Mark's Blog

Summary of the popular opinion for Batch 13: "Holy shit, this is good!" (Why is everyone always surprised?) Closely followed up with, "A bit too wintergreeny, though." (Yeah, I know.) Good comments came from:
- Friends and Family, who's spoken opinion I don't necessarily trust ("..this is.. ..nice.." *sets bottle down*), but they asked for more, which I do trust.
- Coworker Dave, of whom I've always gotten brutally honest, and rather detailed, opinions from
- George, proprietor of the local brew supply store, who sounded surprised to like it; I think he was expecting root beer from concentrate.
- Cindy (wife), who normally prefers the stuff I make from extract.

This batch has universally received the best reviews so far. The Spiffy Cheapo Filter-O-Matic(tm, pat pend) worked miracles on the bitterness/astringency problem. That problem is solved, as far as I'm concerned. The rest of the mix was good, except the wintergreen which overpowered everything else, so how can we really tell that the rest of the mix was good? Yeah, who knows. But people liked it, so I've got that goin' for me.

I'm excited because I finally got the filtering stuff solved. The next batch (fixing the wintergreen) should be great.

So, without further ado...

Batch 14:
3g RO water
4c avocado blossom honey
4oz sassafras
1tsp anise seed
2 vanilla beans
.5c malted barley extract (normally used for making beer)
2tsp wintergreen extract (_NOT_ 2tbsp!)

Usual procedure, but with a different order this time. Boil 1gal water. Add honey stirring to make sure it dissolves completely. Put colander in water and add sassafras, anise and vanilla beans. Boil for 20 minutes, stirring continuously. Right near the end, add the malted barley extract, stirring to make sure it dissolves completely. Pull the colander, and with it the bulk of the solid bits. Use a bit of hose left over from the construction of the kegerator to siphon the brew into the "New And Improved Spiffy Cheapo Filter-O-Matic, Mark ][ (tm, pat pend)" (See below for construction details.) Add ice and RO water to top off. Add Wintergreen. Close up the keg and shake the snot out of it. Pressurize, burp, stow in the kegerator for a couple weeks.

The "New And Improved Spiffy Cheapo Filter-O-Matic, Mark ][ (tm, pat pend)" is basically a canning funnel, screen mesh from a colander, a hose clamp, and a (clean) tea towel sewn up into a two layer sock. The mesh is cut off the colander then fit to the bottom of the funnel and attached with the hose clamp. This was from Mark I of the SCFOM. For Mark 2, took a tea towel, folded over length wise and sewed up all four edges. I then folded over again lengthwise and sewed up one short side and the long side. This gives a very long and narrow sock with two layers of fabric between the inside and outside. This was too long for my keg, so I cut it in half and sewed up the appropriate edges to make two socks, each half as long as the first. I then took the open end of one of the socks and slipped it between the screen mesh and the hose clamp such that any liquid poured into the funnel would first be filtered by the screen mesh, then by the tea towel cloth before going into the keg. The whole sock goes inside the keg and the funnel (or, more accurately, the screen mesh bits that stick out of the hose clamp) rests on the opening to the keg. This makes it easy to ladle, pour or siphon liquid, through the "NAISCFOM,M][" directly into the keg. It worked like a champ.

Batch 14 is currently in the kegerator, chillin' and carbin'. I look forward to a report in about 2 weeks.

A few final observations on Batch 12:

- After a few weeks, the wintergreen really mellowed out. I almost feel like it could use more (which is good; see below.)

- I noticed that some bottles were _REALLY_ good and not very bitter, and others had the bitterness I really don't like. I further noticed that the bottles that came out really good a) had little to no sediment at the bottom, and/or b) I did a really good job of pouring such that little to no sediment came out into the glass. This, to me, is a smoking gun in the hands of the sediment. Solution: better filtration. Enter, the Spiffy Cheapo Filter-O-Matic(tm, pat pend)!

- Otherwise, Batch 12 is far and away the best so far. I think it had a lot to do with sticking to the basic ingredients and adding the wintergreen.

