Mark's Blog

Batch 17 was GOOOOOOD. The strange mouth feel of the wintergreen was totally gone, though I do miss the flavor. I'll have to find some way of getting a wintergreen flavor without using wintergreen oil.

It was in the office keggerator and disappeared in about 1.5 weeks. I only had a few glasses of it, but it came out good. Got good responses from folks at work too.

It's been too long; I don't have any specific notes on what to do differently next time. I'll see about making another batch and asking folks to comment on it directly.

Speaking of which, I did a 3 gallon batch of ginger ale for the annual holiday party for the Halibutians which was last night. This morning, I went to bottle the remainder and got about 1.5 22oz bottles out of it. Apparently people liked it.

I used the same recipe I did last time I made ginger ale and it came out about as good. If the speed with which it disappeared is any indication, other folks liked it too.

Again, no specific notes on the making of this batch. Followed the recipe pretty closely (though, probably had closer to 3.5oz of ginger instead of the 2.5oz the recipe calls for).

Batch 16 ended up being better than "Meh" as I originally rated it, but it still had a bitter taste to it. I did end up taking it to work and it disappeared pretty quickly. When I first took it in and hooked everything up, it was _REALLY_ bitter; the sludge had gone back into suspension from the drive and hadn't had a chance to settle out again. But after a few days, it started drinking really well. Still more bitter than I would like, but not as bad as before.

I'm having a hard time figuring out what to do with it from here. There are two things I really want to address:

1. The bitterness. I think I over brewed the last batch, though my instructions say I only brewed for 10 minutes, which doesn't seem like very long. I'm going to try only 5 minutes this time.
2. Something is coating my tongue. I _THINK_ it's the wintergreen extract, which I think is oil based, meaning it doesn't really dissolve in the root beer like I'd like it to. This has been in most if not all of my batches, I just haven't talked about it. I'm considering leaving it out of this batch to see what difference it makes.

Oh! Add on top of that, I'm making a 5 gal batch today in the bigger keg to take to work. So I'm scaling up everything.

So, here's my plan for today (I'll come back and update the post with any variations):

• 5c*5/3 ~= 8.5c 9c honey (4.5c5c buckwheat, 4c mesquite from Trader Joe's)
• 6oz*5/3 ~= 10oz 9.5oz Sassafras
• 1tsp*5/3 ~= 1.5tsp Anise (down from 2tsp in a 3 gal batch)
• 2*5/3 ~= 4 Vanilla beans (The new beans I have are _WAY_ more potent than last batch)
• 0 wintergreen (leaving it out this batch to see if the tongue feel goes away)
• Water to make 5 gal

Steep time will be about 5 minutes, and I'm going to see if I can keep it just below a rolling boil.

UPDATED: 10:32pm
I did the batch about as listed above. Might have been closer to 9c of honey; I wasn't really all that precise. I do know that I only had 9.5oz of Sassafras; that's all that was left in the container, and I didn't want to open the next 2lb bag for just another .5oz. Eh, close enough. I did leave out the wintergreen.

As for procedure... I ended up steeping for about 7 minutes; 5 minutes just felt too short. And, I managed to keep it below a rolling boil, which will hopefully prevent it from pulling out some of the nastier bits.

Otherwise, pretty standard procedure.

As for hardware, my filter bags molded from not being tried out well enough last time I used them, so I sacrificed another clean tea towel to the cause (one that was already stained from use as a root beer filter) and sewed together another filter bag. This time, I just hose clamped it directly to the hose rather than using the wire mesh filter and the canning funnel, which were great when ladling, but kinda useless when siphoning. This way, the hose just empties directly into the filter bag, which is inside the keg. Works well.

This keg is heading to the office keggerator. Now the hard part: Keeping my office mates from drinking it before its ready. :-)

So, it's been a week. I poured a glass of Batch 16 and...

