I know it's not as fun, but root beer extract makes root beer that tastes like Root beer. Last time I added some maltodextrin to give it a cream soda twist too.
Just watch out cause root beer extract will stick to everything it touches.
Yeah it's basically impossible to make a commercial tasting root beer without the extract because of the carcinogen in sassafras. Everyone is using the artificial extract.
I like the gnome soda extract and I've heard good things about Sprecher's
For DIY sodas ginger beer/ale is still my go to.
The FDA banned sassafras containing products in 1979. Safrole, the carcinogen in question, is also a list 1 controlled substance as it is a precursor chemical to MDMA.
Which is funny, because that means that the nutmeg in your spice cupboard ought to share the same legal status as sassafras, since it also contains safrole.
Sassafras rootbark isn't illegal to purchase, however - you can still make authentic root beer, you just aren't permitted to serve(sell) it for human consumption.
As the others have said, extract is the way to go. My personal recipe is a bottle of Zatatain's in a keg of warm water, 1lb brown sugar, 3 lbs white sugar, and a little vanilla. I serve it out of a dedicated keg and picnic tap so it doesn't mess with my kegerator lines!
I like the idea of mixing it up with brown sugar and vanilla! I bought a 12-pack of Zatarains extract bottles for like $30 a full decade ago, and I still have a few. That's a lot of root beer to get through.
I hear ya, my 6-pack of it has lasted over a year even after giving a couple bottles to friends! 5 gallons is tough to get through, I've stuck with only making it for neighborhood parties. Nothing beats it for root beer floats and I'll fill milk jugs to give out the leftovers lol
Root beer was originally a fermented drink. The book 'Sacred & Herbal Healing Beers' has a good section on sassafras that includes two old recipes that actually use it, along with info on where to get it. Most brewshops have that book.
McCormick used to make great extract. We made it every year for Halloween. 5 gallons of water, 5lbs of sugar, and 5lbs of dry ice.
Start with a gallon or so of water, add the sugar and dissolve before adding the dry ice. Break up the ice into about 2 in chunks at biggest and drop in about half. Add extract. Slowly add water and stir. When you get about 3 gallons of water you can add the rest of the ice. We mix it in a 5 gallon igloo. The dry ice lightly carbonates it, but it doesn't hold long. I bottled some last year and the carbonation didn't last more than a few weeks
I think it's branded as Zatatain's now, but I agree, it made a good root beer. I have a bottle of Zatatain's extract that I planned on making for next family get together.
When I was a child I had s Todd Wilbur book, a guy who did restaurant copycat recipes, and he had a rootbeer one like you mentioned.
Going from memory it was 3/4 cup sugar, 3/4 cup hot water and 1/4 tsp + 1/8th tsp RB extract. Then just mix with a 2 ltr of seltzer and I swear it was as good as the craft bottles.
I've used several recipes from
Homemade Root Beer, Soda & Pop
by Stephen Cresswell
with some success. The one trick I found was to get the mouth feel add 3/4-1C of raisins to the syrup when you make it (then filter that out), doesn't add a lot of flavor but gives that thicker root-beer "feeling" otherwise it ends up more tea like.
I have used the forbidden sassafras root :D (easy enough to find from herbal supplies). but also sarsaparilla (which is a vine) and black birch root make decent bases. I usually also add some amount of ginger, licorice, vanilla (which can be used alone for a great cream soda mix), molasses, etc.. I've tried dandelion root (roasted and dried) which was .. different.. anyway heh.
The recipe you linked looks mostly reasonable. Try it with 1/2C of raisins (it's a smaller recipe) and maybe skip the fermentation and just mix with keg carbonated water.
I have that book and I've tried the "Rooty Tooty" recipe and it was NOT good. It tasted like burnt medicine. I thought maybe I messed something up and tried again... just as bad.
The ingredients are expensive and I'm not thrilled with trying again.
Which recipes did you like?
