Root Beer Recipe #3 - "CHOW"

This recipe is inspired from the one here. Their recipe is for a much smaller amount than I will make. Also, they are using sassafras which I'm not sure if I will use at this time; I'll try to make up for it by using extract and wintergreen.

My recipe for a 5 gallon batch is:

• 2 vanilla beans (split lengthwise)
  
• 1/2 oz licorice root (cut)
  
• 3 oz Indian sarsaparilla root (cut)
  
• 2 oz burdock root (cut)
• 4 cinnamon sticks (cracked)
• 1/2 oz star anise
• 1/2 oz wintergreen
• 8 strips of orange zest
• 10 cups dark brown sugar
• 1/3 cup molasses
• 4 Tablespoons root beer extract

Boil everything except sugars and extract in 1 gallon of water for 25 minutes. Reduce heat to simmer for a few minutes. Remove spices. Add sugars and extract, stir till dissolved. Turn off heat. Cool down mixture in pot in sink filled with cold water. Pour mixture in keg and top off with cold water. Force carbonate.

I don't know if it was the recipe or my (untested) keg but I had the hardest time getting this to carbonate. After about three weeks, it was had a slight amount of carbonation. Ultimately, I poured it out of my keg and into a couple of 2 liter bottles to try later. (More on that below.)


Color: This recipe has a very dark brown color to it.
Taste: WOW!! The star anise flavor of black licorice over powered everything. I couldn't taste anything but black licorice. This recipe should be renamed to Black Licorice Beer. The taste is just way too strong. I'll have to make blog posts of ingredients so I know what flavors are good and what will over power others.
Overall: Unfortunately, I couldn't tell what the root beer flavor would be. I did not like this at all. I do, however, have some hope for it. I tried some by diluting it in a little bit of water and it's much better. So I'll comment on that at another time.
Rating: 1 out of 10

Root Beer Recipe #2 - "Blackstrap"

This root beer recipe comes from Ted Danyluk, a homebrewer. I would have followed his recipe exactly but there was a couple of differences that I had to use. His recipe is for a 3 gallon keg and I have a 5 gallon keg. The other difference is that I couldn't find cassia buds anywhere except for 1 place online and I didn't have time to wait for it this time around. There may also be slight diffences in the brands that used.

Here's the ingredients for my 5 gallon recipe:

• 4 cinnamon sticks (cracked)
• 1/2 oz licorice root (cut)
• 1 teaspoon grains of paradise (fresh ground)
  
• 4 1/2 cups organic evaporated cane juice sugar
• 3 1/3 cups organic light brown sugar
• 1/3 cup blackstrap molasses
• 1/2 cup malto dextrin
• 5 Tablespoons root beer extract (I used 4 1/2 T of birch root beer extract and 1/2 T of regular)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Boil 1 1/3 gallons of water with spices for 30 minutes. Turn off heat. Add sugars and extracts. Place pot in sink filled with cold water to cool down the mixture. Add to keg. Top off keg with cold water. Force carbonate.

It took longer to carbonate than I had anticipated. I'm sure I'll learn the techniques better as I do more.


Color: The color was much darker. A color that I would expect a root beer to be. I'm sure that the molasses and root beer extract helped in that.
Taste: This had a very good root beer taste to it. There is something to the taste, however, that makes me not want to drink a lot of it in one day. I'm thinking that it could be just a little too sweet, or something with the sugars, or it could be the birch root beer taste instead of just root beer.
Overall: This was a good recipe. I'll most likely come back to this with some slight modifications when I want a root beer from extract.
Rating: 8 out of 10

Kegging System

It's a bit early in this new hobby to be making some major purchases but I've bought a kegging system. There was a couple of reasons for the push to buy one.

• Just with my first batch of root beer, I noticed that my wife and I were too worried about the yeast's fermentation making alcohol. Even though I was certain there wasn't enough to be worried about, it was still a concern. I couldn't smell or taste anything that would make us think that, it was just in our heads because of the fermentation process.
• Since announcing my new hobby, I've been asked to make root beer for my sister-in-law's wedding. That's going to be a lot of root beer! And there'd be no way that I could make that much by bottling. I doubt that I could even find a suitable recipe in that time, 2 months.

There is also the wanted reasons to get one, mostly the coolness factor. It's kind of neat to have some bigger equipment.

I called around to the couple local brewing stores to find out what they sold. I decided to go with Art's Brewing Supplies. I went with him because he was selling a used system with 2 Cornelius 5 gallon kegs and a 20lb CO2 cylinder for just a little more than the other store who was selling just 1 keg and a 5lb cylinder. I was able spend some time with Art asking him all the questions I had using the kegging system. He is very knowledgeable and has been selling this stuff for a very long time.

I now just got to decide on my next recipe to use.

Root Beer Recipe #1 - "Sarsaparilla"

I got this root beer recipe at the brew store that I purchased my first pieces of equipment. It's a pretty simple recipe so it should be easy for a first timer.