Meh... It's alright, I've brewed worse, but its got that astringency I really don't like. It's very clear, so I don't think it's a problem with filtering like it has been in the past. I suspect I either brewed it too long, _OR_ it's possible that it was just the first glass. I used this glass to empty the beer line of its cleaning solution and get the first spurt of sludge out of the keg. I poured that out into the sink, but I didn't really rinse it out. It's possible that some of that sludge stayed in the glass and tainted my first glass. Another possibility is the increase anise seed content; those can be kinda bitter.

So, initial thoughts for next time: shorter brew time, possibly less anise.

On the plus side, it definitely tastes more like root beer and less like honey or the other flavors. I had kinda lost the sassafras in recent batches; this gets that back. As Cindy likes to put it, the Lick-A-Tree flavor.

The sweetness is good. Not too sweet, but not undersweet. It could stand to be a little bit sweeter, but I kinda like it where it is now.

I think I might take this keg to work so people will stop bugging me to brew for the work keggerator. And, besides, it'll empty sooner so I can brew another batch again. :-D

February 28th? Really? Has it been _THAT_ long? Wow. I'll try to keep this short.

Ginger Ale, Batch 1: Only one word for it: Effing Fantastic. The Ginger mellowed very nicely and became a wonderful crisp drink for a hot dog picnic in the back yard with the family. I'll ask Cindy to post her thoughts on the batch.

One of the two reasons it took me so long to brew another batch of root beer is that the Ginger Ale seemed to last for friggin' ever. We'd just keep pouring and pouring and it wouldn't stop... ...until one day, it did. Ahh, well. Such is life.

The other reason it took me so long is because... ...well, I'm just lazy... It's a lot of work to brew a batch of root beer and I haven't taken the time to make it happen...

...until yesterday! Batch 16 is in the keggerator now! Quick summary of recipe:

- 5c buckwheat honey (just went with normal buckwheat)
- 6oz Sassafras (up from 4oz)
- 2tsp Anise (up from 1tsp)
- 4 vanilla beans (up from 2 or 3; they were kinda old and dry so might have been light on flavor)
- 2tsp wintergreen I, uhh, forgot to add the wintergreen. Zoe woke up from her nap as I was filtering the brew into the keg and it just slipped my mind. See below.
- Water to make 3 gal about 2 gal.

Normal process: Boil water (about 1.5gal worth), dissolve honey stirring constantly so it doesn't burn on the bottom. Add sassafras, anise, and vanilla beans in a colander submerged in the water. Stir for about 10 minutes. Remove colander, and therefore the bulk of the solids. Use a small hand-held colander-on-a-steeeeek to remove any visible floating bits. Siphon brew through the Super Spiffy Filter-O-Matic(tm) into keg. Have daughter wake up and totally throw off your whole game and forget to top off with water to fill keg and add wintergreen. Add ice to cool off, then close up keg and stow in keggerator.

So, yeah. It's only about 2 gallons, but with full increased ingredient load right now, minus the wintergreen. I really wonder want opening up the keg, adding the rest of the water and wintergreen now, 36 hours later, will do. *sigh*

UPDATE: Just a few minutes later.
I went ahead and opened the keg, topped off with water (only took about a quart or two, actually) and added the wintergreen. I don't think it'll be too bad. So, aside from the strange process, this batch is "back to normal."

It's been several months since I first brewed Batch 15, and I still have a few bottles left. What is WRONG with me!? I blame the weather. No, really. It's been raining, so the car is in the garage, between me and the keggerator. Really. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

The Good News(tm) about this is that I still have some to taste while writing up!

Its still good, but not very sassafrassy, still. The wintergreen has nearly completely dissipated. The remaining flavor mix is tasty, but not really root beer. For the next batch, I have plenty of sassafras, so I should be good on that front.

I also went to Farmer's Market in Mtn. View this past weekend. There is a honey vendor there that has several different flavors of honey, including my favorite: buckwheat! I picked up enough for two batches. They also have a dark buckwheat that tasted way too strong on the toothpick at the market, but is absolutely DIVINE on toast at home. I'm interested in trying a batch with 4C of normal buckwheat and 1C of the dark buckwheat. I think that would add a very nice flavor, and darken the final product quite a bit.