Given all the above observations, here's what I did for Batch 13:

3gal nice, clean, filtered water. (Mine is RO, including the ice.)
4oz Sassafras root bark, cut and sorted.
2 vanilla beans, cut and gutted. Husks and all go in.
1/2tsp anise seeds
4c apple blossom honey (what was available at farmer's market this week)
1c alfalfa honey (something I had in the cupboard)
2tbsp wintergreen extract (oops)

The usual procedure, with a twist this time. Boil about a gallon of water, stick a metal mesh colander in it, add the sassafras, vanilla beans (guts and husks; the whole thing) and anise seed. Let boil, stirring continuously for about 10 minutes. Pull the colander, and the ingredients with it. With the heat still on, mix in the honey, stirring the whole time so as to not let the honey burn at the bottom of the pot. Remove from heat.

This is where the story takes a slight twist. This time, I wanted to make damn sure I filter the brew before putting in the keg (sanitized, natch.) See below for the construction details, but for now, I'll summarize and say, "Ladle mixture into the keg through the Spiffy Cheapo Filter-O-Matic(tm, pat pend)"

After everything is in the keg, add ice to bring the temp down so the wintergreen extract doesn't evaporate. Top off with the remaining water, then add the wintergreen extract, keg up, shake, pressurize, burp, and stow in the chill chest for a week or two.

Notes:
- 2tbsp of wintergreen, 'eh? Last batch was only 1tbsp, and early notes suggested dropping that to 2tsp. Yeah, well, I remembered the "2" part right, just not the "tsp" part. This was an honest mistake on my part. I hope this doesn't come back to haunt me.

- 1/2tsp anise seed, up from 1/4tsp last batch. I couldn't taste the anise seed at all, so I decided to kick it up a bit.

- Apple blossom honey. Hoo doggy, if you can get your hands on some of this stuff, I highly recommend it. Its a mellow, fragrant honey that does taste slightly of apples. It's quite delicious. I considered pulling some honey out for use on toast before making the root beer, but my source (Stoltely's Bee Farms, Atascadero, CA) says he'll have it for a few more weeks, so I'll just go back and get more. He tells me he'll have buckwheat in a few more weeks; guess what I'm getting for my next batch. ;-)

- Spiffy Cheapo Filter-O-Matic(tm, pat pend). I've spent a fair bit of time over the last few weeks considering how to filter this stuff before kegging. I thought about using coffee filters, I thought about the good ol' standby: pantyhose, I've thought about industrial filtering mechanism... I ended up settling on a canning funnel (big wide opening at the bottom, fits a small mouth mason jar) with wire mesh from a colander hose-clamped to the bottom, and a coffee filter up top. The wire mesh is just there to keep the coffee filter from completely falling through. All parts are stainless steel or food grade high temp plastic and were washed thoroughly to remove oils and what-not.

I first tried siphoning the brew into the SCF-O-M(tm), which worked great for about the first pint at which point the flow stopped. I don't mean came to a trickle, I mean it stopped. Completely. Lifting up the edge of the filter made it go again, but only for a bit. The coffee filter had completely clogged up with sediment.

(Don't read this part, @blackmoondog) Rather than blowing through a few dozen coffee filters, I decided to sacrifice a tea towel to the cause and tucked a corner into the SCF-O-M(tm). It did the same thing as the coffee filter, but I was able to kinda scoot the cloth around so that it always had at least a little clean cloth to clog up (say that a few times fast...) After scooting it around the whole towel, it was completely clogged up with sassafras bits and needed to be washed. Three washings of the cloth later, I finally had the whole batch in the keg, properly filtered. It's dark in the keg so I don't have a good idea what it looks like in there, but given how much crap was caught by the SCF-O-M(tm), I'm pretty confident that I got most, if not all, of it.

So. The lessons learned this time around:
- Make damn sure you have a written copy of the recipe around so you don't mistake "tsp" for "tbsp" again. *sigh*

- I need to design the SCF-O-M(tm) v2. It needs a MUCH larger filter surface, one that's easily removable and washable. I haven't figured this one out yet. Any ideas, folks?

That's it for Batch 13. I'll be back in a week or two with a first sample report.

I took a bunch of bottles of batch 12 to a party this weekend and it was very well received. Of course, the real test being whether people ask for more after getting their first taste, and many people did. A couple people kept coming back for more and more and couldn't get enough.

I now have a whopping two bottles left. Means its time for another batch! :)

A few people noticed the bitter taste I've been talking about, so I know I'm not going crazy. But it doesn't seem to bother most people, which is a good sign.

Next batch:
- Use buckwheat honey, if I can get my hands on it.
- Use 2tsp of wintergreen
- watch the pH and try to keep it neutral, or even a bit acidic.
- do a much better job of filtering before kegging.

