August 6th is National Root Beer Float Day! - Recipe #13 Homemade Scratch Root Beer

Tomorrow, Aug. 6th, is National Root Beer Float Day! Since it is a national holiday, here's two recipes as a special treat from me to you. Root beer is what got me started in this hobby, and I'm glad that I can finally share a recipe with you that I can be proud of. This recipe uses actual roots instead of an extract. If you can't find any roots or you're worried about safrole and prefer to avoid it, then McCormick's extract is probably the route you should take as it's available in almost any grocery store. So kick back and celebrate tomorrow with a completely homemade root beer float.

Recipe #13 - Homemade Root Beer

2 1/8 cups sugar
2 cups water
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1/4 tsp dried wintergreen leaves, crushed
1/8 cup sassafras root twigs, cut in 1/4" pieces
1 oz vanilla extract
1 drop pure anise extract
1 Tbsp Molasses
Carbonated water up to 1 gallon

Combine sugar, 1 cup water, and cream of tartar. Bring to a boil and simmer
20 minutes. Add molasses and allow to cool. Bring the other 1 cup of water to a boil separately. Add sassafras and wintergreen, remove from heat and cover. Allow to steep for 1 hour or until it has turned a deep red/brown color. Strain and add to sugar solution, along with vanilla and anise extracts. Ensure it is well blended. Add to carbonated water and mix gently until dissolved.

This root beer is bold because of the molasses, but not too bitter. Enough vanilla to be similar to A&W, but more boldness from the molasses, so it's not a true clone. Works perfectly for a root beer float!

Homemade Ice Cream:

1 pint heavy cream
2 1/2 cups 2% milk
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 drops lecithin (optional, available where bread baking ingredients and supplies are sold)
Vanilla to taste

Combine milk, cream and sugar in a saucepan and stir over low heat until sugar is dissolved and mixture begins to steam. Add lecithin and stir until mixed well. Remove from heat and chill. Once chilled, pour into your ice cream maker as per the instructions. Once the mix is frozen to the consistency of soft serve, place in a freezer container and freeze overnight to harden. Makes about 1 1/2 quarts.

Now, you have just enough time to gather ingredients and enjoy your root beer float!

Recipe 12: Harry Potter's Butterbeer v2.0

As promised, and just in time for your release party or after party or whatever. This recipe works much better for a couple of reasons. First, I eliminated most of the salt, which was just too much for this. I may experiment with it more down the road, but why mess with success. Second, I used an invert sugar syrup to get more sweetness out of the same amount or less of sugar. If you need help with that Eddy Van Damme can help. He recommends going to 236F, That came out to boiling for 25 minutes for me.

That being said:
1/4 cup caramel malt steeped with a dash of cinnamon in 2 cups of water and filtered, see the v1.0 recipe for help on this point
1 Tbsp molasses
1 1/2 cups invert sugar syrup (about 1 lb granulated sugar)
2 1/2 tsp butter flavoring
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp rum flavoring
dash of salt
6 drops yellow food coloring

Top up to 1 gallon with carbonated water.

This syrup came out to about 1/4c syrup per 12 oz finished beverage. It could stand to be a little sweeter. Filtered water will do you wonders. If you have chlorine in your water it will give a bit of an off flavor.

All in all, the added flavors stand out above the malt, but it's still there to give a good flavor base to build from that makes this different from a buttered rum or butterscotch. All your muggle friends will be jealous.

Also, I'd like to showcase here that Pepsi has followed Coke's lead and started selling it's Mexican produced version (No high fructose corn syrup) in glass bottles. I picked up this one at Wegman's in Erie, PA. I like the Pepsi bottle better than the Coke bottle, probably because it's more generic in shape and I can easily strip the printing and create my own label if I want. It's also the same height as my other 12oz bottles, so my bench top capper doesn't need adjusted in between bottles.

Book Review: "Homemade Soda" by Andrew Schloss

from Storey Publishing
Available from Amazon (also on Kindle), Barnes and Noble (also on Nook).

