Extract Brewing!

So, you've followed directions and you've set up your home brewery (bought all of the equipment and cleaned your kitchen). If you don't know what type of equipment that you'll need, click here for my list. Now you're ready to try your hand at brewing up a batch of Root Beer and you'll be using Extract to do so.

There are a few kinds of Extracts that you can try, each are as unique as their labeling. I have been using Homebrew Old Fashioned Root Beer Soda Pop Base, I use this first because it is what my local Home Brew Shop offers and I have found that it is the most prevalent at most Home Brew Shops. But there is Hoptech which has 3 different flavors, Gnome, Zatarains, Hires Big H, and the list could go on. Each is going to have different measurements that are to be used to make up a gallon of Soft Drink. What follows is my directions to make 1 gallon of Homebrew brand Root Beer from extract:

Ingredients:

1/4 Tsp. Red Star Pasteur Champagne Yeast

1 Tbsp. Maltodextrin

1 Cup White Sugar

1/2 Cup Brown Sugar

1 1/2 Tbsp. Root Beer Extract

Procedure:

1) Make sure that everything is sanitized.

2) Dissolve the yeast in a cup of lukewarm water (about 100*). Let it stand covered for about 5 minutes.

3) In your brew kettle, bring water to a boil and add the Maltodextrin and sugars and make sure that they have completely dissolved.

4) Bring the sugar solution to a simmer and add the Root Beer Extract.

5) Pour your Wort into your Fermenting Bucket.

6) Add enough cool water to bring the total to 1 gallon and the overall temperature to within 3 degrees of the dissolved yeast cup.

7) Add the yeast to the wort and let sit, covered, for an hour.

8) At the end of the hour you should be able to see small bubble of Carbon Dioxide breaking the service (this is a visible sign that fermentation has begun). When you put your spoon in the brew to stir it around a bunch of bubble should break the service (they were clinging to the side of the bucket and the motion of you stirring freed them). If you don't see any of this, don't worry.

9) Bottle your brew, stir every now and again to keep the yeast and sugars evenly in suspension.

10) Lay the filled bottles on their sides to make sure that you have secured the lids.

11) Put the bottles in a warm, dark place for a few days to allow for fermentation. Check every twelve hours, roughly, to check on carbonation. Once carbonated to your preference move to the fridge.

12) Enjoy!

That's extract brewing! Our next brewing experience will be brewing from all natural ingredients!

Alcohol?!

In the previous post the importance of yeast was discussed. And a very brief overview of the fermentation process was discussed. Through the course of this discussion, the topic of Alcohol was mentioned. I personally that it would be important to discuss this a little more indepth, especially when we generally consider Root Beer to be a alcohol free beverage.

You heard right, though, there is alcohol in naturally carbonated beverages, which our Root Beer is. Alcohol is the other by-product of the yeast in our beverage. What happens when beer is allowed to ferment, semi-controlled, is all of the sugars, or nearly all, are allowed to be consumed by the yeast and this creates the alcohol. This, depending on the amount of sugars present, creates an alocholic beverage that can have alcohol content of 3.2% ABV to 12% ABV. In our Root Beer though, the fermentation is completely contained in a sealed bottle and only a small amount of the sugars are allowed to ferment (just enough to create the carbonation) and this produces anywhere between (I've heard and read) .05% ABV to .5% ABV. At these levels a person would be required to drink near a gallon and a half of Root Beer to get the same buzz as from one 12 oz. bottle of beer. The reality is, the body metabolizes the alcohol in your home brewed Root Beer faster than you can drink it.

You should be aware of this for a couple of reasons: We generally assume Root Beer to contain no alcohol, so this throws a few wrenches into our thinking. Should we give this to the kids? What if you have a medical condition that requires that you abstain from any and all alcohol, or your faith's tenets bar you from consuming alcohol? These are all questions that must be answered and thought out for yourself. But, I will give my answer to these questions and give you a chance to get to know me a little better.

I am LDS (Mormon) and the Prophet Joseph Smith received a revelation stating that the consumption of alcohol was not good for the body. This revelation can be found in the Doctrine and Covenants Section 89. Well, as most good Mormons, I was taught that the very consumption of alcohol was a sin and that my Eternal Soul was be left in Outer Darkness for such an act (A little tongue in cheek here). Unless of course you cooked with wine or vanilla extract for that matter-you know the alcohol cooks out! Well in my research I have come to discover a few things. It's an old wives tale that all of the alcohol cooks out, most of it does, but not all, so if you are cooking anything that has alcohol in it, there is some still there, and that includes those chocolate chip cookies you baked with a teaspoon of 32% ABV vanilla extract. Alcohol can be absorbed through the skin, I use alcohol based deoderant and aftershave. Through this research I have come to feel that the very idea of a total abstinence of alcohol is not feasible. I do believe that alcohol has very negative effects that come along with its consumption, especially when consumed faster than the body can metabolize it. Therefore, I don't drink alcoholic beverages. But I don't have a problem drinking a non-alcoholic Root Beer that has less alcohol by volume as that teaspoon of vanilla that I used for my Peach Cobbler. Do I feel compelled to tell other members of my faith that there are trace amounts of alcohol in my Root Beers before I give them a try? Absolutely, it is there place to decide how they feel about that, not mine.

And that is why I am letting everyone here know as well!

Yeast!

Let's talk about yeast! Yeast are micro-organisms that are classified as a Fungus. There are over 1500 different species of yeast that are known currently and more are discovered all the time. Yeast have been used for thousands of years in baking and creating beverages, and they are considered one of the first domesticated organisms. Yeast is one of the most important ingredients in our efforts to brew Root Beer - in my book it takes a very, very close second to the actual ingredients of the brew.

This is because, without yeast - at the very best we would have root tea and in the case of actual beers - grain teas. Yeast is what creates our carbonation and in hard drinks - alcohol. The science behind this is very simple.

When yeast are introduced to an environment that they like and a plentiful food source a small colony can quickly become a large one. In our case that environment is our Root Beer with plenty of sugar as food. In layman's terms the yeast swim about our brew munching on as much sugar as they can. The byproduct of this feast (and yes byproduct is a nice word for belching and urinating) is Carbon Dioxide an alcohol When this process takes place in a closed system - our bottles - the Carbon Dioxide has nowhere to go and after enough is built up the liquid absorbs it which creates our Carbonation. This can happen anytime between twelve hours to a few days depending on temperature and yeast strain.

So yeast is important to our brewing, but there's over 1500 different species - which one should be used? There are some basics: Dry or liquid, Lager or Ale or Wine or Champagne or Baking, and there's even minor adjustments in all of these. Each will also give minor changes to taste. Really it's at your discretion, I like dry lager, ale, and champagne. I avoid baking because of its flavor, liquid yeasts aren't worth the extra cost, and you need to be careful while using lager due to its lower fermenting temperature. The one yeast to avoid is Wild Yeast, this yeast accidentally gets into your brew and will infect it. If there are any off flavors in your finished product then wild yeast is to blame.

Yeast are an integral part of your brewing and one of the many small things that truly effects your outcome - best if you know what happens in the process.