I need to get my hands on some equipment. I've got the next week off from work, so I'll have some time to go shopping. I suspect there will be Batch 13 in the near future.

It didn't take much decrease in the temp of my fridge to defrost my latest batch of root beer, which makes me happy. I just got around to bottling it yesterday morning before work. I was smart and slowly dropped the pressure in the keg to about 10psi a day or two before bottling, and put the bottles in the freezer. These two kept the root beer from over-fizzing while being bottled which allowed me to actually fill up the neck in the bottle giving less head room for the CO2 to come out of suspension, thereby keeping more fizz in the root beer. All in all, a much better plan.

Over-all impression: Good, but there's some taste, some smell that hits me right up front that I'm _REALLY_ not liking. Having said that, it seems to be getting good reviews from others. Cindy said it was probably the batch she is most likely to drink (she likes store bought; don't hold it against her), my parents loved it and asked for another glass (which is the real test whether someone likes it), and my coworker Dave who got me into this mess in the first place gave me some really good notes on it and said that, over all, he really liked it.

People seem to really like the wintergreen. I think this is going to be a regular addition from now on out, though I may want to scale it back a bit like I said in the last writeup. Though, it was less strong after freezing and defrosting. I wonder if that was just because it was a week later, or if the freezing process did something to it. Dunno. I'll have to play around with next batch, preferably without freezing it at all.

The anise got kinda lost in the mix somewhere, I think. Either that, or it's part of the taste/smell up front that I'm not liking. I'm not sure yet. I may leave it out for now until I get some other things figured out then start adding it back in.

Speaking of that taste/smell up front... It's a very strong bitter smell, which might explain why it hits me stronger than it hits others. I have very high sensitivity to bitter (high pH) and sour (low pH). Due to some recent debacles with my fish tanks, I've discovered that something about our water is _INCREDIBLY_ basic (high pH). In previous batches, I added a bit of food grade lactic acid to the mix. I may do that next batch to try to bring the water down to a more neutral pH.

The other theory I had is that the brew is not getting filtered out very well and little particles of sassafras are staying in the root beer while in the keg. Like tea that has brewed too long, this can bring out nasty bitter tastes from the sassafras. I may need to run the brew through a much more fine filter than just a wire mesh colander. Dave from work also suggested some ways to let a lot of the particulate settle out of the brew before kegging, but I don't think it'll get the majority of the very fine stuff that stays in suspension.

So, my plans for the next batch are as follows:

• Cut back on the wintergreen from 3 tsp to 2 tsp
  
• Leave out the Anise until I get the bitterness figured out
  
• Drop the pH of the water before brewing with some food grade lactic acid
  
• Filter the heck out of the brew right after boil, before kegging to get as much of the particulate sassafras out of suspension. There are some other ways of doing this using some additives, but I'd rather start here and see how well it works.
  

Filtration. How? That's a very good question. I brainstormed some ideas today at lunch with some friends. Some ideas involved contacting laboratory supply houses and getting vials, stills, glass spiral tubes, etc.. I suggested that I get a Jacob's ladder to complete the effect.

So far, the solution I like the best is to get something like this, a large stock pot with a built-in faucet (or make one given that the ones with built-in faucets are in the $300+ range!), do the brew in that, put some sort of a large filter on the input to the faucet, then run a hose to a coffee filter on top of the keg and just let it drip through. Of course, I'd have to watch the faucet to make sure the coffee filter doesn't over flow, but I can do that.

This is going to involve a trip to the local restaurant supply store, me thinks. Road Trip!

Batch 12 has, so far, been the best batch so far. It's tree-licking root-beery good, sweet enough without being too sickly sweet, and has enough wintergreen and anise flavor to not be over poweringly "SASSAFRAS!!!!!"

There are a few things I would like to change, if I can:
- It still has that damn astringency. Though it does seem mellower.

- Probably a bit too much wintergreen extract. Next batch, I would probably back it off a bit to 2tsp for a 3 gallon batch.

- The anise gets lost in the wintergreen now. Maybe kick the anise seeds up a bit. doubling to 1/2tsp seems a bit risky, but maybe a "heaping 1/4tsp" next time.

Those are the bits that are flavor based. However, there is one thing that is procedure based (though it also has an affect on flavor) that needs to get fixed: There was no fizz, no carbonation. For some reason, the keggerator didn't get any bubbles into the stuff. For the life of me, I don't know why. My best bet is that it wasn't cold enough in there, so I cranked the fridge up to max...

