Root beer

[HawleyFarms]

Hey guys! I have been making beer and meads for awhile now. Finally broke down and bought my wife a 5 gallon water carboy for my wife to make root beer soda since she has been asking for awhile now.

Ok so my wife bought a bottle of root beer extract meant for making soda. On the bottle it has this for instructions:

4 gallons water
4 lbs sugar
1 bottle extract
1/4 tsp yeast.

Dissolve sugar in water. Dissolve yeast in half cup warm water. Add yeast water and extract to sugar water. Bottle immediately.

No mention of yeast type. Also, I am a little scared that bottling without any mention of bottle pasteurization is going to produce bottle bombs. Any ideas or advice would be helpful. Have never made soda before.

 

[HebrewedsoIbrew]

Well the way I make Root Beer is, I always make a decoction from real ingredients and then after cooling it, add my ale yeast, wait for it to ferment a tiny bit, when the fermentation is going I bottle it and wait a day or two, this method works fine for me and makes some tasty Root Beer.

As for yeast. You can't go wrong with ale yeast, I've used muntons ale yeast and that turned out swell, I'm using nottingham now and that turns out well too.

I would suggest bottle pasteurization if you're not going to be drinking 5 gallons of
Root Beer any time close together, I had a bottle of Root Beer explode in my fridge once because I forgot about it, it took a while for the carbonation to build up to but it got there after a week, so if you don't wish to consume all of it within a week and a half or so, bottle pasteurizing is differently a thing to consider doing once your Root Beer is fully carbed to your desire. Hope this helped, happy soda making!

 

[ThatChefGuy]

Definitely bottle pasteurise, its something I need to start doing (1 more night I think my last batch would have blown!). Or carb up and leave in the fridge, 5 gallons is a bit much for that mind and you will likely get a build up of sediment.

 

[JBrist0w]

Hebrewedsolbrew,

You said you make your root beer from real ingredients. Would you be willing to share your recipe?

 

[Crazy8]

If you guys are ever looking to dive a little deeper into the root beer making, I know of a wonderful recipe that has made its rounds through here and is loved by many. I would love to share it with you too.

“Signature Recipe”
MAKES 3 GALLONS
12 Qts Water
36 oz. Honey
3/8 tsp. Salt
3/8 cp. Sarsaparilla
3/8 cp. Sassafras
3 cp. Light Brown Sugar
1 1/2 cp Vanilla Flavoring
3/8 cp. Chopped Raisins
3/8 tsp. Nutmeg
1/8 tsp. Champagne Yeast (per gallon)
4 oz. Maltodextrine

I ONLY use Champagne yeast. Reasons for that is it produces very small bubbles and is totally clean tasting (flavorless). To me this is the perfect yeast especially since it doesn't produce a beer/bread flavor.

Pasteurizing is actually pretty simple. Once you have everything bottled, and it has the right amount of carbonation, here is what you do.
1. Heat up pot of water to 120 degrees F
2. Place bottles into pot.
3. Place lid on top of pot and turn off heat
4. Let bottles sit in covered pot for 10 minutes.
5. Remove bottles from pot and let cool.
6. If you have more bottles to do, start back at step 1.

Here is a video that shows the process, though different recipe.


Good luck and happy brewing.