Homebrew Root Beer!

Intro: Homebrew Root Beer!

Growing up, my dad was always brewing something. Most of the time his brew pot was full of brown ale or chocolate stout, but occasionally he would pull the step stool up to the counter and we would brew a batch of homemade root beer together. He kept the recipe short and simple (much like my attention span at the time) by working with a bottle of root beer extract and a basic brewing method combine the proper proportions of water, sugar, extract and yeast; bottle; and ferment. This was a far cry from many of his beer recipes, which took the better part of a day to make, but the resulting root beer did the trick for my youthful palate it was my absolute favorite drink.

Now, I wouldn't call myself a root beer fanatic by any means I certainly don’t drink as much of it as I used to but when I have a craving for a glass, I almost always go for the small-batch brands, which are packed with a lot more spice and rich flavor than those made by the larger cola companies. Maybe that’s why, when I finally tasted some of my own root beer, I was disappointed with its relatively boring flavor.

In all honesty, I really shouldn't have expected much from my root beer in the first place. After all, I had been relying on a bottle of grocery store extract for all of the flavor. Curious to see how to go about producing a respectable bottle of homemade root beer, I started researching various recipes. I figured it would be a challenge, but I quickly realized that while my initial recipe was almost effortless, making a batch from scratch didn't require that much effort either. It was time to get out the brew pot again.

STEP 1: Establish Roots

In the days before you could buy bottled root beer extract in just about any grocery store in America, the typical root beer recipe started by steeping sassafras root the primary source for the flavor that we recognize in root beer in hot water, then adding sugar and yeast, and allowing the mixture to ferment in bottles. To further enhance the flavor of the beer, additional root barks and twigs such as sarsaparilla, burdock, and birch were also added. While foraging in the woods for these ingredients was once standard practice and still not uncommon even today, I was happy to discover that I could instead find them neatly packaged and ready to use at my local home brew store.

STEP 2: Get Aromatic

Over time other aromatics were added to the brew pot to enhance the flavor of the root beer. Searching through various sources, it was not uncommon to find recipes calling for ingredients like licorice, vanilla, mint, ginger, citrus zest, cinnamon and the like. For my recipe I wanted to incorporate some of the traditional roots with a few interesting aromatics without creating a laundry list of ingredients that was a hassle to gather.

STEP 3: Water It

I decided to base my recipe off of 1 gallon of water, which was enough to keep my refrigerator stocked for a while and could be easily handled in a small kitchen I’d leave the multi-gallon batches to the professionals. I preferred to use filtered water because my tap water at home was pretty metallic tasting.

STEP 4: Steep It

With 2 quarts of water in my saucepan, I then added my roots I chose a combination of sassafras and sarsaparilla along with some spearmint, star anise, ginger, and cinnamon for spice, and a vanilla bean for fragrance. After bringing the mixture to a boil, I covered the pot and allowed everything to steep for about 2 hours.

STEP 5: Sanitize It

With the root beer mixture off to the side, it was now time to start sanitizing my bottles and equipment. While homemade beverages are a highly unlikely source of food poisoning, any bacteria that do make it into a batch of homemade root beer can cause sour off-tastes and ruin the batch. For some, like my dad whose is a chemist by trade, the brewing area can imitate laboratory settings; for others, simply dunking their equipment in soapy water is sufficient. I tried to aim for the middle of the road. I washed all of my equipment in hot soapy water and then did my best to sanitize everything as well most importantly the bottles. I found that a simple 2-minute soak in a bleach solution (1 tablespoon of unscented chlorine bleach for every gallon of hot water) did the trick. Make sure to drain everything well, for at least 30 minutes.

STEP 6: Strain It

After 2 hours of steeping, the root beer mixture was ready to strain. At this point the liquid was more of a concentrate so I added the remaining 2 quarts of water to dilute the mixture along with the sugar. I could have started with all of the water in the beginning, but I found that adding half of the water at this stage helped to cool down the mixture quicker, which was necessary before adding the yeast. Granulated sugar would have worked just fine, but I tested several versions of this recipe with different types of sweeteners and found a combination of 1½ cups brown sugar and ½ cup molasses was best. The darker color of these two ingredients also helped to achieve the signature look for the root beer.