...and proceeded to turn the keg into a solid block of ice... Whoops.

Probably not such a good idea. I've cranked down the cooling now, so hopefully it'll defrost soon. I hope the pressure build-up from freezing didn't crack the keg anywhere; that would get messy.

So, anyway. To sum up: the flavor is really good, but I gotta get some fizz into the stuff before I'll call this batch a success. More later, after defrosting.

*mumble*mumble*Gotta get a thermometer*mumble*mumble*

Been a while since I've made a batch of rootbeer. I was feeling the urge again recently, so I picked up a pound of sassafras from the Internet, some Wintergreen extract and got to work.

But first, my writeups, such as they are.

Batch 10b: Uhh. Honestly, I don't remember. It's been many months. I remember not being totally enamored with it, but I finished it so it couldn't have been too bad. IIRC, it was still too acidic for my taste.

Batch 11: This is the real interesting one. This batch was made not long after Batch 10b was done being consumed, but I never wrote up the recipe, which I'm now regretting. IIRC, I was experimenting with wintergreen leaf, which I can now tell you with relative authority tastes _NOTHING_ like wintergreen I'm used to. The problem is that I ran out of sassafras and tried to make up for it with wintergreen leaf.

This did _NOT_ work. I tried it after a week of carbing and hated it. Unfortunately, I never got around to emptying the keg and cleaning things out, so I had a bit of work before I could do anything tonight, cleaning out the keg, flushing the lines, etc.

Batch 12: I want a known good batch and recipe. I tried to take the bits that made the best batches in the past and use them here: honey as the sweetener, loose steeping of 40z of sassafras (read: not in a grain bag), etc. This is what I came up with:

3gal of RO water, about 1gal of which was ice.
2 Vanilla beans, cut and gutted.
4oz Sassafras root bark c/s
1/4tsp Anise seed
2c Orange blossom honey
2c Spike weed honey
1c Buckwheet honey (yes, these three were just what I had in the cupboard.)
1tbsp Wintergreen extract

Boil 1gal of water. Put colander into water. Put vanilla bean and guts, sassafras and anise seed into water. Boil for about 10 minutes, stiring the whole time. Pull colander, taking most of the sassafras and vanilla husks with it. Mix in honey, stirring to dissolve, making sure to not let the honey build up on the bottom of the pot, thus burning. Use a little strainer-on-a-stick to filter out most of the remaining chunky bits. Add ice to cool down boiling mixture, then ladle into sanitized keg. Add remaining ice and RO water to fill keg. Add wintergreen extract, close keg, shake to mix extract. Pressurize, burp, and stow in the chill chest for a week.

I made the mistake of not tasting this batch before closing the keg up. It smelled and looked good, though. I have high hopes for this batch.

A couple things about this batch:
- Grab-bag of honeys. I like each type individually; I just hope they go well together. The orange blossom is pretty mellow, so hopefully it'll keep the honey flavor from getting too over powering.

- I added the honey at the end of the boil instead of the beginning. Not quite sure why I did this. Hopefully, the sassafras will be able to more fully flavor the water if it's not as sugary.

- Added wintergreen extract instead of wintergreen leaf. At least this wintergreen actually smells and tastes like wintergreen. The quantity of "1 tbsp" was a total stab in the dark. I googled for "rootbeer recipe wintergreen" and found wildly varying opinions on the subject, so we'll see how this turns out.

It'll take a week to see how this comes out. Hopefully I'll remember to post the results.

I'm really not good about keeping this thing up to date, but I was kicked out of bed at 5:30am on Sunday (today) with a baby who wouldn't go back to sleep in bed, but almost immediately slept in the Bjorn, so I've suddenly found myself with some time to post to my Root Beer blog.

Anyway. I made a new batch yesterday. But, before I get to that, let me catch up.

Batch 8 Writeup:
Batch 8 was quite tasty. It ended up tasting more like a root-mead than a root-beer. The sassafras didn't really come through the honey flavor. It was quite tasty, but just not very root-beery. I think it was the grain bag that prevented water flow around the sassafras root. I've gotta find either a much bigger bag, or a way to steep without the confines of the bag. I think I've come up with something, but I'll cover that in Batch 10b

Batch 9:
I made Batch 9 specifically for a party at work. Here's the recipe:

3gal filtered water (1gal as ice)
3c orange blossom honey
2 vanilla beans
2tbsp anise seed
2.5oz sassafras root
1tbsp lactic acid

Standard procedure. Boil 1gal water, dissolve lactic acid and honey, cut and scrape vanilla beans and throw in the pot. Put all anise seed and sassafras root in the water (no grain bag) and steep for about 5 or 10 minutes. Add ice to cool down. Ladle mixture into keg via a good old-fashion (clean/new) nylon pantie-hose. Top off with remaining water. Pressurize, burp, store in kegerator for a week, bring to party.

