Saturday, April 10, 2010

Eight-tree Ale (root beer #7)


Basically, another attempt to get the root beer to carbonate properly. It's going into capped bottled since the swing tops are going to be full of ginger ale. (Above is the root beer and ginger ale in my temperature-controlled 70-degree oven.) I meant to put a whole tablespoon of yellow dock in, but didn't have that much left.

1/4 cup sassafras
1/4 cup coarse birch bark
2 1/2 Tbsp sarsaparilla
2 Tbsp wild cherry bark
2 Tbsp wintergreen leaves
2 tsp licorice root
1 tsp yellow dock
1 tsp burdock
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 tsp ale yeast
1 gal water

This came out awesome! Finally! I bottled it in reused Fentiman's bottles with twist-off caps, which, aside from one that didn't seal, worked perfectly. Five days at 70 degrees was at least a day too long; the bottles totally gushed and had excessive head. Despite some root beer lost to the floor and sink and waiting for the head to subside, the foaminess was quite satisfying. Very root-beery. Served at our Spring brunch party. Karen said, "there's a lot going on!" Better than the ginger ale for a change.

3 comments:

  1. Very glad to find your blog! I'm a San Francisco homebrewer and just made my first batch of force-carbonated extract rootbeer, and I'm hooked. I hadn't thought of rainbow grocery but I'm going to make a trip tomorrow, and give a from-scratch batch a try. Also wanted to suggest trying molasses as a sweetener... I made my Extract rootbeer adding anise, licorice root and cinnamon, sweetened with turbinado, brown sugar and less than .25 cup molasses and it gave it a very intersting warm flavor and aromatics. The molasses flavor was very dominant so I'd be careful adding a lot though... Thanks for posting your recipes!

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  2. Hey there! I've wanted to give this a try for a while now and I'm wondering equipment wise what you'd suggest I have to start. Any thoughts or suggestions for a novice would be appreciated.

    Thanks!

    fripfropjer (at) gmail.com

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  3. I would also love to know what equipment you suggest as well, ado could you post the instructions on how you brew the ingredients together thx

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