Soda Pop and root beers

[peapod]

I have been trying my hand at brewing the softer side of drinks. Having a young child means I made a wonderful root beer! We went to the local library and read up on how to brew soft drinks.

We made our first batch of root beer and its delicious! I had a time trying to find really good glass bottles to use. That was the only hardship that I can think of. Liking a lager beer myself, I purchased a 12 bottle case of St. Pauli Girl, nursed a few and then had a few girlfriends over to help finish the rest... That was a giggle fest.

Using the really thick bottles is important, I first off found out the hard way by a few spewing and leaking because of the amount of "fizz" that was produced. We went to the thicker bottles and that fixed the problem. I also did a little research to see what bottles can be used today without trying to find an antique shop that will sell older style soda bottles for 3 dollars a piece.

Sam Adams
St. Pauli Girl
are the beer makers that use thick glass when bottling their brew. And are great to use for any carbonated drink.

If anyone is interested in making some soda's I will be happy to share my recipe for the sarsaparilla drink.

[grunt]

Michelle: I know plastic is heresy in the land of homebrew, but any of the plastic pop bottles would do for you. They are designed for the pressure. If you have to go for glass, and don't mind the discrepancy in sizes, and of the sparkling wine bottles will also work. If it was designed for fizzies, it will do the job.

[grungy]

And the recipe too, please.

[silverseeds]

yeah I would like to try it out depending on what is needed to do it..... please post the methods

[peapod]

First of all I do appoligize I forgot that I started this one...

I have time today some appts were canceled. Now I can read what all the seeds people are doing or brewers

To make root beer Here is what I did.
First of all I purchased a book on the how toos. I am an avid reader of all kinds of things and this piqued my interest. Therefore if you're interested in brewing soda's I would suggest you to to a local library and check out a book before you purchase anything.

Find out if its something you might enjoy. I can and cook so this came as second nature to me.
Its also in my blood line to do stuff like this. Indians used sassafras root to make tea and also uesed it to flavor a mix of bear fat and crushed berries(blackberries and other wild berries). It seemed like a natural extension of my lineage to brew sodas in the 21'st century.

SO here is what I did I ordered sassafras root bark because I couldnt find it aruond here.
There are many online sources. Just use your search engine to find good prices and such.

To make about a dozen 12oz bottles I used this recipe and to my utter amazement it worked and it tasted like sodas ought to taste.

1/4 oz Sassafras root bark
3-4 quarts of water- I used reverse osmosis water but it does not matter
2 c. Sugar
a pinch of ale or bread yeast to 1/4 cup of luke warm water.

Place the pieces of root in to a large pot- heavy one.
Add 2 quarts of the waterh and all the sugar. simmer covered for about 25 min. Keep covered and remove from heat and let cool for another 25 minutes or so.
Pour 1/4 c of lukewarm water into a tea cup or the like adn add yeast. Let sit for several minutes
Pour 1 Q of cool water into the glass jug. Sing a large funnel slowly pour in the lukewarm sassafras liquid straining as you go. ( there are funnels with a screen in them to help with this process).

What you want to do is make the overall tempof the liquid in the jug lukewarm(70-76F or 21-26C) It took me minute to remember my converson chart.
adjust the temp of the remaining water and add it to hte jug. Leave about 2"of head space.

Put the cap or stopper in the jug and agitage (shake) for a few seconds to get every thing working together and mixed.

remove the cap and add the yeast in its water. Cap again and shake the jug. Leave it capped and let sit about 15 or so minutes.

Top off with the warm water and cap loosely and immediately cap the bottles.

I have a batch of gingerale brewing too. I started this 2 days ago and will see how that turns out too.

Fresh gingerale... who wouldnt love that?

If you need the steps and supplies let me know or I can refere you to some online sources if needed.

Peapod

[grungy]

Thanks

[massachusett4hills]

note

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sassafras
Culinary uses

The roots of Sassafras can be steeped to make tea and were used in the flavoring of root beer until being banned by the FDA. Laboratory animals that were given oral doses of sassafras tea or sassafras oil that contained safrole developed permanent liver damage or various types of cancer. In humans liver damage can take years to develop and it may not have obvious signs.

In 1960, the FDA banned the use of sassafras oil and safrole in foods and drugs based on the animal studies and human case reports.[10] Several years later sassafras tea was banned,[10] a ban which lasted until the passage of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act in 1994.[11]

Sassafras tea can also be used as an anticoagulant.