Batch 9 write-up:
This one didn't come out _ANYTHING_ like I wanted. I think the anise seed I got for this batch was _MUCH_ more potent than previous anise seeds I've gotten. These were fresh. The resulting brew was _WAY_ over powered with anise to the point that I was unable to enjoy it.

It was also kinda sour. I think I use too much lactic acid too. Though, this could have been because of the anise; not really sure. I also cut-back on the sassafras, which I think was a mistake.

Lessons learned: _MUCH_ less anise seed, back to previous quantities of lactic acid too.

Batch(es) 10:
My wife was taking issue with all the sugar I've been consuming via root beer, so I took a few weeks break. But, just yesterday, I felt the urge to make some more, so I did. This is what I came up with.

Batch 10a:
I attempted a small batch of birch beer using some birch bark I purchased a few months ago (but have kept in an air tight jar; I assure you, it's still quite fresh.) I also decided to try using malted barley as the sugar instead of honey. Anyway, here's what I did:

1.25L RO water (just got an RO installed)
.25tsp lactic acid
1/3c malted barley syrup from a brew shop
.5oz sassafras root
.5oz birch bark
.25tsp anise seed
.5tsp vanilla extract

Standard procedure. Boil water, add lactic acid and malted barley. All all sassafras, birch bark, anise seed and vanilla. Let steep for 5(ish) minutes, then pour mixture into a bowl and colander, then remove the colander also removing all the solid bits. Put this bowl into a larger bowl with ice in it to attempt to cool the mixture.

Batch 10a writeup:
This is the point that I tasted it. Oy. To say it was repellent wouldn't do justice to my response. It literally triggered my gag reflex. It tasted like I had just thrown up in my mouth a little bit. Obviously, I must have gotten a little chunk of something nasty that fell on the spoon so I tried it again. Nope. Still disgusting. I didn't bother trying to carbonate this, I just poured it out straight away.

I experimented with a lot of things in this batch. I really shouldn't do so much at one time. I tried: 1) using barley as a sugar, 2) adding birch bark, 3) a much higher concentration of lactic acid, 4) RO water instead of just filtered. In addition to this, this is the same concentration of anise seed as the previous batch, which I concluded was far too much.

Lessons learned: Don't change so many things at once. Birch bark adds a nasty flavor. I may attempt one more birch bark batch, but it will be much simpler. Lower the acid level (raise the pH). Use much less anise seed.

Batch 10b:
Immediately upon pouring batch 10a down the drain, I got a lot more conservative and made a "normal" batch (I just want some tasty root beer, after all.)

3gal RO water (some as ice (I didn't have a whole lot))
.25tsp lactic acid
4c buckwheat honey
2 vanilla beans, cut, scraped, etc
4oz sassafras root
.5tsp anise seed

Standard procedure, with a bit of a twist: Boil 1gal water, dissolve honey and lactic acid. (Here's the twist) Put a colander in the pot, trying to get as much of it below the water line as possible. Then add ingredients to the water, in the colander. Steep for 10 minutes, stirring constantly. Be careful not to push the bits into the colander lest you break them up and they fall through. After the 10 minutes, pull the colander out, taking most of the bits with it. There will be some floaters left, stuff you couldn't prevent from going through the colander. Scoop them up with a small (2 or 3 inch) colander on a stick (what are these called?) Ladle mixture into cleaned and sanitized keg, pressurize, burp, stash in the kegerator for a week and change.

Things I did differently: I gave the ingredients more room to move around, but still had a convenient way to get most of it out. This added room will hopefully pull more flavor out of the bark. I used a lot less acid and anise seed. (Though, from initial tests, I fear it may still be too much anise.)

But, I went back to 4oz of sassafras, and went back to buckwheat honey which made what I think was the best-to-date batch (see Batch 5).

We shall see how this turns out. I'm optimistic.

