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.