I saw that this was released early this May and I have been aching to get my hands on a copy. On the surface, it appears to be an updated version of Cresswell’s book, some recipes even look similar. Schloss’ 7-Root Beer (pg. 94) bears some resemblance to Cresswell’s 10 Root Spring Tonic if only in complexity. Deeper examination reveals that the two are companions, rather than one replacing the other. Schloss’ book seems to have more of a “health food” slant, with sections on sparkling waters (similar to a carbonated mineral or vitamin water) plus herbal and energy drinks. However, the book does have its fair share or more of indulgent recipes as well. Where Cresswell is the expert on basic, tried-and-true stand by recipes, Schloss writes to the established foodie who is unafraid to try new and unconventional culinary concoctions and blends such as prune and chocolate, rosemary with berries, and ancho chile and lime. Even the the array of classic recipes is more diverse with a couple of different colas and even the original Orange Crush recipe (pg. 66).

His intended foodie audience is ever apparent when considering all the recipes are scaled to single servings, most likely for those accustomed to venturing alone into uncharted culinary territories. I have felt that disappointment myself when I have made even a one gallon batch of beverage which I am left to consume alone. That being said, each recipe is scaled differently depending on the most convenient and most appropriate preparation method.

Schloss’s book is set up similar to Cresswell’s in that he begins with an intriguing history of carbonated beverages. While Schloss’s history seems more inclusive, some pieces don’t seem to fit with that recounted by Cresswell. Which is more accurate is hard to say, nonetheless a moot point. Along with the history, Schloss occasionally hints at imminent scientific discussion, only to vaguely yet tastefully steer away from it. For a food scientist like me, this is a bit disappointing. For the average foodie, this seems a natural flow of discourse more directed toward great flavor rather than the nitty gritty chemistry.

That particular slant is actually one thing that makes the book great. Schloss’s passion for things new and exciting, as well as for mimicking old stand-bys, shows through in every recipe, no matter how simple.

Schloss makes his recipes more appealing to a wider audience by providing multiple carbonation instructions for most recipes. He offers up instructions on carbonating in a siphon (force carbonating), mixing with seltzer (post mixing) or brewing (natural carbonation from yeast). Some recipes do have instructions for all three, but some recipes lend themselves better to different methods, such as the Fermented Honey Soda. Fermenting gives a more complex flavor and would be more like a traditional mead, whereas force carbonation will be more of a honey sweetened seltzer with a more simple flavor.

A disadvantage perhaps unseen by many would be that many recipes are to be made and consumed right away. Certainly those recipes for which brewing instructions are included can be stored for some length of time, but the rest would not bottle well due to ingredient concerns. Some have ingredients susceptible to microbial contamination (there’s an entire section on cream sodas, most using real cream or milk) if stored for a length of time, others have ingredients that would settle out or separate if bottled. While these are still great recipes, and Schloss makes no pretense that these recipes can or should be bottled, the reader should be sure they know the implications of bottling should they choose to do so. I personally think that there is something to be said for “bottle conditioning” certain sodas, as certain flavors change (for better or for worse) over time.

With most of the recipes being single serve or small batch, those making their own sodas for economic savings over commercial sodas may be disappointed. Some specialty ingredients are necessary for certain recipes that may make them more costly. The reader should keep in mind that the commercial equivalent of Schloss’s recipes would definitely fall under the category of boutique or gourmet sodas along the lines of Thomas Kemper and Sprecher or better. Even the most simple recipes compete at the gourmet level. Such as the Sparkling Honey Lemonade (pg. 58), which is at parity with an authentic Italian limonata such as San Pellegrino, yet more complex with the floral notes provided by the honey. These recipes are certainly for the artisan soda maker, the craft brewer and the DIYer who’s looking for something incomparably better than what’s available for commercially.

With 200 recipes, including a myriad of recipes for foods made with homemade or commercial sodas, Schloss definitely adds inspiring variety to any homemade soda brewer’s repertoire. I highly recommend a copy.
"Homemade Soda: 200 Recipes..." by Andrew Schloss

Recipe 11 - Harry Potter's Butterbeer v1.0

This is something that I've wanted to do for a long time even before Universal starting selling $4 cream sodas topped with butterscotch cream at their park. Having read the Harry Potter series a couple of times, I was very intriqued with the butterbeer concept. I thought it must be a flavor similar to butterscotch or butter rum, but it would have to have something that differentiated it from those two for it to have the beer moniker. I came to the conclusion that the chief distinction would have to be the source, I have some Briess caramel malt 20L for another project, and thought it would be a good fit.

