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Author Topic: Root BEER  (Read 2995 times)

Offline corkybstewart

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Root BEER
« on: November 03, 2010, 01:39:29 pm »
A guy in town who makes and sells root beer at events gave me 3 bottles of Zatarains root beer extract. Directions call for adding 1 bottle of extract and a packet of beer yeast to 4.5 gallons of water along with some sugar.  This makes me wonder if I can(or would even want to) brew a beer with this stuff.  Maybe 8-10 pounds pilsner malt and no hops.  Any thoughts?
Life is wonderful in sunny White Signal New Mexico

Offline micsager

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Re: Root BEER
« Reply #1 on: November 04, 2010, 08:37:52 am »
A guy in town who makes and sells root beer at events gave me 3 bottles of Zatarains root beer extract. Directions call for adding 1 bottle of extract and a packet of beer yeast to 4.5 gallons of water along with some sugar.  This makes me wonder if I can(or would even want to) brew a beer with this stuff.  Maybe 8-10 pounds pilsner malt and no hops.  Any thoughts?

A town close to me used have a "strange brew fest" and one year a guy had "Booted Rear."  It was a rootbeer flavored beer.  Not sure how he did though.

Offline tschmidlin

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Re: Root BEER
« Reply #2 on: November 04, 2010, 09:29:58 am »
A guy in town who makes and sells root beer at events gave me 3 bottles of Zatarains root beer extract. Directions call for adding 1 bottle of extract and a packet of beer yeast to 4.5 gallons of water along with some sugar.  This makes me wonder if I can(or would even want to) brew a beer with this stuff.  Maybe 8-10 pounds pilsner malt and no hops.  Any thoughts?

A town close to me used have a "strange brew fest" and one year a guy had "Booted Rear."  It was a rootbeer flavored beer.  Not sure how he did though.
Not used to Mic - Strange Brew Fest is on! January 28-30, 2011.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Port-Townsend-WA/Water-Street-Brewing/248943207622

Don't stay at the Water Street Hotel, they're the same people who booted Water Street Brewing out of their space.

<edit>It was Laht Nappur Brewing, maybe if you contacted them they'll tell you how they got the root beer flavor in their beer.  They make their own root beer, but I don't know if they're using extract or not.
« Last Edit: November 04, 2010, 09:40:29 am by tschmidlin »
Tom Schmidlin

Offline Steve

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Re: Root BEER
« Reply #3 on: November 04, 2010, 11:19:13 am »
Zatarains root beer extract. Directions call for adding 1 bottle of extract and a packet of beer yeast to 4.5 gallons of water along with some sugar.  This makes me wonder if I can(or would even want to) brew a beer with this stuff.  Maybe 8-10 pounds pilsner malt and no hops.  Any thoughts?

Zatarains extract makes a great root beer soft drink!   I love mixing odd favors, but I'm not sure I'd want a Root Beer IPA.  I've made a hard Ginger Beer with the following recipe. You can substitute the root beer extract for the ginger, lime and lemons (maybe leave a bit of lemon zest).   I'd add the root beer extract into the bottling bucket for the purest RB flavor and you're also mixing it with the fermented brew.  There is no need to boil the root beer version at all since the flavors are already extracted. You're just dissolving and mixing the sugars. 

My recipe makes a "Mike's Hard" beverage like body. If you add some DME to, or in place of, the corn sugar you'd get a maltier beer-like taste and body.  You'd have to boil the DME for a while.  Maybe use a amber or dark DME to keep the color more root beer-ish. Addition of DME will raise the OG from my recipe. it might be good to scale down the recipe to get the percentages right with the extract flavor.

Ginger Beer
Size: 5 gal
Original Gravity: 1.043   Terminal Gravity: 1.010    Alcohol: 4.25%

Ingredients:
  • 2 lbs Cane Sugar - boiled 30 min
  • 4 lbs Corn Sugar - boiled 30 min
  • 1.5 - 2 lbs Ginger - boiled 30 min - 1/4" slices w/ or w/out peel
  • 2 ea lemon & lime juice and zest - boiled 30 min
  • Munton Active Brewing Yeast
  • 3/4 cup Corn Sugar - for carbonation.

Method:
  • Boil 2 gal water. Add sugars, ginger, lemon & lime zest and juice and boil for 30 minutes.  Add 2 gal. of cool water to a sanitized fermenter.  After the 30 min. boil, pour the liquid into the fermenter through a sieve to catch the zest and ginger.  Toss back some larger pieces of ginger into the fermenter.   Top up the water to 5 gal.  Take a hydrometer reading.  When the temperature is below 80ºF pitch the yeast onto the liquid and add the airlock.   Ferment for one week.
  • After fermentation, take a hydrometer reading.   Dissolve 3/4 cup of corn sugar in 1 pint of boiling water for 10 min.   Add that syrup to a bottling bucket and rack the ginger beer into the bucket.  Stir gently. 
  • Bottle and cap. Let bottle condition for 2 weeks.  12 oz. amber PET bottles with screw caps are good for this.