STEP 7: Cool It

Before adding the yeast, I cooled the root beer mixture further to around 75 degrees. If the mixture was too hot, there was a chance that the yeast would die. Most recipes I found recommended ale yeast because it did not impart any flavors, though I also read recipes that called for regular active dry yeast. Since I was already at the home brew store to pick up my sassafras and sarsaparilla, grabbing some ale yeast was convenient and what I used in my recipe, though I am sure traditional yeast would have worked as well. Once I added the yeast, I allowed 15 minutes for proofing before I began bottling.

STEP 8: Bottle It

There are several tools out there for bottling batches of home-brewed beverages. However, I found that for a small batch like this, the easiest way to bottle was with a funnel and a ladle. I simply lined the bottles up, placed the funnel on top of the bottles, and ladled in the root beer mixture. I preferred 22-ounce glass bottles, though 1-litre plastic soda bottles and smaller glass bottles would work as well. To avoid any exploding bottles, I filled the bottles to within 2 inches of the top, leaving adequate room as pressure built up in the bottles.

STEP 9: Cap It

Depending on the types of bottles used, the capping procedure can change. For my glass bottles, I placed a metal cap on top of each bottle and secured it with a bottle capper. Once capped, the bottles needed to sit at room temperature (ideally 62 to 77 degrees) so that the yeast could begin to eat the sugars and carbonate the root beer. The carbonation time depends on the type of yeast used and the temperature of the room, though in general it takes between 36 and 72 hours. I found that 48 hours was an appropriate amount of time for my root beer, which was sitting in a 75-degree room. To check carbonation, I just opened a bottle and poured a glass.

STEP 10: Chill It

Once the carbonation was right, I placed all the bottles into the refrigerator and waited a couple days for the flavors to meld. Refrigerating the bottles also caused the yeast to go dormant, which restricted the production of carbon dioxide even with the 2-inch gap I provided, too much carbonation would still cause bottles to blow.

STEP 11: Fizz It!

Wan't to make it fizz? Sodastream is a great carbonating machine.

STEP 12: Drink It

The end result was a huge success. The root beer was full of unique spice and rich flavor—everything I was looking for. Most recipes I found recommend drinking the root beer within 5 weeks for the best results, but my first batch only lasted 5 days. Cheers!

Comments

[ArticAkita]

you can make root beer from Dandelion roots, I got the information from a Amazon ebook titled: The Ultamate Dandelion cookbook by Kistina Seleskanko & there might be in paperback too I don't know but it said that is where Root beer was origionaly made from? since people were unsure of Sassafrass issues n all ...just trying to be helpful :) Merry Christmas!

[ripoff]

My aunt had a recipe for Dandelion roots wine. i was just a small child when she last made it and so I never got to taste it. She passed away when she was near 90 and before she told any one how to make it.
I grew up in Savannah and in the 60,s and 70,s, there were several large Sassafras trees in the neighborhood. Everyone knew where they were and would often cut a piece of the root. Just cutting a small piece of the root would cause the air to smell like Sassafras for about 1/2 block away. The aroma of Sassafras was very strong. My great aunt always had a picker of sweet Sassafras tea in her refrigerator all summer long. Her twin brother died at age 98, so she stoped having birthdays and always gave her age as 98.
I do not know if Sassafras root is bad for you but it never hurt anyone on my mothers side of the family who grew-up drinking Sassafras. My mother was the baby on her side of the family, being the last born and fifteen years younger than her siblings.
The last time I checked all of those old Sassafras trees were gone. Not a single one left. Funny that the government would find that Sassafras tree could cause cancer and start killing them off in the 1960,s Yet. they left tobacco off the cancer causing list and aloud farms to still grow it.
If big business can not make money on something because people can get it for free. Then remove it and replace it with a product that the people must pay for and can not get for free. Even if that product the company is selling is not better than the free product
Dose anyone know where you can still find the old Southern Sassafras trees. A small one sq. in. of the root would be more than enough to make 5 to7 gallons of a strong tea. The Northern trees are much smaller and have a larger weaker leaf. Also, the smells and taste is allot more weaker. The amount of the roots you show us making your gallon of root beer. If it were roots from an old southern Sassafras tree, you could make 10 plus gallons of a strong root beer. The northern Sassafras trees only seem to have a little hint of Sassafras aroma. Maybe that is why they are still around.
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[paininthebutt]

Please give us the exact ingredients i would love to make this for myself.