When I made up the syrup, it tasted fantastic! Once I hit it with the carbonated water, it was actually quite the opposite. Like the chocolate recipe I posted earlier, I'm posting this with the caveat that it is not a completed recipe, but rather a work in progress. Stay tuned for version 2 and pictures to come. Don't worry, I'll be sure and have a perfected recipe with plenty of time to brew a batch for your Deathly Hallows Pt. 2 release party!

Yield is 1 gallon:
1/4 cup caramel malt, cracked
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar - caramelized
1 Tbsp molasses
1 tsp butter flavor
1 tsp salt

Once you have your caramel malt (available at a homebrew supply store), you'll want to crush or crack it. An adjustable grain mill is what I use, and it works quite well. If you don't have a mill, you can steep them whole, and crush them with the back of a large spoon while they are in the pan about 10 minutes in. This is not quite as effective as the mill, but it works.

In a saucepan, steep the crushed malt in 2 cups of water for 30 minutes at 170F. If you don't have a thermometer, bring your water to just below boiling. It should be steaming and you should see small bubbles clinging to the bottom of the pan. At this point, turn your stove to low/medium low to hold that temperature throughout steeping. Once finished, strain out the larger pieces of grain and allow the rest of the sediment to settle out.

After it has cooled and the sediment has settled, filter through a coffee filter. I've found that if you slowly decant off the top portion through the filter first, you can remove most of the sediment without clogging the filter.

In a separate dry saucepan, caramelize the white sugar over medium heat while stirring constantly. You want the sugar to caramelize evenly, so as you're stirring, try and keep the melting sugar in contact with the bottom of the pan for as little time as possible, it burns rather quickly. Once most of the sugar is melted and the overall color is golden, slowly add 1 cup of water. It boils on contact, so be careful, stir it as you add so the melted sugar doesn't harden in the water.

Once all your water has been added and the hissing and spitting has died down, you'll want to add the brown sugar, molasses and salt and heat until dissolved and the volume has been reduced significantly. At that point, add your malt water, mix well, and allow the syrup to cool. Once cooled, add the butter flavor and you're ready to add carbonated water up to 1 gallon.

So after making this, it's very apparent that there's simply too much salt. It was salty enough that I poured out about half the batch. Some suggestions would be to throw out the salt entirely, and substitute another cup and a half of brown sugar for the 1 cup of white. Other than that, this would be an excellent beverage while enjoying your favourite quidditch match. Er... something like that.

Book Review: Stephen Cresswell's "Homemade Root Beer, Pop, and Soda"

from Storey Publishing
Available from Amazon (also on Kindle), Barnes and Noble (also on Nook)

This is the book that got me started on homemade soda. I was searching for what roots were in root beer and came across this in a local library. No library is complete without a copy. One thing that makes this an excellent resource for someone looking to create homemade sodas is that Cresswell gives a clear context on what it takes to start from scratch and work your way up to being an advanced brewer. The book is planned perfectly to help the reader step by step. He begins with an engaging history on root beer and carbonated beverages in general which is in itself worth picking up a copy. Indeed every page instills romantic nostalgia for all things soda related. Cresswell lays out a discussion on necessary equipment, categorized according to what’s necessary and what’s just nice to have. As many hobbyists know, understanding what might be extraneous when just starting out is always encouraging when starting a new hobby. Then, the recipes begin with easy, 4 and 5 ingredient first batch recipes and Cresswell works the reader up through more complicated recipes on to helpful tips for many aspects including creating one’s own recipes, using natural roots and other ingredients, and troubleshooting what might have gone wrong in the event of a bad batch. In addition to being well versed in pop’s history, Cresswell also provides historical and vintage recipes from yesteryear, even as far back as
Colonial America.

Included recipes range from simple old-fashioned root beer to the spicey Virgin Islands ginger beer and the interesting Russian kvass. In addition to bottled drink recipes, there are a number of traditional beverage recipes for smoothies, spiced coffee drinks, and even egg nog.

