Experimental Beer Grandpa Willies Hard Root Beer

[akillys]

I would love to have a keg set up and plan on doing one at some point in time. For now I can only bottle. I'll pasturize and let you know how it turns out. I also won't change anything in the recipe and multiply everything by 5.

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[akillys]

I made my 5 gallon batch today. OG was 1.080. I used a little more lactose and brown sugar by accident since my digital scale has not came yet. That is why OG is so high. It will be interesting that's for sure. I'll keep updating.

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[akillys]

Should I use a blow off?

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[Bauerbrewery1989]

I would definetly use a blowoff

 

[akillys]

Used blow off and love the sound it makes as well as watching the bigger bubbles. Three days in primary fermentation and still getting a lot of bubbles. I think I may be fermenting to how though. I'm getting a slight banana smell from the star san the blow off tube is in. I plan on bottling Sunday if my bottles arrive by then.

 

[Bauerbrewery1989]

What's the fermentation temp? I had one batch that was banana root beer because I fermented too hot. It was....interesting.

 

[akillys]

Around 72, I wouldn't mind banana root beer, I like both and have been looking fur a banana flavored beer anyway.

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[Bauerbrewery1989]

It's still good, you just would have to call it a banana root beer float.

 

[akillys]

I'll just call it hefe root bier.

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[akillys]

Bottled today, it didn't taste too great. I'm hoping that it will taste better once it cold and carbonated.

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[Vlad_The_Imp_Pale_Aler]

hey there - decided to try this one out tonight! I scaled up to a 5 gal batch (just x5 everything you listed except the yeast) and right now I'm waiting for the wort to cool. had a question on the latter part of the recipe though - you say "before kegging ... 1 cup sugar boiled in 1 cup water", is this for priming or back sweetening? I'm kegging with forced CO2, do I need the (in my case) 5 cups additional sugar?

 

[Vlad_The_Imp_Pale_Aler]

I got ~1.086 OG

since I was doing a 5 gal batch I x5'ed everything: 5# light DME, 1.25# Light Brown Sugar, 1.25# Lactose

 

[akillys]

You don't need priming sugar as the additives would provide enough food for the yeast. Also the amount of sugar the op said to use is not fit priming and is instead to make the root beer sweeter, so go ahead and multiply the op's recipe by 5 and you should be good. If I made it again I would use less honey as it was rather noticeable. Since you are kegging I would use something like Camden tablets or meta-k to prohibit further yeast production.

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[Vlad_The_Imp_Pale_Aler]

Thanks - I picked up some potassium sorbate for stabilizing, also I'll heed your caution on the honey, I'll scale back and keep adding smaller amounts to taste


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[akillys]

No problem, hope all goes well

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[Vlad_The_Imp_Pale_Aler]

So I cold-crashed and then transferred to a secondary and I used 2.5 tsp potassium sorbate and a campden tablet for the 5 gal batch, let that sit for 2 days in the fridge and then added the sugar, vanilla, honey, and root beer extract. I just kegged it the other night so it's still carbonating (forced co2), but today I drew a sample - wow that's good... Tastes just like a REALLY good root beer and even though it's 9.5% (I got a 1.086 OG & 1.012 FG) you can barely tell there's any alcohol. I can already tell this is one dangerous brew

One thing I noticed: perhaps it's the root beer extract that I used (mccormicks - tastes great), but it seems that the beer stratifies with the adjuncts/additions - darker on the bottom, also thicker looking like there's small particulate in solution, doesn't seem to affect taste at all, but I suspect that the top of my keg will be lighter colored and clearer than the bottom once settled...

All-in-all, Delicious!!! 2-thumbs up!! Will make this part of my regular rotation!


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[akillys]

How much honey did you end up using?

 

[Vlad_The_Imp_Pale_Aler]

Well, since I did a 5 gal batch the recipe would have scaled to 27.5 oz wildflower honey (1.7 pounds) - I eyeballed about 1 pound and that tasted good to me, so to scale it back down to a 1 gal batch that would come to 3.2oz wildflower honey per gallon.


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[akillys]

Cool, hope it turned out well

 

[Vlad_The_Imp_Pale_Aler]

As I noted before, some darker components (the "dark matter" ) seemed to settle toward the bottom of the batch I made making the lower part of the keg pour darker and cloudier, but as I suspected, that would clear up once that portion had been drawn from the keg. It took somewhere between 1 and 2 quarts (5gal batch) but sure enough it cleared up and turned a few shades lighter.

"What did I do with those first pours" you ask? That my friend would be a silly question...

Here's a picture of it after it cleared up (I forgot to take a picture before it cleared up; was too busy drinking it):




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[jsinning]

So what was your final recipe? I would like to replicate.

 

[Vlad_The_Imp_Pale_Aler]

Jsinning - my final recipe was the exact same as the op except I scaled to 5gal (just multiply everything x5) and used a little over half the amount of honey. Also I used wyeast 1056 (2 packs).


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[hobnobbrewco]

Hi all - I've got 6 gallons brewing as I type this...the first gallon just completed fermentation and I bottled in 3 2-Liter bottles for natural carbonation. My question is, how long should it take for the bottles to carb naturally and become rock hard so I can place in the refrigerator? I will be checking several times daily but just wondering if this is a 2-3 day process or 5-7?

Thanks!!

 

[Bauerbrewery1989]

I would check in both the morning and night. It all depends on how much yeast is in suspension and how warm it is. I've had it take 2 days, I've had it take 5 days. It all depends.

 

[Cliffnla2000]

You can use plastic soda or water bottles to judge carbonation. When the plastic bottle feels firm it is time to move bottles to fridge

 

[garyj1]

Stupid question, I tried to make this recipe over the weekend for a 1 gallon batch. I used 1 pound of DME and boiled in with the brown sugar and lactose in 4 cups of water for 30 minutes. The problem I had was all the water boiled out before the 30 minutes was up and the DME started to burn. What did I do wrong. Should I use more water? Or maybe a smaller pot? Has anyone had this problem with making a 1 gallon batch? Thanks.

 

[Bauerbrewery1989]

I'd use more water, how hard of a boil was it?

 

[ThreeBeards]

I brewed this the other day. Did a 5 gallon batch. The yeast took off overnight and was vigorous for about a day. After one day it stopped completely. Is it possible it finished that quick, or should I try pitching another packet of yeast on it?

 

[Bauerbrewery1989]

It's possible to ferment quick, but I'd wait for about a week to be sure it's completely fermented. That or take a gravity reading. I never go by how much the airlock moves

 

[sar_dog_1]

Holy crap did this stuff fernent like crazy!!! Cant wait to bottle tommorow! !