In the more northern states you can find a brand called sioux city sasperilla or rootbeer its basically the same thing and its really good you can find it anywhere from North Dakota to Missouri but not any further south.

[Detken]

Did you ever get the exact ingredients for the root beer?

[kenny.cason]

I would like to know the ingredients as well. Without that this could be pictures of a weed killer recipe and we wouldn't know the difference. I would love to try making this but, sadly, I have no idea what goes in it or the amounts. Please, please, give us an ingredient list. :-)

[ace_of_brews]

I just had Sioux City Sarsaparilla yesterday. Found it in Alamogordo, New Mexico. It was super good and actually why I wanted to make some. I brew beer all the time and decided it time to try a clone of SCS.

[SuleimanA12]

Don't use chlorine bleach to disinfect your gear. It leaves a residue which can build up over time. Alcohol is much safer and won't produce off flavors. White vinegar can also be used to sterilize your bottles and equipment, but if you aren't thorough about drying, it may affect flavor.

[robomaxim]

How much yeast do you add?

[monkeysinacan]

Isn't sassafras poisonous and or carcinogenic? Which is why no modern root beer contains it.

[Jesse USMC]

Sassafras is not really carcinogenic in reality. When the original study found that it caused cancer they failed to tell that the volume of sassafras taken by the rats was the equivalent of drinking over 50 gallons of root beer at one time to a human. They also failed to mention that there was a higher risk of cancer from alcohol. You can look it up online. The information isn't hard to find but bad info dies hard sometimes. For years people thought tomatoes were poisonous!

[monkeysinacan]

lol that does sound like something the FDA would do. Thanks for the info!

[declankliban]

yah! You so right. It's kind of like when those wimps at the FDA banned Thalidomide in the U.S. and then thousands of pregnant European mothers who took the drug gave birth to babies wit horrible birth defects. Besides, dem FDA dudes are always making drug companies do all these safety tests on drugs, like they know about safety. The experts are the drug companies, and I trust them implicitly.

[Jesse USMC]

Forget the root beer, keep drinking the kool aid.

[lperkins]

As with many things, it's a matter of dosage and may well be affected by species (There are two). Large doses were found to cause liver damage and cancer in rodents. It has been used medicinally by humans for a long time to combat scurvy, rheumatism, and bacterial or fungal infections.

As is typical of the FDA, studies showing that (often ridiculously) large doses cause problems for small rodents is sufficient to get its use banned without further study of the effects on humans.

[razamatraz]

And I should be more specific: Safrole is the carcinogen. Sassafras with low (almost none) amounts is available.

[razamatraz]

The FDA banned it from commercial products because it caused cumulative liver damage in rats and various cancers. That said many micro brewers still use it so the risk is up to you.

[FrenchDavid50.]

So after I add the yeast and bottle it.... what happens to the yeast? Do I have to remove it?

[mh21238]

No you dont have to all that it does is just carbonate the soda so you dont need to remove the yheast

[mmmelroy]

marked for later use! this is a great writeup

[JB610]

Its a thing kids probably don't like unless they were exposed to it early the taste of one soda that does not go down well with many people. Pepsi/Cola, Ginger ale or orange/fruit flavored sodas are easier to like

It has a taste of something a preacher would make one drink and I feel that way though it may not be true although many popular foods would be if unsweetened (cola extract), chocolate etc. Personally I dont care for RB or think its something I want to acquiure a taste for as an adult either though I sampled it a few times in my life growing up when it was offered at certain events maybe only 2 or 3 times in my life

I do not care for wine either although I may rather invest in liking that or if not for the booze would rather have cola or fruit juice as a cold drink which I rarely consume