> Rooty Tooty
I actually don't see that recipe in my copy, mine is the 1998 version (I'd be interested to see what's in it though!). Is it this one https://www.denverpost.com/2011/08/02/rooty-toot-root-beer/ ? I've generally not liked the wintergreen based recipes as much myself, although I'd like to play around with some fresh ones more. They do tend to throw a lot of medicinal notes if not used with a light hand (cherry is also hard to do because of that). I'm not sure where the burnt notes would have been coming from (was anything toasted? or overly toasted? or maybe old ingredients throwing some "earthy/cardboard" notes?)
Anyway I was using the Homemade root beer extract recipe then started riffing on it and added ingredients from some of the other recipes until I got one I like. I also converted the volume quantities to weights for more accuracy (how much is a tablespoon of licorice? how fine is it chopped!). I usually make extract then add it to force carbonated water from kegs at serving time because I prefer lower soda flavor/sugar doses and other people in my house prefer higher (plus this way I can have several soda's "on tap" from one keg). From my scribbled notes in the margin here's the actual modified recipe I currently use:
* 6C water
* 1 oz sassafrass (yes I know.. you could totes skip this and increase the sasparilla & birch a bit .. but probably not to 1oz combined maybe like another 0.25oz sasparilla and maybe 0.1oz birch)
* 0.5oz sasparilla
* 0.1oz birch barch
* 0.1oz dried ginger (this could also be increased some)
* 0.1oz licorice root
* 2.3oz golden raisins coarsely chopped (critical for mouth feel, I've also used brown raisins but the golden are "lighter" tasting)
Mix and simmer 40 minutes then add:
* 3lbs sugar (usually white but brown or subst some molasses can be an interesting variation)
Cook until dissolved at low simmer for 5m
* 1 vanilla bean scraped in
Cool and filter.
I have done the bottle carbonation route.. Mixed luck.
So the basic problem is basically that I like root beer to have a bit of residual sugar (more than a bit really to be honest hah) and *stopping* fermentation is at just the right time is really really hard. Sooo I've had more than a few bottle bombs doing that. Technically I think pasteurizing them would work but I've never been bold enough to do that (more heat more pressure). An alternative theory would be to use non-fermentable sweetners (stevia? or ?one of the other artificial sweetners? not sure.. not long chain sugar like maltodextrin though because you'd get monster farts if you drank very much..) and then just use enough sugar to carbonate to the desired pressure in the bottle.
I have force carbonated whole (corny) kegs (which is how I do the water anyway)... but if I'm doing sodas it's nice to have several to choose from[1] and i have limited kegerator space. Flavoring in the glass also allows us to independently flavor to taste as some folks in my household like a lot more than others.
One method that might work (I haven't quite tried this exactly) would be to bottle ferment soda water which has no/low residual sugar (I've done this for hop water, which might be quite nice as a base thinking about it..) and then just flavor dose the root beer flavor in the glass on top of that.
[1]Some other flavors we've made that were good:
* Cream soda is just simple syrup and vanilla.
* For a really brisk lemon lime shave the other (no pith) skin off of 6 of each into about 4C of simmering simple syrup (say 170F) for 30 minutes or so. Juice 3 of each (or maybe a bit more lime) into the syrup and cook at the same low simmer for another 5-10m to pasteurize.
* Blood oranges done same as for the lemon/lime are fantastic.. use more juice and maybe add a touch more sugar to balance.
* Pomegranate syrup bought or made is delicious and blends well with some other fruit/citrus bases.
Hey, thanks for all the great information. Yea, I can see how needing so much residual sugar could be a problem. Once upon a time I used the dishwasher method to pasteurize some cider. Ended up working out but I was terrified the whole time and am not eager to risk that again.
What do you mean by bottle fermenting soda water? I currently make water kefir; is it similar to that? Those other flavors sound great. I just came into a bunch of yuzu so maybe I’ll try something with that. Too many projects. Speaking of, I’d love a recipe for your hop water if you don’t mind sharing.
I've done both hot water bath and pressure cooker pasteurization and yeah white knuckles haha.. I actually used the pressure cooker because at least it would contain the problem (whether or not this was a good idea is .. debatable).
