



Step 1: Establish Roots

In the days before you could buy bottled root beer extract in just about any grocery store in America, the typical root beer recipe started by steeping sassafras root the primary source for the flavor that we recognize in root beer in hot water, then adding sugar and yeast, and allowing the mixture to ferment in bottles. To further enhance the flavor of the beer, additional root barks and twigs such as sarsaparilla, burdock, and birch were also added. While foraging in the woods for these ingredients was once standard practice and still not uncommon even today, I was happy to discover that I could instead find them neatly packaged and ready to use at my local home brew store.
<p>lol that does sound like something the FDA would do. Thanks for the info!</p>
<p>yah! You so right. It's kind of like when those wimps at the FDA banned Thalidomide in the U.S. and then thousands of pregnant European mothers who took the drug gave birth to babies wit horrible birth defects. Besides, dem FDA dudes are always making drug companies do all these safety tests on drugs, like they know about safety. The experts are the drug companies, and I trust them implicitly.</p>
<p>Forget the root beer, keep drinking the kool aid. </p>
As with many things, it's a matter of dosage and may well be affected by species (There are two). Large doses were found to cause liver damage and cancer in rodents. It has been used medicinally by humans for a long time to combat scurvy, rheumatism, and bacterial or fungal infections. <br> <br>As is typical of the FDA, studies showing that (often ridiculously) large doses cause problems for small rodents is sufficient to get its use banned without further study of the effects on humans.
<p>So after I add the yeast and bottle it.... what happens to the yeast? Do I have to remove it?</p>
<p>No you dont have to all that it does is just carbonate the soda so you dont need to remove the yheast</p>
<p>marked for later use! this is a great writeup</p>
<p>Its a thing kids probably don't like unless they were exposed to it early the taste of one soda that does not go down well with many people. Pepsi/Cola, Ginger ale or orange/fruit flavored sodas are easier to like</p><p> It has a taste of something a preacher would make one drink and I feel that way though it may not be true although many popular foods would be if unsweetened (cola extract), chocolate etc. Personally I dont care for RB or think its something I want to acquiure a taste for as an adult either though I sampled it a few times in my life growing up when it was offered at certain events maybe only 2 or 3 times in my life</p><p> I do not care for wine either although I may rather invest in liking that or if not for the booze would rather have cola or fruit juice as a cold drink which I rarely consume</p>
Mangle Wurzel root Ale!<br>http://m.instructables.com/id/Mangel-Wurzel-Ale-Sugar-Beet-Beer/
Hmm, this may be an excellent to do project.
<p>Please give us the exact ingredients i would love to make this for myself.</p><p>In the more northern states you can find a brand called sioux city sasperilla or rootbeer its basically the same thing and its really good you can find it anywhere from North Dakota to Missouri but not any further south. </p>
I just had Sioux City Sarsaparilla yesterday. Found it in Alamogordo, New Mexico. It was super good and actually why I wanted to make some. I brew beer all the time and decided it time to try a clone of SCS.
<p>If the fermentation process is allowed to continue, will it become alcoholic, or will the batch just get ruined?</p>
<p>I just found these, so I thought I'd share. If someone tries them, please give a shout out:</p><p>Root Beer Recipe Links:<br>http://nourishedkitchen.com/homemade-root-beer-recipe/<br>http://www.chow.com/recipes/10681-chow-root-beer<br>http://wellnessmama.com/11392/homemade-root-beer/</p>
<p>If I felt ambitious enough I would make this for my Cafe.</p>
<p>Even if you have to approximate the amounts of the ingrediants, a recipie would be helpful for those of use who aren't as creative in the kitchen.</p>
1. Where is the recipe? <br>2. Why use yeast if it is not going to cause the drink to ferment and make bubbles? <br>I feel like I am missing something. Not sure what the point of home brewing is if you are just going to turn around and use a machine to inject bubbles. <br>Aside from those points, it's a nice write-up.
Would you please provide the exact &quot;root&quot; ingredients and the quantities. <br> <br>Thanks
yes... Recipe please! I want this resting in my fridge ASAP! <br>looks delicious! <br> <br>also, did you bottle it in a soda stream bottle and hit the gas? Does it overflow like crazy? <br> <br>How about boiling it down to make a syrup to use in soda stream? <br> <br>Curious! and I have a soda stream....
I always chuckle when the 1960 report is cited. Since then more studies have been conducted and, yes, sassafras contains a &quot;known carcinogen&quot; safrole. However, as has been mentioned below/above, the amounts necessary for safrole to cause cancer are enormous. Further, safrole is found in many of the spices we eat including nutmeg, cinnamon, and pepper. Interestingly enough these are not regulated ingredients. <br> <br>For further reading... http://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/ntp/roc/twelfth/profiles/Safrole.pdf
