugar, heat that up to make a syrup, let it cool a bit as not to boil off flavors and add the 2 oz of concentrate since it's replacing the remaining 2 oz of water.

Other times, since it fills up the bottle... I fill the bottle to the brim with white cane sugar, pour in 23 oz of boiling water and finish it off with 2 oz of flavoring and cap it and give it a lot of shaking. I find though, that this is kind of a pain and the sugar clumps up a bit and requires more shaking than the simple syrup method.

I then add 1-1.5 oz of this concentrate to my 12 oz glass and top with ice and often additional "flavorings" which may or may not be alcoholic in nature.

1/4 gallon may work, but I'd probably go to a 1/3 gallon. The problem (or maybe not) is that when you get to higher concentrations of sugar to water, you wind up supersaturating the solution and it may try to crystalize at a later point in time. Great if you dip a stick in the container (assuming it's a jar) and make rock candy. And even 100g/100ml is considered supersaturated at room temp and may drop out to 91g/100ml with some sugar crystals at the bottom of the bottle.

...Cola flavored rock candy anyone?

 

[BrutalBrew]

Thanks for info, this helps