Home Brewing Round Three

Our second attempt at making root beer turned out to be very tasty.  We had a bunch of people over for a board game night and served fresh root beer.  Everyone enjoyed it and we even sent some bottles home with our friends.  My wife and I had some objection to the yeasty flavor that was still present but the root beer flavor itself was great.

For Round 3 we used the same recipe as last time (full batch) with a couple modifications:

*Star Anise was cut in half

*1oz of Dandelion Root was added

*Ale yeast was replaced with liquid English Dry yeast

The pre-carbonated flavor tasted exactly like a bitter root beer.  The flavor was the closest I've experienced to over the counter root beer to date.  It isn't the flavor I like in root beer, I prefer creamy and rich, but the fact is we're getting closer and closer to understanding what each element does to the overall flavor.  I think the flavor I'm not enjoying in this batch is the molasses.  If the same flavors are there after carbonation, I'll experiment with dropping the molasses from the mix in the next batch.

Because we were using a liquid yeast we had to change the method of incorporation.  I strained the mixture through cheese cloth and back into the stock pots.  Instead of putting the yeast directly into bottles, it was incorporated into the mix while still in the stock pots.  I used a submersion blender to mix it in and then filled up the bottles with the mix.  The carbonation process took about a day longer than it has in the past.  I don't know whether this is due to the type of yeast, the method of incorporation, the amount of yeast used, or the fact that the yeast was a bit past its best by date.  Further experimentation is required.