Hi,
I'm going to take my first shot at a hard root beer next week. The recipe I'm trying was posted on this site several years ago. It's pretty straight forward - brew a very basic no hops beer, then add sugar, honey and root beer flavoring after fermentation. The recipe calls for bottling, letting them carb for a while and them refrigerating or pasteurizing to prevent further fermentation and possible bottle bombs. Instead of bottle conditioning, I'm planning to keg and force-carbonate, then bottle from the keg. The questions I have are:
1) I'll be using a 2.5 gallon keg. I'm thinking of brewing the beer, kegging it, purging the headspace with CO2, but not pressurizing it. Then placing the keg in my 10-gallon kettle, filling it with hot tap water and using my sous vide to bring everything up to 145 degrees or so for an hour or two (I don't know how long it would take for the beer to reach temperature). I'm planning to cold crash before I fill the keg, so I'd let it return to room temperature before pasteurizing it. I realize this involves a few temperature swings, but I don't think that would impact a hard root beer. Do you think it would work to pasteurize an entire keg like this?
2) I haven't worked with honey before, but I've read warming it helps dissolve it. I was thinking of warming the honey in the kettle as I pasteurize the keg, then adding the honey and dissolved sugar while everything is still warm. I'd re-purge the keg and then rock it to mix everything together. Once it's dissolved, does honey stay dissolved or will it settle out again?
3) I plan to let the keg return to room temperature and then add the root beer flavoring, since this is "to taste". I think I can use a picnic tap to pull samples as I add it. Once the flavor seems right, I would force-carbonate and then bottle it.
I'd appreciate any thoughts or advice you may have on my plan. Thanks for your help!
I'm going to take my first shot at a hard root beer next week. The recipe I'm trying was posted on this site several years ago. It's pretty straight forward - brew a very basic no hops beer, then add sugar, honey and root beer flavoring after fermentation. The recipe calls for bottling, letting them carb for a while and them refrigerating or pasteurizing to prevent further fermentation and possible bottle bombs. Instead of bottle conditioning, I'm planning to keg and force-carbonate, then bottle from the keg. The questions I have are:
1) I'll be using a 2.5 gallon keg. I'm thinking of brewing the beer, kegging it, purging the headspace with CO2, but not pressurizing it. Then placing the keg in my 10-gallon kettle, filling it with hot tap water and using my sous vide to bring everything up to 145 degrees or so for an hour or two (I don't know how long it would take for the beer to reach temperature). I'm planning to cold crash before I fill the keg, so I'd let it return to room temperature before pasteurizing it. I realize this involves a few temperature swings, but I don't think that would impact a hard root beer. Do you think it would work to pasteurize an entire keg like this?
2) I haven't worked with honey before, but I've read warming it helps dissolve it. I was thinking of warming the honey in the kettle as I pasteurize the keg, then adding the honey and dissolved sugar while everything is still warm. I'd re-purge the keg and then rock it to mix everything together. Once it's dissolved, does honey stay dissolved or will it settle out again?
3) I plan to let the keg return to room temperature and then add the root beer flavoring, since this is "to taste". I think I can use a picnic tap to pull samples as I add it. Once the flavor seems right, I would force-carbonate and then bottle it.
I'd appreciate any thoughts or advice you may have on my plan. Thanks for your help!