Don't keg your root beer since the odor and flavor will never come out of the keg unless you want to designate a root beer only keg and hoses.
Steve
 
  "Because beer is food: in cooking, at the table and by the glass. " Lucy Saunders

Offline corkybstewart

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Re: Root BEER
« Reply #4 on: November 04, 2010, 01:41:04 pm »
Thank's guys, I think I have a plan.  I do hate bottling, but it would help free up kegerator space.  I got 10 cornies from a high school concesion stand.  They had been partially filled with a variety of sodas for 5 years in  shed(think 100F days in the summers)when I got them.  They can be cleaned successfully, all I did was soak them overnight in PBW and replace all the rubber parts.
Life is wonderful in sunny White Signal New Mexico

Offline micsager

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Re: Root BEER
« Reply #5 on: November 05, 2010, 09:28:30 am »
A guy in town who makes and sells root beer at events gave me 3 bottles of Zatarains root beer extract. Directions call for adding 1 bottle of extract and a packet of beer yeast to 4.5 gallons of water along with some sugar.  This makes me wonder if I can(or would even want to) brew a beer with this stuff.  Maybe 8-10 pounds pilsner malt and no hops.  Any thoughts?

A town close to me used have a "strange brew fest" and one year a guy had "Booted Rear."  It was a rootbeer flavored beer.  Not sure how he did though.
Not used to Mic - Strange Brew Fest is on! January 28-30, 2011.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Port-Townsend-WA/Water-Street-Brewing/248943207622

Don't stay at the Water Street Hotel, they're the same people who booted Water Street Brewing out of their space.

<edit>It was Laht Nappur Brewing, maybe if you contacted them they'll tell you how they got the root beer flavor in their beer.  They make their own root beer, but I don't know if they're using extract or not.

Cool beans Tom.  I'll be there. 

Offline tschmidlin

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Re: Root BEER
« Reply #6 on: November 05, 2010, 09:41:58 am »
Cool beans Tom.  I'll be there. 
I made the first one when my wife was ~7 months pregnant with twins, that wasn't her favorite beer event ever.   ;D  We haven't been back since.  :(

Have you ever managed to score on the Wookie?
Tom Schmidlin

Offline micsager

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Re: Root BEER
« Reply #7 on: November 05, 2010, 03:27:22 pm »
Cool beans Tom.  I'll be there. 
I made the first one when my wife was ~7 months pregnant with twins, that wasn't her favorite beer event ever.   ;D  We haven't been back since.  :(

Have you ever managed to score on the Wookie?

No, I don't think so.  (not to say I haven't scored in Port Townsend)  And you're right about Strange brew fest.  It's always over packed, and an out door beer fest in Townsend, in late janaury is a bit tough.  But, it's the closest beerfest for me. 

The best one in our area is Hops and Props.  Great food, Great beer, and once your in, it's all free. 

Offline tschmidlin

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Re: Root BEER
« Reply #8 on: November 05, 2010, 03:57:45 pm »
If you scored on the Wookie, you'd know it :)

Skip aka The Wookie is the brewer, and he's a hockey goalie.  If you can score on him you get free beer. :)

Although he's moved on, so they probably don't do that at that event anymore.
Tom Schmidlin

Offline micsager

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Re: Root BEER
« Reply #9 on: November 05, 2010, 04:16:58 pm »
Do you ever go to Hops and Props?  Tickets go on sale in about a month.

Offline tschmidlin

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Re: Root BEER
« Reply #10 on: November 05, 2010, 04:20:31 pm »
Do you ever go to Hops and Props?  Tickets go on sale in about a month.
I've always missed that one - we always talk about going, but it never works out.  Maybe this year . . .
Tom Schmidlin

Offline micsager

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Re: Root BEER
« Reply #11 on: November 05, 2010, 04:22:43 pm »
Do you ever go to Hops and Props?  Tickets go on sale in about a month.
I've always missed that one - we always talk about going, but it never works out.  Maybe this year . . .

At $70 a ticket, it's pretty steep.  But well worth it.  And I have to add a hotel to that. 

Offline The Professor

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Re: Root BEER
« Reply #12 on: November 05, 2010, 05:26:37 pm »
I've done rootbeer flavored beer using several different brands of extract.   

The first time I tried it there wasn't enough sweetness left after the ferment, so in order to salvage the project I made a brown sugar syrup and dosed the finished brew with that along with some potassium sorbate to arrest further fermentation.

Second time around, in order to avoid the additive, I backed off on the hops somewhat (but not too much) and used a lot more crystal malt to ensure that there would be enough sweetness.   Came out really nice, sweet but not cloyingly so, and an interesting intermingling of the hop flavors with the flavors that came from the rootbeer extract.   I haven't made the stuff since I've added Honey Malt to the cupboard, but it seems to me that it would be a very good addition to this concoction.
AL
New Brunswick, NJ
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Homebrewer since July 1971

Offline corkybstewart

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Re: Root BEER
« Reply #13 on: November 05, 2010, 06:26:01 pm »
Thanks Professsor, that's the kind of first hand knowledge I'm looking for.
Life is wonderful in sunny White Signal New Mexico