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ROOT BEER RECIPE
root beer making suppliesRoot Beers and soft drinks of many other flavors can be made at home quickly and it is great fun for the kids! Our kits are the highest quality soft drink extracts available and with your sugar and water they make up to 4 gallons. Our brewing method uses champagne yeast to produce all natural carbonation in the bottle. 
Natural carbonation will take about two weeks and you don't need to be concerned about your soft drinks containing alcohol as a result of using brewer's yeast. Each bottle will contain less than the amount found in fresh squeezed orange juice.
Leeners Root Beer Brewery & Jim's Really Good Root Beer Recipe
This kit is based on the Old Fashioned line of soda extracts. It is up to you the brewer to experiment with different combinations of sugars in order to perfect your own personal recipe. The type and quantity of sugar used will change both the flavor and texture of the finished product. My recipe for Jim's Really Good Root Beer can be used with any of the dark colored soft drinks. Light colored drinks and fruit drinks can be made with the same recipe by changing the dark sugars to white sugar. Any sugar can be used to prepare your sodas. For example I like to use honey in my ginger beer and molasses in sarsaparilla. 
For more information, recipes and folk lore on root beer and other soft drinks we highly recommend, Homemade Root Beer Soda and Pop by Cresswell. From soda water to sarsaparilla, you'll find easy instructions for more than 60 traditional and modern soft drink recipes in this 121 page book. 
Bottling Root Beer and other Soft Drinks
If you are using plastic soda bottles with screw on caps please note that your bottles must be cleaned and sanitized prior to each use. The following chart will help you determine how many bottles you will need per gallon of root beer.
Please Note: New plastic PET soda bottles need to be soaked in a solution of Straight A Cleanser prior to being used the first time. Mix 1 tablespoon of Straight A with one gallon of hot water and submerge the bottles. Let them soak over night. Rinse well with hot water. This will remove the new plastic character that these bottles can impart to your root beer.
Number of Bottles
gallons
12 oz
16 oz
20 oz
1 Liter
1
11
8
6
4
2
22
16
12
8
3
33
24
18
12
4
44
32
24
16
Jim's Really Good Root Beer		    
Recipe for one gallon. Please read instructions before starting. 
Equipment
  • Mixing Spoon 
  • 6-8 Quart Sauce Pan 
  • Kitchen Funnel 
  • Measuring spoons 
  • Measuring Cup 
    		•
  • 2-3 gallon Pail 
  • Unscented Bleach 
  • A clean one gallon plastic milk jug 
  • 8-16 oz. PET Beer bottles
    		•
    Ingredients
  • 1 Cup White Table Sugar 
  • 1-1/2 Cup Dark Brown Sugar 
  • 2 tablespoons Malto Dextrin
    		•
  • 1 tablespoon Root Beer Extract 
  • 1/4 teaspoon Champagne Yeast 
  • 1 Gallon of Cold Water 
    		•
    1. Clean all equipment with soap and water. Rinse very well.
    2. Prepare a sanitizing solution in a clean utility pail by mixing 2 teaspoons of unscented bleach with 2 gallons of cold water. Soak all equipment including bottles and caps in this solution for at least 10 minutes. Remove your equipment and rinse it well with hot water.
    3. Fill a one gallon container with cold water. Now remove 1 cup of water from the jug and discard it. All of the water required for the recipe is now in the gallon container. Measuring the water in this way will save time and prevent you from adding to much or to little water later.
    4. Place 4 cups of water from the container into a sauce pan and begin to heat it. It is not necessary to bring the water to a boil. Heating this small amount of water will help dissolve the sugars and will make a better soft drink.
    5. Add the white sugar, brown sugar and malto dextrin to the sauce pan and stir until the sugars are completely dissolved. Once the sugar is dissolved turn off the heat.
    6. Add 1 tablespoon of Root Beer Extract to the sauce pan and stir it in.
    7. Add the remaining water to the sauce pan and stir well. Check the temperature of the mixture by carefully touching the outside of the pan. It should be cool to slightly warm. It may be necessary to allow the pan to sit covered for a short time in order to cool.
    8. Open the packet of champagne yeast by cutting off a corner. Measure out 1/4 teaspoon of yeast and add it to the sauce pan. Close the yeast packet by folding over the open corner and sealing it with tape. Store the remaining yeast in the refrigerator for the next batch.
    9. Stir the sauce pan until the yeast is completely dissolved. You are now ready to bottle your root beer.
    Bottling the Root Beer
    Use a kitchen funnel to fill each of the EZ-Cap bottles first. Pour the root beer into the bottles so that there is about 1-1/4 inch of air space left in the neck of the bottle. Leaving to little air space will cause the root beer to remain flat. Leaving to much air space will cause the root beer to over carbonate and may cause the bottles to gush when opened or even explode. Fill the used plastic soda bottle in the same manner. Seal the bottles tightly and store them for at least 2 weeks at room temperature. This will allow the yeast to eat some of the sugar and carbonate the soft drink. You can check the carbonation by squeezing the plastic soda bottle. When it is hard, the soda is done and must be refrigerated. Allow the bottles to chill for at least 1 week prior to serving. The root beer will improve in flavor with time but it must be stored in the refrigerator.
    Notes About Natural Carbonation
    The yeast used to carbonate your soft drinks will feed on sugars in the drink and produce carbon dioxide gas and a very small amount of alcohol. You should not be concerned about this alcohol production. There is more natural alcohol in fresh squeezed orange juice than that produced in your soft drink.
    If your soft drink becomes over carbonated you can burp the bottles by carefully opening the lid and letting the gas escape. Put the lid back on and place the bottle in the refrigerator. The cold will stop further gas production. You may need to reduce the amount of yeast used in your next batch. 
    If your soft drink is not carbonated within 2 weeks of bottling you may have added the yeast while the soft drink was to hot. You can open each bottle and carefully add 3 or 4 grains of yeast. Close the bottle and leave them at room temperature for 1 more week. You may need to add more yeast in your next batch but never add more than 1/4 teaspoon of yeast regardless of the size of the batch being made.
    You will notice that when a fully carbonates bottle is cooled in the refrigerator, the amount of carbonation is reduced. This is caused by the fact that the colder a liquid is, the more gas it can hold in suspension. Be sure that your plastic test bottle is very, very hard before refrigerating.
    copyright 2004 J.R.Leverentz
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