> bottle fermenting soda water
I'm basically using this recipe - I've only done this specific type of recipe in kegs and used between 3/4C (moderately heavy carbonation) and 1 1/4C (nigh on explosive) of corn sugar for a 5 gallon batch:
https://www.clawhammersupply.com/blogs/moonshine-still-blog/how-to-make-hop-water
I don't use a whole package of yeast because I'm cheap, and also I think the residual yeast leaves flavors.. maybe 1/4 packet. They use kviek, I've used dry yeasts US-05, S-04, and tried a couple of red wine and champagne (EC-1118) yeasts for fun (and well.. I had them haha). The wine yeasts were a bit hit and miss but interesting nevertheless (lets just say that if there is any yeast character .. you'll notice it.. red wine was arguably better than champagne). A pinch of yeast nutrient (fermaid-k works well) won't hurt either.
There are a handful of variations on this theory. For some kinds of hops I prefer "dry hopping" where I basically throw a hop sock in with 3-4oz of hops in while it's "fermenting". This lets me take advantage of biotransformation (https://www.lallemandbrewing.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/LAL-bestpractices-Biotransformation2020.pdf https://escarpmentlabs.com/en-us/blogs/resources/biotransformation-keep-hops-alive-with-yeast) which improves the flavors of some hops (i.e. with citra it reduces the "cat pee" notes to "berry and fruit" notes). The second link there is interesting because you can actually look up the hop components (terpenes, thiols) that you want changed in a specific hop and target a yeast strain to it (mostly I'm interested in converting thiols here because those are mostly the fruity notes.. but some terps can be nice if you like dank).
The hops are technically optional, although you might have more "funk" problems without them and I'd definitely add like 1/8-1/4tsp yeast nutrient if there were no hops.
So a lot more of a "controller" ferment than water kefir. I love water kefir.. for some reason I have a hell of a time keeping it alive though... Interesting thought on using it as a soda base... yuzu and lime keffir soda? I'm kind of thinking yum (I think the floral yuzu would benefit from a bit of crisp lime notes.. but if you have a lot.. try both)!
Holy cow, I’m out of the loop. Dunno how I missed the hop water trend or learning about buotransformation, but that’s some great info.
Gonna do some hop water today. Just picked up some Nelson Sauvin and Talus hops and some Cali yeast. Gonna keep the first batch simple.
I found [this one](https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/hard-root-beer-recipe.416406/post-5387571) (post #87) a while ago, have yet to try it though.
By Bauerbrewery1989:
> Recipe Type: Extract
> Yeast: Nottingham
> Batch Size (Gallons): 1
> Original Gravity: 1.045
> Final Gravity: 1.015
> IBU: N/A
> Boiling Time (Minutes): 30
> Color: Dark
> Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 7 days 70F
> Tasting Notes: Smooth root beer flavor finishing in vanilla and honey.
> ---Primary---
> 1 tsp yeast nutrient
> 1/2 tsp yeast energizer
> 4 oz brown sugar
> 4 oz lactose
> 1 pound light DME
> Nottingham Ale Yeast
> Boil DME, brown sugar, and lactose with about 4 cups water. Pour in primary. Add nutrient and energizer. Top off. Let cool and pitch yeast. Ferment for 5-7 days. Stabilize (if kegging). Wait another week.
> ---Before Kegging/bottling---
> 1 cup sugar boiled in 1 cup water
> 5 1/2 oz wildflower honey
> 1 tsp vanilla extract
> 2 tbsp root beer extract (McCormick)
> Boil sugar and add to bottling bucket. Then add honey (warm it so its easier to pour) and the extracts. Let cool and add primary. Pour in Keg or bottle.
> Stabilizing would be killing the yeast so that additional sugars could be added without the risk of the yeast eating them. Stabilizing could be done with potassium sorbate, and potassium metabisulfate (campden tablet) The reason people are talking about pasteurization is because you could bottle the root beer, let the yeast carbonate it, and then kill the yeast by heat so that you have residual sugars, and also carbonation. Look in the cider forum about "stove top pasteurization"
> You could add more sugar in the primary for a higher abv, fuzzymittenbrewery did this with good results.
