Perfecting Root Beer

Its been about a month now.  The day before Mother's Day, the boys and I stopped by the Prior Lake Farmer's Market to purchase some of their amazing locally brewed root beer.  As I was drinking a bottle of it later that day, I decided that I wanted to make my own root beer for father's day (you know, putting some extract in a water jug, adding dry ice - the way dad used to make it).

I began by searching online and realized that almost nobody uses dry ice for their root beer.  In fact, true "old fashioned" root beer is brewed using yeast.  Well, this really caught my attention.  I researched a bunch and then started my first batch in a 2 liter bottle.  Well, after about 5 days, it still had not carbonated.  It was flat and just did not taste that great.  So, I tried again, only I added more yeast.  Sure enough, it seemed ready in about 3 days.  It had some carbonation, but the taste was still not very good.  So, I tried again using two separate 2 liter bottles.  I waited for quite a long time (about a week) until these bottles were rock solid with carbonation.  It was tasting time.  I took a bottle to the inlaws, broke it open and poured rounds for everyone.  Boy, it sure was carbonated, but the taste was not great at all.

In between all of these batches I had continued to research the making of root beer, have gathered a few used bottles and even bought me a bottle capper.  I was excited - as soon as I could figure out how to make it taste good, I wanted to make a bunch and maybe even sell it.

Well, after about 6 batches, I started to become convinced that it was not my recipe that was poor tasting, but rather it was the taste of yeast.  I then decided that I need to try to create carbonation in some other way. The professional homebrewers use a keg and a CO2 tank, but I'm just starting out and am working on a limited budget.  So, I began with dry ice.  I gathered all my supplies, prepared a bunch of bottles that I bought from some guy off craigslist and started the mixing process.  I then added dry ice.  All seemed to go very well - that is until I only got 15 bottles from a batch that was supposed to give 25 bottles.  Turned out that about 1 gallon of my 3 gallon mix just froze.  So, I melted that, mixed it in with another batch and brewed even more.  At the end I got 24 bottles of two varieties - one that's very sharp and another that is much sweeter.

After some public samplings (dean meeting at school and Father's Day), I think that most would agree that I've greatly improved my taste.  I still have a little to go until I get a good solid recipe that is both sweet but also sharp, but I am getting ever closer.  And - the most important thing - I had my very own home brewed root beer for Father's Day, just like I wanted.

Stay tuned for more...