[JT]

My daughter's second birthday is coming up and instead of chasing all the kids away from the keezer I figured I could give them their own tap (specially marked, of course). 
I'm sure root beer is like anything else - there's the easy & convenient way and the Sarsaparilla Savant.  I'm game for both, and I trust the forum advice much more than a Google search.  I'm looking for links to good DIY sites, recipes, how to's, etc.  Thanks all!

[Slowbrew]

Interesting topic.  I've toyed the idea of making sodas in the past.

I have seen the bottle of root beer extract, some number #'s of sugar, water and dry ice method.  It was good but not really a keeper type recipe.  More of a use the day you make it type of thing.

I'm sure someone on this board has a good recipe for a brewed version.

Paul

[Stevie]

There are various qualities of the extract. I've tried the gnome extract that MoreBeer sells at a teach a friend event years ago and liked it. Obviously you can go from scratch, but sourcing the ingredients may be costly for a single batch.

[duboman]

I use the Gnome and like it the best, I believe their website has the recipe for making root beer as well. Its a lot of water and sugar and extract with champagne yeast IIRC.

Keep it simple:)

[JT]

I saw the champagne yeast which honestly surprised me - though I'm not sure why.  I'm assuming many home soda makers have discovered bottle bombs the hard way since there is no primary fermentation to eliminate sugar.  My guess is that if the fermentation went long enough to create any significant amount of alcohol, the bottle would explode first.  I can just see someone that doesn't know better thinking they can store their extra bottles in the cupboard once the fridge is full.  Since I'm kegging I will be avoiding this altogether.

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[duboman]

Yeah, the yeast is there to simply carbonate and PET bottles are typical, you wait until they get rock hard and then put them all in the fridge. Kegging requires no yeast.