Oh, and I got more birthday presents a couple of weekend’s ago, and one of them was from my In-Law’s who had made a trip up to a home-brew place and bought a bunch of supplies, including a brew pail with spigot, racking cane and tubing, some Gnome extracts, and a case of bottles!
Quite nice of them all told, though I think I’ll only be able to use the pail for non-root beer brewing given how badly it contaminates everything.
Logged into the Northern Brewer Forum’s for the first time in too long and ran across a Root Beer thread!
Hopefully something comes of my replies to it.
In the meantime, I haven’t gotten around to the yeast test yet. Busy, and lack of motivation. Possibly mixed with some fear of more failure. Hopefully this weekend though.
In the meantime, I did get this link out of that forum thread that is worth reading.
Quick Update: Haven’t done a damn thing since that last batch failed so badly. I’ve got some time off coming up though, so I’m going to look into doing a yeast test to figure out if there is a yeast out there that will work.
So far my plan is to try between 4-6 different yeasts in 2 bottles each with just water and sugar. I should get a good idea of what the individual flavors and carbonation levels are like from that. Any suggestions for yeasts to use would be greatfully accepted.
On Saturday, I had the wonderful opportunity to help and observe a friend put a couple of batches of soda down. He’s been home brewing beer for quite awhile now and I, correctly, thought that by actually watching him do a batch I could pick up plenty of tips and techniques about brewing. It was quite a good time, and he even sent me home with half of the batches (8 bottles, 4 of each type) to observe, test, and enjoy.
We used the same yeast as I had with the fated Batch 1 a few weeks ago, but increased the amount of yeast used by quite a bit. His reasoning was that the packets are setup for 5 gallon batches, and the 1/8th tsp of yeast isn’t nearly a fifth of the package. It’s a good possibility that may be one of the reasons I was getting such slow carbonation on that batch.
Also, he had ordered a case of plastic bottles with replaceable screw on tops, just like you would get pop out of the cooler at a convenience store. The bottles are brown so it makes it somewhat difficult to really get a good idea of the color of the brews, but seem to be quite good otherwise. I’m not sure how much I like them just because of the long-term wear and tear is likely to make them unusable after only a few batches. Also, if you serve to people who don’t know that you actually paid for them, and are planning on reusing them you stand a good chance on not getting one or 2 back. We’ll see. It certainly makes it easy to figure out the carbonation levels though, as recommended by innumerable references. (More later)
Progress Report
Recipe Number: 1.0
Batch Number: 1
Stage: Carbonation
Elapsed Time: 182 hours
I had opened bottle #2 earlier in the week and it had still not been at all carbonated so I decided to just let it sit for a few days, then the household got pretty sick for most of the week and then busy, and so finally on Saturday I opened bottle #3 and there was carbonation. Still pretty light though. The smell is about the same and definitely off putting for drinking, even though the actual flavor is definitely drinkable. So, the result? I could drink this stuff if I had to, but thank goodness I don’t have to. I dumped the rest of the batch and I think I’ll try putting down a batch of ginger ale later this week and see how that goes.
Progress Report
Recipe Number: 1.0
Batch Number: 1
Stage: Carbonation
Elapsed Time: 45 hours
Well, the first batch has to be somewhat disappointing. I opened up Bottle #1 and there was no carbonation what-so-ever. The color has continued to mellow towards amber and the floating sediment has arranged itself at 2 particular levels of the solution which might say something about the specific gravity of the solution at those points. Dunno though. The flavor was fairly good but not quite like a typical off the shelf root beer though there were very distinct similarities.
Anyway, it is possible that this is a result of a leaky bottle or bad/inactive yeast so I’m going to wait till tomorrow night and open the next one to give more time for some carbonation as well as let it mellow just a bit more. If that bottle is also completely flat I’ll have to decide whether to open the rest of the batch or to give it another day.
Progress Report
Recipie Number: 1.0
Batch Number: 1
Stage: Carbonation
Elapsed Time: 35 hours
After looking up that tidbit about the foam rings, I went down to check the bottles again to see how things are going. The good news is that the foam rings are gone! In it’s place is a very slight ring of what is obviously sassafras sediment. Also, the color is becoming a little more amber than orange and is much less cloudy with some obvious, but few, flecks of sassafras floating around in it. The bottom appears to have developed quite a layer of sediments which look to be mostly yeast and sassafras. Thank goodness for bottle brushes. I think that I’m going to open the first bottle at 8pm (the 45 hour mark) to check carbonation so I have plenty of time to taste and post. I’ve got my big A&W mug in the freezer already so it should be ready for the inaugural tasting. I might have to invest in some more good glass mugs if this goes well.
[From "Homemade Rootbeer, Soda, and Pop" by Stephen Cresswell (ISBN: 1580170528) page 97]:
“Those who are experienced in making homebrewed beers know that one telltale sign of an infected batch is a ring around the neck of the bottle. While such a ring may also mean your soft drink batch has been spoiled by bacteria or other unwanted nasties, you should recognize that with soft drinks such rings can also be caused by bits of root floating to the top of the bottle, or by floating bits of citrus pulp. Thus, taste will be a better indicator of a bad batch than any ring round the neck of the bottle. Whatever caused the ring, though, be sure to clean the bottle with a bottle brush and then soak in a solution of water and chlorine bleach before brewing again.”
So, those rings could very well be sassafras, especially given how fine some of the bark that I added was. We’ll just have to wait until to tonight to see when I open the first bottle to check carbonation. I’ll keep my fingers crossed just in case though.
Progress Report
Recipie Number: 1.0
Batch Number: 1
Stage: Carbonation
Elapsed Time: 10 hours
Checked the bottles in the box and things appear to be going very well. The color of the liquid is an orange/amber and is fairly cloudy with slightly pronounced particulate in the solution. There is a partial ring of foam at the top of the solution, and I’m hoping that’s not too bad a sign. From what I remember that is a fairly common symptom, but I don’t remember of what. I suppose we’ll just have to find out. I’m going to leave them in the kitchen through to the end of the carbonation stage as the basement is actually colder than it was last night. Betsy had suggested putting them near the boiler or the furnace, except that Abby’s furnace is set pretty low since she’s out of town and our boiler was cool to the touch so I don’t think those ideas will help overly much. I imagine if we did get a dorm fridge down there, putting the carbonating bottles near that would take care of the heat issue, and in the summer it does get closer to 70F so it will probably be quite good conditions.
