 Root
Beer and Soda Questions
My root beer tastes like BEER, what can
I do?
How can I make a diet or less sweet root
beer?
Can I make ginger beer with the root beer recipe?
Can I use glass bottles instead of plastic bottles
for my root beer?
Q. I purchased your Root Beer
Kit and thought I followed the directions perfectly, but my root beer tastes
more like BEER than root beer. What can I do?
A. One of two things may have happened:
1. Either it went too long before refrigerating and the yeast continued
to consume more sugar and produced more alcohol. (The bottles need
to be refrigerated as soon as they are hard when squeezed, usually 4-7
days). Refrigeration stops any further action of the yeast.
2. Or, the bottles were not filled enough and there was too much head
space, allowing the yeast to consume more sugar and produce too much carbon
dioxide.
Q. I've been making home made
root beer for some time but I'd like to make it less sweet without loosing
its carbonation. How can I do this?
A. Our soda extracts come with low calorie directions so you can substitute
some of the sugar with the appropriate amount of Splenda, or other sweetener.
However, in order to make naturally carbonated soda, you have to have some
sugar in order to feed the yeast and produce carbon dioxide.
There is definitely room to play with sugar amounts in the root beer recipe.
We recommend that you start by decreasing the sugar by 25% and see how
you like it. If you want it even less sweet, try decreasing by 33%
or try using Splenda as a sugar substitute for part of the sugar that's
called for. You can't substitute all of the sugar, but a 25-50% substitution
should be fine. Substitute according to their recommendations on
the package. If you wanted to force carbonate your soda, you could
replace more of the sugar with sugar substitute since you are not using
yeast to carbonate.
Q. I made some root beer with Jim's
Root Beer recipe and now I want to make some ginger beer. Can I use
the same ingredients, just substituting the ginger beer extract for the
root beer extract? Should I use all white table sugar (2 ½ cups) instead
of the white and dark brown combo? How about the Malto Dextrin -
use it as in the root beer for better "body"?
A. The type of sugar all depends on what kind of flavor you want.
You may want to try a blend of honey and white sugar to complement the
ginger flavor. Jim’s recipe actually uses more sugar than the extract
recipe suggests because people preferred the sweeter flavor. I don’t
know if as sweet a flavor is expected from ginger beer so you’re free to
change the amounts to suit your taste. I recommend keeping the maltodextrin
in for body.
Q. Can I use glass bottles rather
than plastic bottles for my root beer?
A. WARNING: We do not recommend that you use glass bottles for
homemade soft drinks. It is too easy to over carbonate when using
the glass bottles. This can cause the bottles to explode, and can
cause serious injury.
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