Equipment:
My kegging system hasn't changed, but I did pick up a carbonator cap, a little plastic do-hickey that mates to a standard 2L bottle and gives you a ball-lock valve so you can pressurize (or re-pressurize) the bottle from a standard CO2 tank. In short, it lets me make small batches of things. (This is what I was attempting with batch 10a.) I tried it once, but it didn't seem to hold pressure. I've since figured out that it probably did hold pressure, but I only filled it with CO2 once, maybe twice. I think a heck of a lot more than that will need to be put in it. After making batch 10b, I decided to try carbonating a bottle of just water to test the hardware. I took the 1.25L bottle to the CO2 tank, filled it once and shook the hell out of it. While shaking it, I could feel the pressure drop very quickly to the point that the bottle was imploding some. I filled it again, shook it again, filled it again, shook it again, etc.etc. Until it didn't start imploding upon vigorous shaking. THEN I stowed it in the fridge. Once the temp drops, it'll absorb more CO2 and I'll probably have to do the same thing again.

Anyway, the lesson to learn here is that my carbonator cap is probably doing the right thing, but it either needs to be connected to the CO2 tank full time while in the fridge, or you'll need to refill it a bunch of times over the period of a week or so (standard carbing time.)

That's it for now. I'll post again when I get results from this batch and the carbonator cap experiment.

...*whew!* It's been a bit too long since I've posted here. My last post was about Batch 6 which I made back in March! Real quick:

Batch 6 writeup
Batch 6 went to a LAN party where it got mixed reviews. At least one person (besides me) really liked it and asked for more (which is the true test of whether someone likes it or not.) Everyone else was very polite and said it was "interesting." I think I went a bit overboard on the ingredients.

Anyway, I brought it back home and finished it off myself. I liked it, but it still had an astringency. Talking with Dave from work, he suggested that I try dropping the pH the water before adding the sassafras. So, I picked up some food grade acid (Lactic acid to be exact) at the brew store and made Batch 7:

Batch 7
3 gallon filtered water (some as ice)
1/2 teaspoon 98% Lactic acid
1 box (4 cup equivalent) Splenda
2 vanilla beans
4oz Sassafras root bark

Boil 1 gallon of the water. Add the lactic acid and Splenda, make sure it dissolves all the way. Cut and gut the vanilla beans, add to water (guts, husks and all). Put the sassafras in a grain bag and steep in boiling water for 5 minutes. Remove the grain bag and vanilla bean husks. Add some ice to bring the temp down so you don't burn yourself. Put mixture in a sanitized keg, top of with remaining water. Put in the keggerator, pressurize to 20psi, burp, and let carb for a week or two. Slowly drop pressure to about 12 psi, then bottle into cold bottles and cap. This batch ended up making 24 12oz bottles.

Batch 7 writeup
Note that this was a sugar free batch at the request of my diabetic parents. I personally can't stand sugar substitutes, so I didn't like this batch. But my folks seem to like it, so that's good. I went very minimalistic on the ingredients, after batch 6. There are still a bunch of bottles of this floating around my folks' house.

When I got home from my folks' house this weekend (it was their 140th birthday party (they both turn 70 this year)), I decided to make a batch for myself this time. My favorite batch so far has been batch 5, I think because it was made from Honey. So, I decided to make another Honey batch:

Batch 8
3 gallon filtered water (some as ice)
1/2 teaspoon 98% Lactic acid
3lbs or 6cups of Organic, locally made Avocado blossom honey.
2 vanilla beans
4oz Sassafras root bark

Boil 1 gallon of the water. Add the lactic acid and honey, make sure it dissolves all the way. The honey will sink to the bottom and burn if you don't dissolve it quickly and completely. Cut and gut the vanilla beans, add to water (guts, husks and all). Put the sassafras in a grain bag and steep in boiling water for 5 minutes. Remove the grain bag and vanilla bean husks. Add some ice to bring the temp down so you don't burn yourself. Put mixture in a sanitized keg, top of with remaining water. Put in the keggerator, pressurize to 20psi, burp, and let carb for a week or two.

I just made this batch today, so I haven't bottled it yet (obviously.) It's currently carbing. I will say that just the honey and vanilla bean water tasted _FANTASTIC_, and after adding the sassafras, it was even better. I'm _REALLY_ looking forward to this batch.

I went to pour a glass of batch 5 yesterday and got a whole lotta foam and sputter and chunder, signaling the end of my first 3 gallon batch of root beer in my new kegerator. This makes me happy and sad at the same time. Happy, because it's a hobby that I really enjoy and have been able to consume over the period of a few months. Sad, because I wanted a glass of root beer to eat with my lunch!

