The Northern Brewer Homebrew Forum

by **ajswanson** » Mon Mar 17, 2003 1:34 pm

Has anyone had experience with creating Root Beer from scratch? I've started to try some recipes that I've found on the net and am looking for some help. Has anyone tried brewing from scratch and what were the results? What recipes have you tried? Did you taste it before kegging/bottling?

The recipe I used made it very bitter to taste pre-bottling. I'm not optimistic that it will rectify in the carbonization process.

I'm a real "gotta do it from scratch" type guy. I dont want to have to use any extracts. Good or bad.

by **DaveG** » Mon Mar 17, 2003 3:29 pm

Interesting question. Unfortunately, I have no experience brewing rootbeer. I make non alcoholic rootbeer soda from the Gnome extract, and I really like it.

I am curious. The rootbeer soda pop we all grew up with is a heavily sugared beverage, as is the extract recipe from Gnome. It suggests about one pound of sugar per gallon of soda.
How much sugar, if any, does the brew it yourself recipe suggest to use?
I am not at all familiar with the traditional brew, is it supposed to be less sweet? Maybe the bitter characteristic is part of what rootbeer was before it was bottled by soda companies.
Just a thought.

DaveG

by **JMP13** » Mon Mar 17, 2003 4:12 pm

MAN, you read my mind....I was just thinking about this. I mixed up a few bottles of homemade Ginger Ale this weekend and was thinking there has GOT to be a non-syrup extract Root Beer recipe. Do you have any good sites with recipes?

Jared

by **JMP13** » Mon Mar 17, 2003 4:28 pm

I just found a good article on Root Beer at hbd.org. LOTS of info...I might try an extract after reading this...

Jared

by **ajswanson** » Tue Mar 18, 2003 12:07 am

I saw this. It is as much as I've seen on the subject. The book "Homemade Root Beer, Soda & Pop" by Stephen Edward Cresswell has a few pages on it too. The recipes in the book start off with a simple one with only sarsaparilla root. That may be the best place to start.

I am surprised that there is not more info out there on brewing Root Beer from scratch. This all started because I am an avid BBQ'er. Not grilling mind you, smoking all day. And nothing goes with BBQ like a good Root Beer.

Has anyone had any experience with making RB from scratch? Any comments? I'd love to hear from someone who has tried with any degree of success or failure.

by **nstohlma** » Tue May 27, 2003 1:52 pm

I've actually been trying a couple of different batches of root beer since the beginning of the year. I've only gotten around to 3 attempts, but all of them have been pretty bad, and I think it's because of the yeast I'm using.

Every place that I've seen has recomended the Red Star Pasture Champagne yeast, but in 2 batches (1 of them with a friend at his place, with his equipment, different recipie (ginger ale) and his sanitization techniques. He does beer quite successfully) I always end up with a nasty sulfur smell. So my advice would be to try anything other than that.

I haven't decided which kind I'm going to try next though, but I'll be sure to post here when I've decided and run a test batch.

BTW - I did find a local (Twin Cities) source of good sassafras too. If you do want to find it, any place that sells raw herbs and supplements will likely carry it. I went to Present Moment Herbs and Books which is a new age place in Minneapolis. Nice people, very helpful.

One of these days I'll remember to transfer it to a glass container so it stops making the cabinet smell root-beery.

by **nstohlma** » Tue May 27, 2003 1:57 pm

I did some digging on the data about the determination of safrole as a carcinogen, and I was pretty unimpressed by the testing methods. Essentially, if you feed a lab rat half it's body weight in safrole each day for 2-3 weeks it develops cancer.

Considering that the actual amount of safrole in a root beer produced with any of the recipies I've seen is in the tenths of miligrams, I don't see it being a big worry. I probably woudn't drink a 2 liter of it a day for the rest of my life, but I don't drink that much of anything but water every day anyway.

Just my $0.02

by **EmesisAle** » Thu May 29, 2003 4:04 am

I'm about to make a one gallon batch of alchoholic root beer. I'm using sassafras, sarsparilla, and some spearmint because i couldn't get any winter green. I might add some wormwood for bittering too and will probably add vanilla extact when I bottle. I'll post the recipe after it 's been brewed and tried.

by **karateexplosion** » Mon Jun 28, 2010 9:09 pm

That Cresswell book is a great source but unfortunately all of the recipes are based more on the old style of doing root beer, using sassafras, which is ok but if you actually try it sassafras tastes significantly different from modern rootbeer (like a&w).

Modern stuff is made with wintergreen as a primary ingredient (peppermint and spearmint are not a good alternative, I've made that mistake

). I've gotten my best results by using wintergreen oil, anise oil (which provides the other big flavor, licorice), vanilla, and nutmeg oil seems to provide a little something. You have to use food grade oils, and cut them with alcohol or some other food grade emulsifier like propylene glycol in order to mix them with water, and you use *very* little oil, like a drop per liter or less.

I've been trying off and on for a while to make a good root beer recipe, and I've had some decent success. I like it, my friends like it, but you can tell that it's homemade (although it does taste like root beer).

I haven't had much success using actual roots and barks though. They always seem to leave that root or bark flavor in the final product and I can't seem to reduce it enough to enjoy the drink.

I think maybe the old timers just dealt with it, and I've been pampered with root free flavored A&W all these years.

http://www.rootbeerbrewer.com