The recipe creates 5 gallons and since my brewing pot isn't large enough to start, I'm halving the it, which I doubt should hurt anything. So what I'm listing here is the halved amount. Ingredients needed:

• 1/2 oz Wintergreen Leaves
• 1 oz Indian Sarsaparilla
• 1/2 T Sarsaparilla extract
• 4 cups cane sugar (I'm just using the normal white grocery store kind)
• 1/4 t Coopers Ale yeast (This maybe will be silly to half but here goes nothing)

First bring 1 gallon of water to a boil. Turn off heat. Add Wintergreen leaves and Indian Sarsaparilla (which I but in my straining grain bag), cover and let stand for 2 hours. I left the house so I actually let it soak for 6 hours, but who's counting. Remove grain bag. Add sugar and stir until dissolved. Add extract and re-hydrated yeast. Transfer to larger bucket (because my pot is too small) and add 1 1/2 gallons of water. Mix well. Siphon into bottles and cap. Leave set at 65° to 80° for 3 to 7 days. Check for carbonation. When carbonated, refrigerate to stop additional fermentation and bursting bottles. Chill and drink.

Beside using glass bottles, I siphoned into two plastic soda bottles so that I could squeeze the bottle to test for carbonation.

Day 3 - I got a little impatient to test how this worked. By squeezing the plastic bottles I could tell that carbonation was happening. They were getting quite firm so I thought that I would get one a test. Nope, not carbonated enough, it was a bit flat.
Day 5 - One more plastic soda bottle left and it's even more firm now. ... Almost there. It's much more carbonated than day 3 but still needs just a little more time.
Day 7 - Just right. The bottle are now carbonated. I now refrigerate the remaining bottles.

Color: The color seems a bit light. I don't think the picture really shows the color too well. I doubt that the color of my root beer really will be a factor of if I like it or not.
Taste: I didn't think it tasted strong enough. There is a root beer taste and smell but it just seems like it's missing more.
Overall: I just didn't like it. I ended up dumping all but a couple of bottles to keep for something just to sip on and taste.
Rating: 3 out of 10

Initial Equipment Purchases

For my first equipment purchases I didn't want to go overboard, buy too much and spend a lot of money. Really, at this point I'm not sure if I'll even enjoy doing this. So I want to try and use anything that I already have at home and purchase only the minimal amount of equipment.

I already have a fairly decent sized stockpot (I can't remember the exact size but 8 quarts is at the brim) that I can use for my boiling pot. I was given about 30 24oz bottles. And I already have sugar and water.

The items that I did need to purchase are:

• Obviously the ingredients. The list of ingredients will come on another post with the recipe that I used.
  
• The last time I did any kind of siphoning, I siphoned gasoline out of a car and ended up swallowing some.. too much. So I purchased an auto siphon to make that a little easier. And, of course, the tubing. And at the other end I have a bottle filler to help easily fill the bottles.
  
• Since I want to bottle right now, I bought a bottle capper and bottle caps.
• A straining bag will also be helpful. The one I bought is a bit big but should still work just fine.

So really there wasn't too much for me to buy. That was good. It's nice to start a hobby with not a lot of investment.

My Initial Thoughts on Brewing

I suppose that I should first clarify what I am brewing. I just want to brew soda pop. Different kinds, different flavors, but just soda pop. I enjoy going to microbreweries and drinking their own brewed soda. Most of the time it's root beer or cream soda, which is great because I like drinking both of those.

I can't say that I've always wanted to try making my own soda because I haven't. I can't even say that I'm that big of a fan of soda because I'm not. So why do this then? Personally it just seems like something that'll be fun. Trying different recipes, different ingredients, herbs and spices that I'm not familiar with, and just the whole process sounds like it'll be fun.

I want to try and stick to a few "rules" with all of my recipes:

• Ingredients - I want to use all natural products and avoid imitation flavors and colors at all costs. If at all possible, I'd also like to avoid using extracts as well. Using extracts may be necessary as I first try and sample other recipes and begin to develop my own, but should be avoided upon recipe completion. I want to use the actual raw ingredients.
  
• Carbonation - Originally thinking, I wanted to avoid using CO2 to carbonate my sodas. I wanted to only use yeast to create the carbonation as to go with my thoughts on ingredients and trying to use all natural products. However, as I read more and more about recipes and brewing, I may become more open to it. I don't drink alcohol. Using yeast to create the carbonation will create a small amount of alcohol in the fermenting process. Right now I cannot determine if this amount is small enough for me to justify using yeast. As I brew my first few batches, I will know this process better. If I do end up using CO2 later, it will be okay with me since it's just the carbonation and not the actual recipe. Plus, I'm not that big of a fan of carbonation anyway but flat soda will most likely be gross.
• Cost - I'd like to keep the cost down. Why make all this soda if it ends up costing a fortune? There are a few reasons that I can think of but I'd still prefer to not spend too much, especially in the learning stages.
• Bottling - This kind of goes along with the carbonating direction. I would like to use bottles to store my soda. I think that this gives it a more cool factor that the soda is in its own little bottle. However, this may change if I get into using kegging systems or other types of storage or learn more techniques.

This should be a fun hobby to try. I'm excited to get started and create something original.