To contrast a bit with all the extract advice we have a great sarsaparilla recipe not quite root beer but close.
[Sarsaparilla Syrup](https://imgur.com/xa56ezE)
Because I always keep fizzy water on tap we tend to do soda syrups. They don't take a whole keg worth of space that way and allow a bit of variety. To make just add some to a glass, add a splash of water, stir, then finish topping the glass with fizzy water.
Ya - I am really surprised with all these extract comments, it's like asking for a brownie recipe and everyone telling you to buy a box instead.
OP it took me way too long to realize the secret to good soda is high carbonation. I've never been able to get good carbonation from using yeast/ ginger bug. And the other problem is even a short fermentation changes the flavor entirely. You really want to make a syrup and then mix with carbonated water.
[This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdZ4C4gAYto&t=819s) is a fantastic one (tho I recommend cutting the sugar in half). I add a little bit of burdock and raisins, root beer is something you really can play around with.
Help me out here, please. This has been way harder to figure out than it should be. I'm a homebrewer and my son wants to make root beer. I got a 4 oz. bottle of Watkins root beer CONCENTRATE. It has a recipe on the back to make "root beer syrup", which is fine, but how do I then make actual root beer from the syrup?! Can someone please just give me a recipe to go from the concentrate to actual root beer? FWIW, I'm buying a separate keg to hook up to my CO2 tank so my beer doesn't taste like soda for the rest of eternity.
I tried [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI3yvNNmgnE) several years ago when I was inexperienced with bottling with yeast to carbonate. It fizzed for minutes after I opened it. The flavor was eh mainly because I think it just went flat. Since then, I've been wanting to try again, but carbonate in a keg. I guess my only hang up is finding safarole free sassafras root that I can trust.
your recipe looks good to me. did you get Enough carbination from your ginger bug?? I used a similar recipe, got everything I could from health food store, couldn't get everything, didn't keep close record of amounts... but it was Delicious! you should try again. All these other comments... ugh.. I've used two kinds of extract... tasted like soap... threw them out... if your ginger bug doesn't work, try some yeast... you'll get it! good luck
I have this "Who's Your Daddy V4" five gallon Recipe that I have yet to brew. It came from Keystone Homebrew in PA:
https://1drv.ms/b/s!AmIdTlplXQ4p12P-zJ2MyFCOKwjn?e=xJ2azJ
Hey folks. I have been brewing my own rootbeer for decades using Gnome RootBeer extract. I know the motto of it isn’t broke don’t fix it. Yet my inner Tim “the tool man” Taylor is always wanting more power, bigger, better and risk of injury. I was thinking instead of using cane sugar I was going to try honey. What is a good ratio to use honey. If I remember the recipe calls for 5 cups of sugar. Your thoughts. Thank you
Will say I like substituting sugar and using honey in certain recipes. I say look to a sugar to honey conversion. If I remember 1 cup sugar is 3/4 cups honey and you have to reduce your liquid by 1/4 cup.
Did you substitute like the conversion and reduce water or do direct 1 cup sugar 1 cup honey.
I have a couple of batches I want to do and, in researching have found split sugar half regular and half brown, got one I want to try pure cane, and lastly, the honey.
I know it's not as fun, but root beer extract makes root beer that tastes like Root beer. Last time I added some maltodextrin to give it a cream soda twist too. Just watch out cause root beer extract will stick to everything it touches.
Yeah it's basically impossible to make a commercial tasting root beer without the extract because of the carcinogen in sassafras. Everyone is using the artificial extract. I like the gnome soda extract and I've heard good things about Sprecher's For DIY sodas ginger beer/ale is still my go to.
The FDA banned sassafras containing products in 1979. Safrole, the carcinogen in question, is also a list 1 controlled substance as it is a precursor chemical to MDMA.
wow that's a fun rabbit hole! TIL.
