Another Attempt at Root Beer

Enough is Enough! Us Knox's have been known to get recipes wrong in the past. First it was the alfredo sauce of '09, then it was the vodka sauce experiment of '10, and finally the root beer venture of '11. The first two may have knocked us down but it obviously made us stronger! So, we are back at it for one more attempt!

Last Attempt Preparations

How do we know it is the last attempt you ask? Well, we know there are a lot of factors that could cause us to not like the previous attempts. However, to make Root Beer you really only need 4 ingredients. You need Water, Extract, Sugar, and Yeast/Dry Ice (explain later). I know the water and sugar isn't the issue so we either don't like the taste of the extract or the ale yeast.

So, here is our last attempt:

First:

1 Gallon water, 3 tbs. Extract (more than recommended because previous recipes have been watered down), 3 cups of sugar ( I put in 1 cup of sugar for every tbs. of extract!), and finally 1/4 tsp of yeast (the least amount we can put in and hope that it carbonates!).

We also thought that we may not like the taste of the "ale yeast" because it is made for beer. So, I bought a 3 pack of yeast packets (enough for roughly 20 gallons of root beer by most recipes and I wouldn't even use that much!) for $.99 at Meijer. It is baking yeast so we are hoping it won't have much of a taste.

Second:

2 Tbs. Extract (All I have left), 2 cups of Cane Sugar (to match the extract), 3/4 gallon water (We kept adding water until it tasted right!)

Once we tasted it and saw that it tasted good (telling us that we do in fact like the extract) we decided to add a few other ingredients. So, we added 1/2 tsp of vanilla, and 1 tbs. of real maple syrup. This added a fuller/thicker taste that we didn't have with the regular extract.

Now for the Carbonation! This is dangerous so make sure you have all the correct protection and equipment before you try this!

We were surprised to find that Meijer sells dry ice up front next to their Ice Machine! It was $8 but you get a lot! I would estimate that for $8 you get enough to do 10+ gallons of Root Beer.

So, here is how it works. You need a container for your root beer that you can put a hole in the top. It just so happens that britt and I have this old water jug that has a top with a hole! You will probably want to do this outside and keep the kids (or puppies) away from this part.

Spread out a sheet, towel, or rags so that you can clean up your mess afterwards. With gloves, long sleeves, long pants, shoes, and goggles (I should have been wearing these!) break off a chunk of dry ice. A good estimate is 1 lbs for every gallon but you will see later that less than that is plenty!

                                                   

In a towel, break up the dry ice enough so that you can put it in the container with the Root Beer. I found that it worked better to put a nice big chunk in if you can. This big chunk freezes to the bottom and seemingly does the majority of the work. You will begin to see it react. Next, you are going to want to carefully put on your lid. You should see big bubbles from your large piece at the bottom and it should "smoke" a lot.

We waited about 30 minutes and came back because it is a small batch. You are going to want to wait longer if you have a larger batch. Wait until the smoke is just rising off the drink and not pouring out anymore.

Pour the new carbonated (bubbly) liquid into its final storage container, make sure you don't get any dry ice in this! We have our trusty automotive funnel with a filter so it helps with this. You should see your big chunk at the bottom of the container and you can knock that out. If it doesn't all come out you can rinse it out with warm water and it should be clear.

Now try your new carbonated root beer for taste! I recommend putting it in smaller containers (see our ez lid bottles) and letting it sit for 24 hours before a full serving, although this is not required or needed!

So we did it! We finally have found the issue (the yeast we were using). We will try the other batch with the other root beer later to see if it tastes good. I am assuming we will move to strictly dry ice carbonation!