So, I made batch 6 today:

2oz of Sassafras
3oz of saspirilla
.5oz of star annis
1oz wintergreen
2c organic white sugar
3c organic brown sugar
4 vanilla beans
1gal boiling water
1gal ice
1gal water

You know the routine. Boil water, add flavorings, add sugar slowly making sure to stir it in and dissolve it quickly (you don't want it carmelizing on the bottom of the pot). Total steeping time, about 7 minutes (however long it took to work in 5 cups of sugar.) Pour into a sanitized bowl with a sanitized fine wire mesh colindar, strain chunky bits. Put ice in sanitized keg, pour mixture over ice. Top off with more water. Put in kegerator and carbonate.

The ingredients this time around were from the bottom of the bin at the hippy food store where I get them. They weren't the most aromatic I've ever used. I've ordered a pound of sassafras bark and a pound of birch bark, so I'll get them fresh. I'll use that for the next batch.

I used sugar instead of honey this time. The last batch was _VERY_ predominantly honey flavored. I wanted to get back to tasting the sassafras, or in this case, like saspirilla.

I'll let y'all know how it comes out (if anyone is actually reading this. :)

I made batch 5 today:

2.5oz sassafras root bark (wanted 3oz, only had 2.5)
1oz sasparilla root bark
1oz wintergreen leaf
1 tbsp anise seeds (not star anise)
3 vanilla beans, guts scraped of course.
3 lbs (6 cups) organic buckwheat honey (almost)
1 gal boiling water
1 gal ice
1 gal water

Boil 1 gal water. Add roots, leaves, seads and vanilla guts and husks. All, straight into the water. I sometimes use a grain bag, but I wanted this amount of stuff to have room to move around. Boil for 10 minutes, stiring about half the time. (It takes the barks a bit of time to saturate with water; they float to the surface until then. Keep stiring them into the water.) Start adding honey. 6 cups is a lot of honey, and it doesn't disolve instantly, so add it slowly. I just poured it from the jars I bought it in, in a slow ribbon. The whole process took about five minutes. Total boil time so far: 15 minutes. Boil for another 2 or 3 minutes just to make sure everything is disolved. Pour into a sanitized bowl that has a similarly shaped and sized fine mesh collinder (also sanitized) in it. Pull the collinder out, taking the vast majority of the roots, leaves, seads and vanilla husks with it. (My bowl wasn't big enough for the whole batch, so I had to do this twice.) Pour filtered mixture into sanitized keg. This is where you would do additional filtering if you don't want little bits of stuff in your root beer. I tried filtering through cheese cloth, but it just fell in the keg, so I gave up. Start adding ice to the keg until it stops melting quickly when stirred (with a sanitized utensil of your choice, natch.) Fill the rest of the keg with water. Cap, shake to mix, and carbonate.

Notes:
- Standard disclaimers apply: Use water and ice from a good, clean source. If you don't have a filter in your house, get bottled "drinking water" and "party ice" from the store. I just used water from my under-sink mounted filter. We've since hooked up the ice maker in our freezer to this filter too, so in prep of this day, I bagged all the ice that was made at the time and got the freezer cranking out more ice. It took about 1.5 "ice maker drawer" loads.

- The windergreen leaf I got from the hippy food store near me smelled NOTHING like wintergreen mints or anything. We'll see what it does to the taste of the root beer. I've considered crushing up a few wintergreen Altoids and adding that to a batch. :)

- This is a heck of a lot more anise than in any previous batch. I hope I don't regret this. I was planning on putting only .5 tsp in the batch, but it just didn't look like enough, so I added more. ...and more... Hmm..

- The full 6 cups of honey didn't quite make it into the batch. There's maybe 1/3 cup left over. It just sticks to the walls of the jar. I didn't work very hard to get it out.

- I know that with the brewing of tea, the longer you brew, the more nasty chemicals you get out of the tea leaves that make your drink taste very bitter. In an effort to remove some of the bitter or astringent taste of the root beer, I tried brewing for less time. I only did 10 minutes before adding the honey. I suspect this is not enough of a difference to notice, but we'll see. Next time, I'll try brewing for 5 minutes before starting to add the honey for a total brew time of about 10 minutes.

I didn't taste the final mixture before sticking it in the kegerator, and I haven't finished hooking up the beer line yet, so I can't even get any out of it now. I'll post again when I have a chance to taste it.