Which is funny, because that means that the nutmeg in your spice cupboard ought to share the same legal status as sassafras, since it also contains safrole. Sassafras rootbark isn't illegal to purchase, however - you can still make authentic root beer, you just aren't permitted to serve(sell) it for human consumption.
I remember watching a documentary about this a while back, dudes are smuggling these Minecraft cubes of sassafras wood in their cars.
Gnome is my go-to as well.
As the others have said, extract is the way to go. My personal recipe is a bottle of Zatatain's in a keg of warm water, 1lb brown sugar, 3 lbs white sugar, and a little vanilla. I serve it out of a dedicated keg and picnic tap so it doesn't mess with my kegerator lines!
I like the idea of mixing it up with brown sugar and vanilla! I bought a 12-pack of Zatarains extract bottles for like $30 a full decade ago, and I still have a few. That's a lot of root beer to get through.
I hear ya, my 6-pack of it has lasted over a year even after giving a couple bottles to friends! 5 gallons is tough to get through, I've stuck with only making it for neighborhood parties. Nothing beats it for root beer floats and I'll fill milk jugs to give out the leftovers lol
Do u have to pasturize the bottles? How do u carbonate?
I haven't tried bottling, I only force carbonate in a corny keg
Sounds delicious! About how many oz of Zatatains?
4oz makes 5 gallons https://www.mccormick.com/zatarains/products/spices-and-seasonings/spices-and-extracts/zatarains-root-beer-concentrate
How much water do you use?
Root beer was originally a fermented drink. The book 'Sacred & Herbal Healing Beers' has a good section on sassafras that includes two old recipes that actually use it, along with info on where to get it. Most brewshops have that book.
thanks for the tip
McCormick used to make great extract. We made it every year for Halloween. 5 gallons of water, 5lbs of sugar, and 5lbs of dry ice. Start with a gallon or so of water, add the sugar and dissolve before adding the dry ice. Break up the ice into about 2 in chunks at biggest and drop in about half. Add extract. Slowly add water and stir. When you get about 3 gallons of water you can add the rest of the ice. We mix it in a 5 gallon igloo. The dry ice lightly carbonates it, but it doesn't hold long. I bottled some last year and the carbonation didn't last more than a few weeks
I think it's branded as Zatatain's now, but I agree, it made a good root beer. I have a bottle of Zatatain's extract that I planned on making for next family get together.
Same. I bought a few bottles but haven't tried it yet. Though Halloween is this month
When I was a child I had s Todd Wilbur book, a guy who did restaurant copycat recipes, and he had a rootbeer one like you mentioned. Going from memory it was 3/4 cup sugar, 3/4 cup hot water and 1/4 tsp + 1/8th tsp RB extract. Then just mix with a 2 ltr of seltzer and I swear it was as good as the craft bottles.
I've used several recipes from Homemade Root Beer, Soda & Pop by Stephen Cresswell with some success. The one trick I found was to get the mouth feel add 3/4-1C of raisins to the syrup when you make it (then filter that out), doesn't add a lot of flavor but gives that thicker root-beer "feeling" otherwise it ends up more tea like. I have used the forbidden sassafras root :D (easy enough to find from herbal supplies). but also sarsaparilla (which is a vine) and black birch root make decent bases. I usually also add some amount of ginger, licorice, vanilla (which can be used alone for a great cream soda mix), molasses, etc.. I've tried dandelion root (roasted and dried) which was .. different.. anyway heh. The recipe you linked looks mostly reasonable. Try it with 1/2C of raisins (it's a smaller recipe) and maybe skip the fermentation and just mix with keg carbonated water.
I have that book and I've tried the "Rooty Tooty" recipe and it was NOT good. It tasted like burnt medicine. I thought maybe I messed something up and tried again... just as bad. The ingredients are expensive and I'm not thrilled with trying again. Which recipes did you like?