Sassafras was a commodity prized in Europe as a cure for gonorrhea.[12]

[mjc]

Basically, the levels that liver damage was seen at was 40 to 80 mg/kg (milligrams/kilogram body weight) and the tumor development was in rats and at even higher doses...of pure safrole.

Dried root bark contains about 10% oil...

So, with that recipe, the whole gallon will contain about half a gram of safrole, if all the oil were extracted. Since distillation is not being used to extract the oil, less will be extracted.

For a 180lb individual, the damaging dose is going to be about 2.6 g safrole, so one would have to drink slightly over five gallons of root beer at a time to approach the damaging dose, based on 40 mg/kg. The study was done with multiple doses over an extended period of time with pure safrole (I don't know how long...couldn't find that info) before the damage was seen.

So, in other words, one would have to drink more than five gallons of this root beer, a day, for several days, at least, to see liver damage and consume much more than that to see an increased cancer risk.

Or, safrole has about as much of a carcinogenic effect as orange juice or tomatoes...and less chance of causing liver damage than a couple of beers, a day...

I believe that ban due to 'cancer/liver damage' is a smoke screen, because safrole is a list 1 substance (meaning it can be/is essential to the manufacture of certain illicit drugs).

[peppereater]

I was writing a response while you were posting this, mjc, but when I clicked to post it, it was lost due to a glitch in my DSL hookup. Oh well. I won't worry about rewriting it.
The gist of it was that it's always good to have such information noted, but that the FDA chooses to ban or single out certain things over other, equally if not greater risk substances, for reasons that aren't nescessarily clear.
It's good to know of potential risks but then do some research for oneself. Button mushrooms, peas, potatoes and other common foodstuffs contain varying levels of potentially dangerous substances, not to mention so-called "natural flavoring" such as MSG, and proven cancer causing agents like saccharin.
One thing I'd be interested to know is what illicit drugs may utilize safrole. Meth cooks have tried just about everything one could imagine to produce "crank," but I'm guessing safrole might be used in some way to produce a hallucinogen? (Not to be confused with Donovan's mellow yellow, "I'm just wild about saffron, saffron's wild about me,...they call me Mellow Yellow,...)

[mjc]

The main one that was stated most in my research was Ecstasy...but it was alluded that it was used in the manufacture of 'amphetamines'. (Amphetamines would be the drugs most likely to get something banned in the 60s.)

Another thing I found is that by infusion, the amount of 'essential oils' extracted is significantly less...so, the overall strength of the safrole would be much lower. (some sources were saying as little as 10% of what you'd get by steam distillation...so that would make the amount needed to be 50 gallons of root beer per day!)

[massachusett4hills]

This is a note to clarify ....
I have a small number of sassafras trees(8`tall...+or-) growing here on my woodlot.
Nipmuck people I believe planted them here.
cause not found anywhere else in the area ?.......ummmm.
I use saserfass root Tea........
But I am not a Kid either...
I lov the calming feel from its tea........

[mjc]

I've got enough of them here to consider them a 'weed'...but your trees are easy to explain...birds.

Birds love the berries, but can't digest the seeds. They get a blue, vase-shaped berry in the fall. Looking at that grouping, I'd say you have bird-crap sassafras (I've got a string of bird-crap black cherry trees in my yard, directly beneath the power line...couldn't have gotten a straighter line if I tried), especially if there is a branch directly overhead, from the tree just off camera. And the nearest other trees could be 15 or more miles away (straight line)...

[massachusett4hills]

Nov 15, 2009 16:47:54 GMT -5 mjc said:

Birds love the berries, but can't digest the seeds.

Thats a good point....
Birds are major seeder aren't they.................ummmmm ?

Hi "mjc" Where are you located ?
PS.
sasafrass is not really a weed around here but on cape cod and many other places it can be ?........



How To Make Sassafras Tea Video.......
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNn8wChsbAs

[mjc]

Down in WV.

I've got a section of the one field that my oldest son calls the root beer patch...a mix of several hundred sassafras and black birch saplings.

[peapod]

I am well aware of the FDA's concern for peoples safety and the toxic level of what can happen if sassafras is taken in huge quantities. 1st of all we must concider the source. Rats or some type of rodants were tested. There is very little genetic relation to the human animal. I have safely consumed sassafras for a long time as a tea and am now trying my hand at sodas.

I am sure I will get a common cold that will put me in bed for a few days before I die of liver toxicity from sassafras. The FDA.