I was all ready to bottle the fresh hops beer I brewed 11 days ago when I saw that it was still bubbling a bit. I certainly don’t want any exploding bottles. So what was I going to do with a nice rack of sterilized bottles and a sterilized bottling bucket and tubes? Make ROOT BEER! I bought the flavoring a while ago. I just needed sugar, dry yeast, the flavoring, water, and the equipment. What I didn’t have was a good way to measure 2 gallons, which is what the recipe called for, so I ended up with somewhat diluted root beer. I hope that it still gets carbonated. It tastes great. The kids were really happy about that since they think beer is yuck. It was super easy. Here is the recipe I used:
- 1/8 tsp dry yeast dissolved in 1/2 cup warm water
- 2 1/2 cups sugar
- 1 TBL root beer flavoring (I purchased it at my local brewing supply store)
- 2 gallons of water (I used 2.25 since I ended up with 24 bottles ((12 oz. x 24)/128 oz. = 2.25)
Mix well, bottle, wait 4-6 days for carbonation to take place.
I’ll write about how it turns out.
Wow – it’s great! The carbonation level is perfect. Who knew I could use the yeast I use for waffles to make root beer? The flavor is a bit diluted due to the extra water but it is very refreshing. We made ice cream floats with it on Friday. And the cost per bottle is slight. I made 30 bottles with about $1.00 of flavoring, $0.50 worth of sugar, $0.20 worth of yeast. I had to use electricity and natural gas to sterilize the bottles ($1.00?) and I used iodine for the equipment – another $0.50. And I used tap water which is pretty cheap per gallon. Say it was a total of $3.00. So $0.10 per bottle. That is hard to beat.
Now I want to make vanilla soda and real root beer with natural ingredients.