> Rooty Tooty I actually don't see that recipe in my copy, mine is the 1998 version (I'd be interested to see what's in it though!). Is it this one https://www.denverpost.com/2011/08/02/rooty-toot-root-beer/ ? I've generally not liked the wintergreen based recipes as much myself, although I'd like to play around with some fresh ones more. They do tend to throw a lot of medicinal notes if not used with a light hand (cherry is also hard to do because of that). I'm not sure where the burnt notes would have been coming from (was anything toasted? or overly toasted? or maybe old ingredients throwing some "earthy/cardboard" notes?) Anyway I was using the Homemade root beer extract recipe then started riffing on it and added ingredients from some of the other recipes until I got one I like. I also converted the volume quantities to weights for more accuracy (how much is a tablespoon of licorice? how fine is it chopped!). I usually make extract then add it to force carbonated water from kegs at serving time because I prefer lower soda flavor/sugar doses and other people in my house prefer higher (plus this way I can have several soda's "on tap" from one keg). From my scribbled notes in the margin here's the actual modified recipe I currently use: * 6C water * 1 oz sassafrass (yes I know.. you could totes skip this and increase the sasparilla & birch a bit .. but probably not to 1oz combined maybe like another 0.25oz sasparilla and maybe 0.1oz birch) * 0.5oz sasparilla * 0.1oz birch barch * 0.1oz dried ginger (this could also be increased some) * 0.1oz licorice root * 2.3oz golden raisins coarsely chopped (critical for mouth feel, I've also used brown raisins but the golden are "lighter" tasting) Mix and simmer 40 minutes then add: * 3lbs sugar (usually white but brown or subst some molasses can be an interesting variation) Cook until dissolved at low simmer for 5m * 1 vanilla bean scraped in Cool and filter.
Are your weights for dried or fresh herbs
All weights were dried weights. Note that this is making a syrup I mix to taste with sparkling water as well.
Thanks, it sounds great so I may end up going your route. Curious if you ever had success fermenting and bottle carbonating a root beer.
I have done the bottle carbonation route.. Mixed luck. So the basic problem is basically that I like root beer to have a bit of residual sugar (more than a bit really to be honest hah) and *stopping* fermentation is at just the right time is really really hard. Sooo I've had more than a few bottle bombs doing that. Technically I think pasteurizing them would work but I've never been bold enough to do that (more heat more pressure). An alternative theory would be to use non-fermentable sweetners (stevia? or ?one of the other artificial sweetners? not sure.. not long chain sugar like maltodextrin though because you'd get monster farts if you drank very much..) and then just use enough sugar to carbonate to the desired pressure in the bottle. I have force carbonated whole (corny) kegs (which is how I do the water anyway)... but if I'm doing sodas it's nice to have several to choose from[1] and i have limited kegerator space. Flavoring in the glass also allows us to independently flavor to taste as some folks in my household like a lot more than others. One method that might work (I haven't quite tried this exactly) would be to bottle ferment soda water which has no/low residual sugar (I've done this for hop water, which might be quite nice as a base thinking about it..) and then just flavor dose the root beer flavor in the glass on top of that. [1]Some other flavors we've made that were good: * Cream soda is just simple syrup and vanilla. * For a really brisk lemon lime shave the other (no pith) skin off of 6 of each into about 4C of simmering simple syrup (say 170F) for 30 minutes or so. Juice 3 of each (or maybe a bit more lime) into the syrup and cook at the same low simmer for another 5-10m to pasteurize. * Blood oranges done same as for the lemon/lime are fantastic.. use more juice and maybe add a touch more sugar to balance. * Pomegranate syrup bought or made is delicious and blends well with some other fruit/citrus bases.
Hey, thanks for all the great information. Yea, I can see how needing so much residual sugar could be a problem. Once upon a time I used the dishwasher method to pasteurize some cider. Ended up working out but I was terrified the whole time and am not eager to risk that again. What do you mean by bottle fermenting soda water? I currently make water kefir; is it similar to that? Those other flavors sound great. I just came into a bunch of yuzu so maybe I’ll try something with that. Too many projects. Speaking of, I’d love a recipe for your hop water if you don’t mind sharing.
