I'm a "bad" influence!

[Yooper]

My son (who hates beer!) is 15 and came up to me a few days ago asking if he could "brew" root beer. So, of course I said sure. All I needed was the root beer extract which I bought at the grocery store. So, now, HE's checking his "brew" a couple of times a day!

It was so much fun, when I have some empty plastic bottles, I'm going to do a ginger ale.

 

[Flyin' Lion]

Congrats Yooper, I tried making root beer a while back, but screwed something up 'cause it never carbonated. After that I gave up considering it isn't cost effective and we don't drink a lot of root beer.

Cheers to ya though.

 

[Lil' Sparky]

I'm going to do this with my son soon. He loves root beer!

 

[Dude]

Last summer my kids made cream soda...they had a freaking blast rolling the keg back and forth on the kitchen floor to carbonate it. They really enjoyed being part of the process.

 

[homebrewer_99]

You're right!!! Jesus was a "bad" influence on me when he turned water to wine... ...but I love's him now, hic!!

 

[TxBrew]

When brewing your own root beer do you add sodium benzoate? I've noticed every single store root beer has it, even the high dollar ones.

 

[rod]

i just made a honey ale spiced with ginger - waiting for it to bottle condition
used honey malt, 3 lbs of clover honey and 3 oz ginger.
right now it has an odd almost stale taste - hopefully it will condition out.

 

[Yooper]

I just followed the directions on this website: http://biology.clc.uc.edu/fankhauser/Cheese/ROOTBEER_Jn0.htm

We used 16 ounce bottles instead of the 2-liter, and he really got into the sanitizing of all the equipment! I used champagne yeast (I always have wine yeast in the fridge). If this works out, we'll get more "into" it, but I'm only out $3.99 for the root beer extract if he doesn't like it.

I have no idea what's in that root beer extract, but I didn't see sodium benzoate on the ingredients list.

 

[homebrewer_99]

i just made a honey ale spiced with ginger - waiting for it to bottle condition
used honey malt, 3 lbs of clover honey and 3 oz ginger.
right now it has an odd almost stale taste - hopefully it will condition out.

That's probably the ginger. Real ginger takes a while to mellow out.

Sample a Canada Dry Ginger ale versus a Vernon's GA. The Vernon's uses real ginger and tastes harsher.

 

[98EXL]

I made ginger beer almost two weeks ago for Dark and Stormies for my buddies. Thought it was better than the stuff we pay $1 can for!

So I know where you are going with this Yoop, it is fun!

 

[joebou4860]

I was thinking about trying diet root beer. How much table sugar would be required to carb a 2l bottle? I was going to use splenda for the rest of the sweetener.

 

[DeathBrewer]

i can't wait to brew some root beer with my nephews. hope their parents let them come to visit before they all grow up...

 

[Yooper]

I was thinking about trying diet root beer. How much table sugar would be required to carb a 2l bottle? I was going to use splenda for the rest of the sweetener.

I'd have to guess- but it'd be the same as beer (sort of), right? I'd think 5 ounces priming sugar for 5 gallons, so 1 ounce for one gallon? That doesn't seem like much, but champagne yeast is voracious.

 

[joebou4860]

Thanks, looks like I have an experiment for the weekend:rockin:
I'll keep ya posted

 

[Zar]

Thats pretty cool. Ive been tossing around the idea of making root beer at some point. Need to do some researching first.