Homemade Root Beer

[livius drusus]

I was telling the skells in chat that my parents used to make root beer at home when I was a kid because you couldn't find root beer in stores (or eating establishments) in Italy at that time. It's one of the earliest memories I have because I root beer like a crazy crazy root beer stalker and it's still the yardstick by which I measure all other root beers. (IBC wins among the widely available commercial choices, fyi.)

So I just called my mom to ask them how they made it and whether they still had the recipe. They don't, I'm sad to say, but she said they used root beer extract as the base plus some other spices, molasses, brewer's yeast and water. They siphoned it from the cooking vessel into bottles then capped them with this hardcore corking machine they had which could easily kill 2 dozen large men.

The internets tells me there are all kinds of varied recipes for making the blessed brew. This dude has a blog about his experiments. I'm kind of considering maybe giving it a whirl at some juncture, maybe even going in the wayback machine and cooking up some sassafras and spikenard like it's the fucking Song of Solomon up in this bitch.

The only thing that stops me right now is funding, but soon there may be a mighty explosion that blankets the entire southeastern United States with a shower of brown goo that actually tastes great and doesn't kill sea turtles.

So does anyone else have knowledge of the root beer brewing? Or any homemade soda, for that matter, just to widen the pool. Maybe ginger ale or ginger beer? How about Sarsaparilla, for the old timey medicine men among us?

[Gi-Ryuu]

A friend of mine has a soda-making-carbonator-machine-thingie. I asked her if her family makes their own recipes, but she said they just buy the syrups, so I assume what she has is kind of like what you would find at a restaurant. But other than that no useful information on that subject. :c sorry.

[livius drusus]

Oh ya the syrup + carbonation thing is totally cheating. Hardcore homemade root beer gets its fizz from fermentation.

[lisarea]

I've made ginger beer from a plant before, but I forgot how because I am stupid.

I do remember that I got one OK batch and then one scary one that sorta exploded, and then some asshole turned on the oven with my ginger plant in it so it died.

That is my recipe for ginger beer.

[Dingfod]

As long as IBC keeps making their delicious version, I'm unmotivated to make my own.

[fragment]

I've only done alcoholic brewing. I'd guess the main difference is that you only let it brew for a short time then keep it cold so it doesn't go all explodey. Being real careful about the amount of sugar probably helps in that. As far as flavour goes the type of yeast has a real big impact, maybe there are specialty root beer yeasts or something?

eta according to this ale yeasts can't live under high pressure and will die before explosions happen

[Qingdai]

Two of my neighbors home brew and make home made sodas (including root beer) from time to time. It's pretty much the same as home brewing. I think they add carbonation though.

[Demimonde]

Alton Brown made ginger ale on his show once...

[livius drusus]

Oh shit get out of lisarea's way. SHE'S GONNA BLOW!1

[Zehava]

Originally Posted by livius drusus

Oh shit get out of lisarea's way. SHE'S GONNA BLOW!1

Still #1

[biochemgirl]

Thanks liv for giving me an idea of something else I just HAVE to make myself but don't have the time for

[roastelk]

I haven't made home made root beer ages, good stuff though.

I used mix of artificiall sarsaparilla extract, sarsaparilla extract, vanilla extract, a touch of liquorish exract, then sweetened it up to taste with maple syrup

if by chance you don't have Co2 carbonation machine handy, a little brewers yeast dose the trick when your bottling. just be sure to cool it down before the yeast converts all the sugar to alcohol, and or blows up the bottles.....makes a big mess

I tried doing a full fermentation one time...and it really didn't pan out well for me, it just doesn't taste very good



btw...real sassafras is known to be a liver cancer causing agent

[livius drusus]

It is, but they make safrole-free extracts nowadays, so you can get the flavor and not get the cancer.