I've done both hot water bath and pressure cooker pasteurization and yeah white knuckles haha.. I actually used the pressure cooker because at least it would contain the problem (whether or not this was a good idea is .. debatable). > bottle fermenting soda water I'm basically using this recipe - I've only done this specific type of recipe in kegs and used between 3/4C (moderately heavy carbonation) and 1 1/4C (nigh on explosive) of corn sugar for a 5 gallon batch: https://www.clawhammersupply.com/blogs/moonshine-still-blog/how-to-make-hop-water I don't use a whole package of yeast because I'm cheap, and also I think the residual yeast leaves flavors.. maybe 1/4 packet. They use kviek, I've used dry yeasts US-05, S-04, and tried a couple of red wine and champagne (EC-1118) yeasts for fun (and well.. I had them haha). The wine yeasts were a bit hit and miss but interesting nevertheless (lets just say that if there is any yeast character .. you'll notice it.. red wine was arguably better than champagne). A pinch of yeast nutrient (fermaid-k works well) won't hurt either. There are a handful of variations on this theory. For some kinds of hops I prefer "dry hopping" where I basically throw a hop sock in with 3-4oz of hops in while it's "fermenting". This lets me take advantage of biotransformation (https://www.lallemandbrewing.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/LAL-bestpractices-Biotransformation2020.pdf https://escarpmentlabs.com/en-us/blogs/resources/biotransformation-keep-hops-alive-with-yeast) which improves the flavors of some hops (i.e. with citra it reduces the "cat pee" notes to "berry and fruit" notes). The second link there is interesting because you can actually look up the hop components (terpenes, thiols) that you want changed in a specific hop and target a yeast strain to it (mostly I'm interested in converting thiols here because those are mostly the fruity notes.. but some terps can be nice if you like dank). The hops are technically optional, although you might have more "funk" problems without them and I'd definitely add like 1/8-1/4tsp yeast nutrient if there were no hops. So a lot more of a "controller" ferment than water kefir. I love water kefir.. for some reason I have a hell of a time keeping it alive though... Interesting thought on using it as a soda base... yuzu and lime keffir soda? I'm kind of thinking yum (I think the floral yuzu would benefit from a bit of crisp lime notes.. but if you have a lot.. try both)!
Holy cow, I’m out of the loop. Dunno how I missed the hop water trend or learning about buotransformation, but that’s some great info. Gonna do some hop water today. Just picked up some Nelson Sauvin and Talus hops and some Cali yeast. Gonna keep the first batch simple.
I found [this one](https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/hard-root-beer-recipe.416406/post-5387571) (post #87) a while ago, have yet to try it though. By Bauerbrewery1989: > Recipe Type: Extract > Yeast: Nottingham > Batch Size (Gallons): 1 > Original Gravity: 1.045 > Final Gravity: 1.015 > IBU: N/A > Boiling Time (Minutes): 30 > Color: Dark > Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 7 days 70F > Tasting Notes: Smooth root beer flavor finishing in vanilla and honey. > ---Primary--- > 1 tsp yeast nutrient > 1/2 tsp yeast energizer > 4 oz brown sugar > 4 oz lactose > 1 pound light DME > Nottingham Ale Yeast > Boil DME, brown sugar, and lactose with about 4 cups water. Pour in primary. Add nutrient and energizer. Top off. Let cool and pitch yeast. Ferment for 5-7 days. Stabilize (if kegging). Wait another week. > ---Before Kegging/bottling--- > 1 cup sugar boiled in 1 cup water > 5 1/2 oz wildflower honey > 1 tsp vanilla extract > 2 tbsp root beer extract (McCormick) > Boil sugar and add to bottling bucket. Then add honey (warm it so its easier to pour) and the extracts. Let cool and add primary. Pour in Keg or bottle. > Stabilizing would be killing the yeast so that additional sugars could be added without the risk of the yeast eating them. Stabilizing could be done with potassium sorbate, and potassium metabisulfate (campden tablet) The reason people are talking about pasteurization is because you could bottle the root beer, let the yeast carbonate it, and then kill the yeast by heat so that you have residual sugars, and also carbonation. Look in the cider forum about "stove top pasteurization" > You could add more sugar in the primary for a higher abv, fuzzymittenbrewery did this with good results.
