Blackstrap Root Beer 3
For my third root beer, I decided to stay with the original Blackstrap Root Beer and the Blackstrap Root Beer 2 recipes, but once again lightened the sugars and molassas while taking up the spices a another notch. This batch is brewed for the Seeds of Change Fair Trade Market hosted by Berry United Methodist Church in Lincoln Square. It is a wonderful time & place for buying handmade local & fair trade goods, enjoying homemade foods and treats, being entertained by entertaining entertainers, and mingling with the very best people around town.
The boiling spices smelled fantastic and a bit more intense, but I think it will be really good in the finished sweet soda. I also added a very small amount of vanilla extract to round out the spices. The true test of its goodness will be whether visitors at the Seeds of Change will like it. It will be served on draft and available for sale along side homemade chili, breads, cakes, cookies and treats.
Blackstrap Root Beer 3
Brewed 12/1/08
3 gallons
2.75 cup Organic Evaporated Cane Juice Sugar
2.00 cup Light Brown Sugar
0.20 cup Organic Blackstrap Molassas
5.00 Tbs Malto Dextrin
2.5 Cinnamon Stick, cracked, 30min
.30 oz Licorice Root, 30min
.50 tsp Grains of Paradise, crushed, 30min
1.0 tsp Cassia Buds, crushed, 10min
3.0 Tbs Root Beer Extract
.25 tsp Vanilla Extract
Spices boiled in 1 gallon water for 30 minutes. Turn off heat. Add sugars and extract. Chill in cold water bath in sink. Add to keg. Top off with chilled bottled or filtered water. Force carbonate. That's it.
This is it. It tastes very good. Scaling down the sugar was the right thing to do. Its not too sweet anymore, and the molassas isn't overpowering, but builds the complexity of the sugar taste. It seems like the level of sugar can go down while the richness of the molassas slides in for support. The level of spices has come out more, but I like it a lot because there's a good balance between the spice and the sarsaparilla flavor. I have a good feeling it will be tapped out by the end of the day at the Seeds of Change Market.
Now that this is a solid base for a solid root beer, now I can start to fiddle around with additional flavorings like orange, cocoa, herbs, other spices and perhaps dark fruits.
8 comments:
It's funny how blogging works, I was just thinking about rootbeer. Whats the turnaround on 3 gallons of rootbeer? I think it would be fun during the holidays to have some for the kids to try.
Travis,
I think you could potentially have it ready in 24 hours. Some people like their root beers flat, can you believe that? So a more mild carbonation might be nice for the first tapping, and you can always push more into it later.
I like 2 full days of 40 psi to ensure a pretty good carbonation, and perhaps adjust accordingly after that.
Sure enough, it was tapped out at more than an hour before the end of the day. Everyone loved it.
For Seeds of Change - Spring 2009, I will definitely brew 5 gallons and have lots and lots of vanilla ice cream for some delicious floats!
Excellent! I am all about it. I am going to pick up some root beer and do some tasting to see what I want to taste in mine.
Sounds super tasty!, I just finished a 6 liter batch and included a 6 oz. addition of lactose--very creamy.
Just out of curiosity, if I wanted to scale this up to a full 5 gallon corny, would you recommend just scaling up all the ingredients? Would you avoid scaling up certain ones, and why?
Sean, good question.
Soda recipes are like baking recipes. You can go ahead and scale it up proportionally.
When fermentation is involved, I think the proportional upgrade isn't so linear. But that's relative as well. I usually scale up/down for beer too.
Hi Ted, your blog popped up when searching for root beer recipes and I shamelessly stole it for my own purposes :). I made some minor modifications (some star anise instead of all licorice, and small sugar changes), but it's basically the same. Thanks for the recipe and the great notes! I'm really looking forward to trying mine out once it's carbonated.
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