We were more than a little disheartened when the first two recipes came out as gross as they did. Both of the recipes came out tasting very much like beer and not much at all like root beer. That and how hard it was to find more information about brewing root beer online made us forget about this for a time. In the year and half break that we've taken, a lot more websites and information about brewing have appeared on the internet. That and my love of Root Beer have brought us back to trying to make it from scratch again.
The time my wife and I decided to try a recipe we found on youtube. Check out the full video instructions from DybrnSoda here. Here's our slightly modified instructions:
The time my wife and I decided to try a recipe we found on youtube. Check out the full video instructions from DybrnSoda here. Here's our slightly modified instructions:
Ingredients
16 quarts water (6 for brewing 10 for cooling)
3 lbs Honey
2 Star Anise
1 True Cinnamon Stick
1/2 tsp Sea Salt
1 oz Sasparilla Root
1 oz Sassafras Bark
1 oz Wild Cherry Bark
16 Dried Juniper Berries
1/2 cup Molasses
6 cups Sugar
1 Madagascar Vanilla Bean
1/4 cup Chopped Rasins
1/8 tsp Nutmeg
1 oz Dried Wintergreen Leaves
Around 200 grains of Cooper's Ale Yeast
Directions
Place 6 quarts water in a large pot and set to high. As the water begins to heat up add the honey, star anise, cinnamon, salt, various barks, molasses, sugar, vanilla bean, raisins, nutmeg, and juniper berries. Boil uncovered for approximately 90 minutes.
Remove from heat. Once the boiling has ceased, add the wintergreen. Add the remaining water to cool off the mixture. This helps cool the mixture much more quickly. You want the temperature
to be between 60-95 degrees so that fermentation can begin when you add the
yeast. Once the mixture is within that range, strain through a filter into your bottles. Leave at least twice as much room in the bottle for air than you would find in a bottle at the store. Add 7 grains of yeast for every 15 oz of fluid in your
bottle.
Yield
15 quarts of homemade root beer.
Commentary
We halved the recipe with goal of a much more manageable 7 quart yield. A brief taste test at then end of steeping revealed an very sweet fruity flavor. It was very similar to Apple Cider. That's not exactly the flavor I'd expect, but we'll see what the carbonating process does to change this.
Our issues with yeasty flavor last time had us looking at all the options. We attempted to get on Ringwood Ale Yeast. Which is supposed to have a fruitier flavor, hopefully more suitable to our palates. Unfortunately, when we ordered it the company we ordered from on Amazon was out. So we asked them to recommend a different yeast for root beer. They recommended several alternatives including: English Dry, British Ale, traditional liquid champagne yeast, and even a sweet mead yeast. We went with English Dry, but it didn't arrive in time for us to use it with this batch, so we'll try it on our next batch.
That's all for now!
Yield
15 quarts of homemade root beer.
Commentary
We halved the recipe with goal of a much more manageable 7 quart yield. A brief taste test at then end of steeping revealed an very sweet fruity flavor. It was very similar to Apple Cider. That's not exactly the flavor I'd expect, but we'll see what the carbonating process does to change this.
Our issues with yeasty flavor last time had us looking at all the options. We attempted to get on Ringwood Ale Yeast. Which is supposed to have a fruitier flavor, hopefully more suitable to our palates. Unfortunately, when we ordered it the company we ordered from on Amazon was out. So we asked them to recommend a different yeast for root beer. They recommended several alternatives including: English Dry, British Ale, traditional liquid champagne yeast, and even a sweet mead yeast. We went with English Dry, but it didn't arrive in time for us to use it with this batch, so we'll try it on our next batch.
That's all for now!