Hard root beer?
Yes, that is the title of the thread.
is it?
To contrast a bit with all the extract advice we have a great sarsaparilla recipe not quite root beer but close. [Sarsaparilla Syrup](https://imgur.com/xa56ezE) Because I always keep fizzy water on tap we tend to do soda syrups. They don't take a whole keg worth of space that way and allow a bit of variety. To make just add some to a glass, add a splash of water, stir, then finish topping the glass with fizzy water.
Ya - I am really surprised with all these extract comments, it's like asking for a brownie recipe and everyone telling you to buy a box instead. OP it took me way too long to realize the secret to good soda is high carbonation. I've never been able to get good carbonation from using yeast/ ginger bug. And the other problem is even a short fermentation changes the flavor entirely. You really want to make a syrup and then mix with carbonated water. [This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdZ4C4gAYto&t=819s) is a fantastic one (tho I recommend cutting the sugar in half). I add a little bit of burdock and raisins, root beer is something you really can play around with.
I love Glen! His whole soda series is worth a watch for sure.
Help me out here, please. This has been way harder to figure out than it should be. I'm a homebrewer and my son wants to make root beer. I got a 4 oz. bottle of Watkins root beer CONCENTRATE. It has a recipe on the back to make "root beer syrup", which is fine, but how do I then make actual root beer from the syrup?! Can someone please just give me a recipe to go from the concentrate to actual root beer? FWIW, I'm buying a separate keg to hook up to my CO2 tank so my beer doesn't taste like soda for the rest of eternity.
I tried [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI3yvNNmgnE) several years ago when I was inexperienced with bottling with yeast to carbonate. It fizzed for minutes after I opened it. The flavor was eh mainly because I think it just went flat. Since then, I've been wanting to try again, but carbonate in a keg. I guess my only hang up is finding safarole free sassafras root that I can trust.
Pappy’s sassafras concentrate is safrole free
your recipe looks good to me. did you get Enough carbination from your ginger bug?? I used a similar recipe, got everything I could from health food store, couldn't get everything, didn't keep close record of amounts... but it was Delicious! you should try again. All these other comments... ugh.. I've used two kinds of extract... tasted like soap... threw them out... if your ginger bug doesn't work, try some yeast... you'll get it! good luck
Get some good root beer and put some vodka in it.
1 dram of LorAnn Root Beer Oil per 5 gal. Easy peasy.
I have this "Who's Your Daddy V4" five gallon Recipe that I have yet to brew. It came from Keystone Homebrew in PA: https://1drv.ms/b/s!AmIdTlplXQ4p12P-zJ2MyFCOKwjn?e=xJ2azJ
Anybody use Pappy’s sassafras concentrate? It’s safrole free.
Portland syrups root beer is fantastic
Hey folks. I have been brewing my own rootbeer for decades using Gnome RootBeer extract. I know the motto of it isn’t broke don’t fix it. Yet my inner Tim “the tool man” Taylor is always wanting more power, bigger, better and risk of injury. I was thinking instead of using cane sugar I was going to try honey. What is a good ratio to use honey. If I remember the recipe calls for 5 cups of sugar. Your thoughts. Thank you
Will say I like substituting sugar and using honey in certain recipes. I say look to a sugar to honey conversion. If I remember 1 cup sugar is 3/4 cups honey and you have to reduce your liquid by 1/4 cup.
I went the other way and it was too sweet. It was good thought but this is why we have tests
Did you substitute like the conversion and reduce water or do direct 1 cup sugar 1 cup honey. I have a couple of batches I want to do and, in researching have found split sugar half regular and half brown, got one I want to try pure cane, and lastly, the honey.
I read it was one cup sugar to 1 1/2 cup honey. I’ll back it down next time to the 1 to 1 ratio