Saturday, June 12, 2010

Gina's Old Fashioned Draft

Crotchville Beer has diversified!  We are expanding into new markets, trying to elbow in and snag all those straight edge kids.  THIS IS A WAAAAAAAAAR!  That's right Mike...ROOT BEER.

Making soda is actually really easy and I'm kinda surprised I haven't gotten around to it yet but other things have just taken priority I guess.  I got some extract from Gina's mom for this past x-mas and bought the additional gear needed recently and went to it.

 This is basically all you need

The additional stuff I needed was another bottling bucket, the extract is so strong that basically whatever it touches becomes 'root beer for life' so you can't use a bottling bucket that you intend to also use for beer again.  I also needed plastic bottles.  Due to the high amounts of sugar the natural carbonation process happens faster and can carbonate much more than beer usually does and glass bottles have a tendency to 'fail' spectacularly if you don't keep a close eye on them.  Plastic has more give and it also gives you a tactile way to know when carbonation is done...when the bottles harden up.  Also needed some dry champagne yeast for the natural carbonation.  Not sure what that does to flavor but I was told by the local homebrew store manager that the extract is strong enough to cover any residual flavors.  And judging by its smell I think we should be fine.

Gina loves her some root beer

The actual process is a snap.  Warm water, extract, sugar, yeast all go in the bucket.  Stir it up to mix/dissolve.  And then bottle it.  That's it.  Makes 4 gallons and took us maybe 30mins.  Needs to 'ferment' / carbonate at room temperature for 3-4 days then to a slightly cooler basement type locale for another 3-4 or so and then to the fridge and then your stomach, with maybe another week in the basement to refine the flavors a bit before drinking if you want.

And yes, I know that its not Draft because its in bottles but I don't care.  I'm running this show.

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous6/12/2010

    i wanna try this, and it sounds easy to make...i wonder how those fancy (ibc, etc) sodas brew in glass bottles...

    stupid rick flair.

    ReplyDelete
  2. they can use glass because they inject CO2 into the root beer and control the amount/pressure, they don't use yeast to carbonate.

    and knowing's half the battle...

    GI JOOOOOOOOOE

    ReplyDelete