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Adventures in root beer

The kids and I recently dove into the world of home brewing.


Sometimes my Facebook feed is all recipes, recipes, more recipes… Look! More annoying recipes, recip— ooh! I should make that! Root beer was one of those stop and scroll back recipes for me. I did a brief skim of it, enough to know I needed brewer's yeast, and kept scrolling.

A couple weeks later, brewer's yeast in hand, I went back to find the recipe. Couldn't find it. I was fairly sure of who posted it, so I searched their timeline. Nothing. Pinterest will have it. Everything is on Pinterest. Well, not everything apparently. I found more root beer recipes than one would ever believe existed — did you know you can carbonate with dry ice?! — but not the one I was looking for.

Since I already had the yeast, I was bound and determined to make something. There were two recipes which stood out above the rest. One used yeast, a different kind, but no biggie, right? Wrong! But more on that later. The other used a ginger bug for carbonation. The ginger bug thing seemed a little shady, and it took a week to grow. I chose the other recipe.

The original Facebook recipe used root beer flavoring, but the Pinterest recipes called for the actual herbs and roots, supposedly available at home brew or natural food stores. The accuracy of that assertion seems to be dependent on the size of the community in which the store is located. So, I had to order sarsaparilla and sassafras root.

By that point, I was ready to forget the whole thing but had gone too far to turn back. Besides, I'd also ordered some super cute bottles! Which aren't recommended for home brewing, by the way, but I like to live dangerously. Ha!

Homemade root beer float.
The first recipe I tried had a lot of ingredients and detailed instructions going on forever. It called for three anise pods, which seemed like a lot, so I dropped it down to two. It also called for spearmint leaves, but I'd read wintergreen is the more traditional root beer flavor, so I used wintergreen extract.

About the yeast… the recipe called for a tiny amount of ale yeast. I was nagged by the feeling I should use a whole lot more of the brewer's yeast, but I didn't want my cute bottles to explode (which is what just about every blog assured me would happen), so I didn't add more. I should have. Even after adding more yeast later, I just didn't get much carbonation. At least my bottles were safe!

The flavor was kind of "meh" as well. The anise was really strong. The flavor did mellow as it sat, but it just wasn't what I was hoping for. Oliver guzzled the stuff, and it wasn't bad over ice… or ice cream, but it certainly wasn't a make again, which was disappointing, because the entire process took almost two weeks. I could have had my ginger bug in less time. 

I decided to try again, this time with the second, ginger bug recipe. A ginger bug is fermented ginger. You start the culture and then "feed" it a little more ginger and sugar every day until there is fizz.

The kids were fascinated! Any time I do anything, it is accompanied by a million questions. I am purposefully vague, because the stuff they come up with when I don't fill in all the blanks is hilarious. This is, hands down, one of my favorite exchanges. 

The ginger bug, ready to use.
Oliver: "What are you doing?"

"Feeding my ginger bug."

Ainsleigh, eyes wide as I turned the lid: "Will it get out?!"

She was totally ready to high-tail it out of there.

My ginger bug was ready in less than a week, and I mixed up another batch of root beer wort (the juice before there's fizz) using the second recipe with a couple practical adjustments. Instead of ground vanilla, I used a whole vanilla bean cut lengthwise, and for sugar I used 1 1/2 cup raw cane sugar.

The ingredient list was much simpler and so was, therefore, the flavor, but it was pretty good, and actually recognizable as root beer. Next time, I'm going to try adding some other flavors, wintergreen for sure and maybe molasses. 

The best part is there can be a next time. The ginger bug lives in my fridge now, and can be made ready to go in a very short time.

Having a ginger bug at the ready also means I can experiment with other sodas. I'm thinking a cranberry orange would be really delicious, or maybe blackberry lime in the summer.

All in all it was a really fun experience with the only down side being the kids now expect daily root beer floats.
In a way, root beer starts very
much like a large vat of
herbal tea.

These are the recipes I used:

The first recipe with the really strong, but rich flavor and a nice, deep color http://www.americastestkitchenfeed.com/recipes/homemade-root-beer/

The second recipe and the one I would make again
http://holisticsquid.com/old-fashioned-root-beer/

The ginger bug
http://holisticsquid.com/how-to-make-a-ginger-bug/
 

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