The testing of Sassafras as a carcinogen was done by feeding enormous amounts to lab animals in a short period of time. This was supposedly because of the limitations of budget and technology of that time. However, since then, this method has been found to be unrealistic because the liver becomes overloaded and unusual by-products are made instead of it being broken down. A few artificial sweeteners (if I remember correctly) such as saccharin and cyclimates have been &quot;pardoned&quot; since this era and testing method. However, the rootbeer industry does not have the budget for such research and the FDA would never fund it because they like having sassafras &quot;illegal&quot;. Without a legal food use, it is difficult to ubtain safrole for the manufacture of MDMA/extacy. So instead there are 2 industries that are making substitutions, but neither industry is likely to be any safer now. <br> <br>Because of this, you will have a hard time finding good sassafras. Your luck will be best in small amounts, if it doesn't cross major political borders, is a low grade form such as bark chips (not oil) and if you are willing to put your name on a list that is monitored by numerous government agencies (like my name is now for this post).
Yes Sassafras is a Carcinogen , But what isn't these days . <br>An alternative to Sassafras is Acacia and is used as an ingredient in Barq's Brand Root Beer.
Oh and sasparilla can be used as a substitute as well . <br>
Great article! File spice, which is made from sassafras leaves is available for sale, as is sassafras tea. Either can be used as a source for concentrate. Sassafras root extracts which do not contain safrole or in which the safrole has been removed are permissible, and are still widely used commercially in teas and root beers. <br>(Source, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sassafras#Culinary_uses)
We don't have root beer here in the UK, but it's something I've always wanted to try. Do you have the full recipe with amounts of everything? (Unless I missed it I just saw amounts for water &amp; sugars). I'm not even sure I can get all the stuff here, but I'd be willing to try. Think I would chicken out use plastic bottles as well, just in case.
I tried a drink called sarsaparilla(??) once, that wasn't too bad. Over here we have a drink called dandelion &amp; burdock (which is very nice) which I suspect is what &quot;we&quot; expect root beer to taste like. <br>Think I will give it a try anyway. <br>As for carcinogens; I'm told cardamom pods (used in Indian cooking) are carcinogenic, but they are still in common use over here, as is aspartame &amp; saccharine (neither of which I ever touch) &amp; countless other things. I'm even told &quot;they&quot; (whoever they are) are now finding animal based fats are actually better for humans than the ridiculous amount of vegetable based fats we now consume. Both my grandmother &amp; great grandmother from my dad's side ate lots of these sorts of things &amp; both lived well into their 90s. Always fry, never grill I say (it tastes better), &amp; sweeten with sugar, not chemicals. <br>Perhaps I will come back &amp; let you know what I think of root beer (I promise to be nice).
Does your recipe / process make the root beer alcoholic?
Nice instructable, but definitely need all the ingredients &amp; quantities specified. I, also make root beer every year with my high school biology classes to demonstrate fermentation. We use plastic water bottles (personal 1/2 liter size, 1 liter and/or 2 liter as well). We remove some water to create displacement space for the sugar &amp; flavor as well as head space for the production of carbon dioxide (see below about &quot;dents&quot;). This is a good visual for the students to see how much sugar is in sodas (http://www.sugarstacks.com/beverages.htm) I use champagne yeast and Zatarains root beer flavor that I get from my local beer/wine supply place. When all the ingredients are combined and we fill the bottles with enough head space for the students to push a big dent in the plastic bottles as they seal the caps tight. We then allow the fermentation to process to proceed in a warm room. After one or two days (maybe more depending on the temperature), the &quot;dents&quot; will pop out and the bottles will become pressurized (firm) indicating that the yeast has produced carbon dioxide. This tells me that the root beer is now &quot;fizzy&quot; since carbon oxide is the primary by-product of the initial fermentation and that the alcoholic fermentation process is starting to produce more alcohol, something I don't want to serve my students in class and primarily because it with ruin the root beer's flavor. At this point, I refrigerate the bottles to arrest the fermentation process stopping the alcohol production. We generally start on a Monday and have root beer floats on Friday! Good luck!
Do you know how much of each of these you used?
you can make root beer from Dandelion roots, I got the information from a Amazon ebook titled: The Ultamate Dandelion cookbook by Kistina Seleskanko &amp; there might be in paperback too I don't know but it said that is where Root beer was origionaly made from? since people were unsure of Sassafrass issues n all ...just trying to be helpful :) Merry Christmas!
Is it the same without artificial flavors &amp; dyes? <br> <br>Some of the commercial root beer has Red Dye #20 in it which is carcinogenic. Why the Federal Drug Agency (FDA) hasn't reported this is a matter of intense curiosity, as if some Foreign Power is controlling the FDA and allowing poisoned food into the mainstream of things. Look at Ultra-Pasteurized milk for example: the process produces a &quot;half-baked&quot; protein, similar to what causes Mad Cow Disease. Does the FDA think that the same thing won't happen in humans? I won't drink milk anymore because of this. You can't even make decent cheese from the milk - just something that resembles cottage cheese. The milk is destroyed thru the UP process and Nobody seems to care!
I'm confused about the fizzing step, <br>isn't it fizzy on its own, from the the yeast?
This looks great. I'm going to research ingredients. It's been a few years since I brewed anything and recently I've had the itch to do some. My kids love root beer and this seems like a great way to satisfy everyone in the family. <br>

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