Home Brewing Round One

 My beautiful wife has decided that our date night this week will be our first (and hopefully not last) attempt at making Root Beer from scratch.  I have wanted to do this for a long time and lamented the fact that most "home brew" kits include a "Root Beer Extract" syrup for making the brew.  This is unacceptable.  How can you adjust the flavor of the brew in the flavor has been predetermined by the syrup you're given to make the brew?  

To fix this problem, Steph tracked down the raw ingredients necessary to make Root Beer from scratch.  Shortly we will begin mixing ingredients into a truly home grown Root Beer.  

We've decided to take the very first recipe from the internet over at Nourished Kitchen.

Ingredients 


1/4 cup sassafras root bark 


1/4 cup winter green leaf 


2 tablespoons sarsaparilla root 


1 tablespoon licorice root 


1 tablespoon ginger root 


1 tablespoon dandelion root 


1 tablespoon hops flowers 


1 tablespoon birch bark 


1 tablespoon wild cherry tree bark 


1 teaspoon juniper berries 


1 cinnamon stick 


1 cup unrefined cane sugar 


1/2 cup ginger bug or fresh whey or 1 packet kefir starter culture

We couldn't find hops flowers so we're substituting more winter green leaf.  Instead of using ginger bug/fresh whey/ or kefir starter culture we're using the Ale Yeast.  This recipe should yield 2 quarts worth of (hopefully) amazing Root Beer.

The process takes a few hours to brew but about a week before we can taste it.  So we'll report back in a week and let you know the verdict.

For those of you looking to make your own home brews we found the following sites to be full of great information:

Do it Yourself

Homemade Soda Company

Nourished Kitchen