Root Beer take 2 (FAILED)

[CrealCritter]

Day 5 - still chugging along slowly but surely, its got several more days left to ferment before it will get bottled.

 

[CrealCritter]

Hope it continues to go well! I'm putting this on my "someday" list of things to try!

If this batch of root beer turns out good with the brewing yeast I'm using this time. I could send you a package of the same yeast I used. I got a line of this yeast for $1.00 per pack. You probably have most of the ingredients in your kitchen already, except sassafras root tea. But a sassafras sapling is pretty easy to find out in the woods.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Thanks for the offer! I actually have a bunch of Red Star brewing yeasts from some of my wine making attempts. Not sure if it's the same stuff - but it will be some time before I even attempt something like that again, lol. Sure enjoy following your attempts...learning from your successes and even the failure.

 

[CrealCritter]

Day 6 - I moved the carboy to the kitchen counter to bottle later this evening. The brewing yeast has pretty much finished eating itself out of house and home. A sniff of the airlock, smells of root beer & alcohol, I guess that's the way it should smell .

Now that I moved it to the kitchen counter, I'm so tempted to remove the air lock and bung and use my wine thief to get a little taste and see if its any good or needs to go down the drain, like my first attempt.

Patience, Palawan Learner, patience...

 

[frustratedearthmother]

I’ll betcha this batch is gonna be ok!

 

[CrealCritter]

I’ll betcha this batch is gonna be ok!

I hope it's good...

After a little taste test I'll decide on bottling primer, dark brown cane sugar for it's heavy molasses content or light brown cane sugar for a little molasses taste or regular cane sugar for no change in taste profile.

That is if it's good to begin with

 

[CrealCritter]

OK... I had my wife help me with tasting and syphoning. Its not sour so that's good. We both agreed... it's pretty alcoholic, the hydrometer bottomed @1010 out so its fully fermented. It is most definitely not sweet at all, it tingles your tongue, its tart, flavors that come through is cinnamon and vanilla. A mouth full leaves your entire mouth tingly.

I added 2 cups of dark brown cane sugar dissolved in spring water as a primer and bottled 4 pints to see how it tastes again after it's carbonated. The rest of the 2 1/2 gallons I dumped down the drain.

I'm not considering this a failure until after its carbonated and give it another taste test. Then I'll decide if it's a failure or not.

Since I can make a good tasting root beer in the pot before it goes through fermentation. I have another idea to make hard root beer. But I need to think through it a little bit more, before I put root beer take 3 into action.

 

[CrealCritter]

Yep... Another failure. Tasted good going into the fermenter. But not so good coming out. The 4 bottles I saved carbonated and all with a thick creamy head but I'm not sure what I created underneath the head, but it most definitely did not taste like root beer.

Oh well... Third times a charm? maybe. I'm not giving up until I get a successful batch of home made root beer that I can repeat and scale up or down. Short story, I don't quit, failures are learning experiences is all.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

That stinks... but, you're right it's a learning experience

 

[wyoDreamer]

I wonder if you could just cheat and use the starter recipe and add carbonated water to it for a root beer soda?

I wish you luck on your next attempt.