Creswell is very up front about doing things the old fashioned way – carbonating with yeast, bottling in glass bottles. While this is part of the allure of homemade soda, this becomes one of the book’s shortcomings in that Cresswell only briefly discusses other methods for carbonating and glosses over the safety issues of natural carbonation in glass bottles. Most homebrewers will consider unchecked fermentation in glass as “bottle bombs”, i.e. when there is enough sugar to cause the bottles to burst. It is usually suggested on forums and elsewhere that soda brewers reuse commercial PET bottles, whereas Cresswell mentions that while plastic bottles will work, they have limited use.

Another downside is that the book is somewhat dated on ingredient sourcing. Ingredient sourcing is now a breeze with specialty internet shops selling bulk roots and herbs. There was much less of this in 1998 at the time of the book’s release, leaving the reader feeling limited to local flora for ingredients which are often regional and seasonal.

The book does however have an excellent reference section, including references for the historical recipes found throughout the book. The references are a great resource for those wanting to delve deeper into other homebrewing, digging for local roots and herbs, and searching out more vintage recipes and history.

At 120 pgs, the book is a great way to get a jump start on homemade soda, without feeling
overwhelmed with complicated recipes or feeling like you’re plowing through a thick university text.

Homemade Root Beer, Soda & Pop

Recipe 10 - Ginger Ale / Ginger Beer

This is a very easy brew, and a pleasure to make a beverage completely from raw ingredients. I'm not a fanatic about the health benefits of using natural ingredients nor am I at all concerned about knowing exactly what's in my food. I know some people are, so I won't bash those two schools of thought. I just really enjoy making things completely from scratch.

For the syrup:
1 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cup white sugar
juice and zest from 1 lemon
ginger root roughly the size of your thumb.
2 cups water

Grate the ginger root and lemon zest into a saucepan in 1 cup of water. Simmer covered for 20 minutes and allow to steep while cooling for another 20 minutes. Strain this mixture to remove the pulp, then filter through a coffee filter. Replace the pulp in the sauce pan and repeat with the second cup of water. This is not extremely necessary, but I feel like I get the most flavor out of the mash this way. I could be crazy, though.
Add your ~2 cups of filtered liquid to the white and brown sugar in a clean saucepan. Bring this to a simmer to dissolve the sugar and add the lemon juice.
This amount of syrup is meant for 3 gallons of beverage, so add carbonated water accordingly.

Ginger Beer vs. Ginger Ale
While most are familiar with ginger ale, there conflicting opinions on what exactly ginger beer is. Jamaican style ginger beer is a soft drink similar to ginger ale, but very spicy with some strong ginger. English ginger beer is an alcoholic drink home brewed from a ginger beer plant, which is a combination of certain strains of yeast and bacteria, skimmed off from the drink and saved for subsequent batches. There's a company in the UK that will sell you a portion of ginger beer plant if that's what you want to do.
This recipe, as presented, is spicier, with more citrus notes and less sweet than a typical ginger ale, but milder than a Jamaican ginger beer. In my opinion, this is easily adjusted by the amount of ginger you add, less for ginger ale, and more for ginger beer.

Recipe 9 - Chocolate Twizzlers

This recipe was interesting to say the least. An experiment more than anything. I started out thinking, "Can I make a root beer without using a root beer extract?" As I put half of the ingredients in, I decided to switch mid-stream and try another round of chocolate and see how much sediment you get if you use actual cocoa powder. I knew it was haphazard, and that it could be very awful.
What it ended up being was reminiscent of Chocolate Twizzlers, strangely enough. Though, it's been a while since I've had them.

So here it is for 1/2 gallon:

1 cup sugar
1/8 cup Molasses
1 Tbsp Cocoa Powder
1/2 cup water
1/4 tsp butter flavoring
1/4 tsp vanilla
2 quarts carbonated water

Heat the sugar, molasses and cocoa powder in the water until the sugar is dissolved and the cocoa dispersed, then remove from heat. When the syrup has cooled, add the butter and vanilla flavors. Top up with carbonated water.

With cocoa powder, there will be noticeable sediment, but a good swirl before opening and you should be fine unless you open the bottle warm... which resulted in a gusher. Oops.'