So, my next batch of root beer will be:

- 5c buckwheat honey (possibly 4c normal buckwheat, 1c dark buckwheat if I get some by then.)
- 4oz Sassafras (maybe 5 or 6oz? I really want to kick this up some.)
- 2tsp Anise (up from 1tsp; I'm still barely able to notice it)
- 3 vanilla beans
- 2tsp wintergreen
- Water to make 3 gal.

BUT! Before I do that! Cindy wanted me to make a batch of ginger ale from Dave's recipe. So I've just run a batch of Dave's Ginger Ale, pretty darn close to his recipe. Only difference is that I brewed at about 1.5 gal and topped off with water and ice in the keg. Otherwise, the ingredients were the same.

I'll have Cindy provide the write-up for the ginger ale; I'm not a fan of the super gingery ginger ales. Maybe after a week or two, I'll bottle Cindy's ginger ale and brew my root beer.

Two years ago right now, I think I had just crumpled into a useless ball of goo in the corner of the hallway outside the OR. The nurse put her arm around me and said nothing, which is precisely what I needed. Cindy was being prepped for an emergency C-Section 'cuz Zoe's heart rate was dropping with every contraction, all three of them; Doc didn't let that go on very long at all.

In just about 1 hour from now, I will have been a father to a very small, beautiful, floppy, wrinkly girl who has since changed my life in ways I could never have guessed.

The conception sucked (took 2 years). The pregnancy was normal until just before 36 weeks when preeclampsia hit, sending our world into an accelerated whirlwind: a sudden trip to the hospital from which I would not return without a daughter.

Somehow, I think it's appropriate that I be remembering this event having gotten only 4 hours of sleep last night. :-)

The memories aren't all fond, but the outcome is. It's true, what they say, that you tend to forget the bad parts over time. Now I only think about things like last night, Zoe putting her two dolls on my lap and laying a blanket over the three of us, then crawling in, looking up at me and smiling, waiting for me to start reading to her and her dolls. It's been a long road to hoe, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Happy Birthday, Zoe. I love you more than you'll ever know.

-Papa

It has been pointed out to me that my blog isn't really a blog unless it has pictures. This person brings up a good point; I would like to have pictures of what I do with Root Beer, but given that I'm doing all the cooking and it kinda takes two hands, I can't really take my own pictures.

I would like to point out that when this was explained to the reader in question, they declined to offer to come over and take pictures during my next brewing session. :-P

So, if anyone is interested in coming over and documenting my next batch of root beer, I'm very interested. Get a hold of me somehow, (email, IM, BBS, or however you know how to get a hold of me; if you don't, then post a comment here and it'll get sent to me) and we'll arrange something.

BTW: Thanks for reading. I know this isn't the most exciting blog in the world, but I really enjoy brewing root beer and I'm glad to share my experience with others.

I, uhh, forgot to clean out the beer-line hose and faucet and what-not when the previous keg was done, and it got kinda funky. Rather a lot, really. So I've been waiting to taste this batch until I could replace the hose and clean out the ball valve and faucet...

...which I was able to do today! Hence, the first tasting of Batch 15, about 2 weeks after it was brewed.

First impression: It's good! It's really sweet, so 6 cups of honey is too much. The wintergreen is just right. Anise is there, but just barely; I think it'd be good to bring it up a touch. The NaISCF-O-M][(tm, pat pend) is doing its job; the drink is very clear and not bitter at all. There wasn't even the obligatory first pour of sludge that every other batch has had. I'm _VERY_ pleased with this aspect of this batch. The sassafras flavor is a little weak too, but this is expected given that I didn't have enough sassafras.

The fizz is there, but kinda weak. I don't know if I should just up the pressure. I've shaken the living hell out of the keg, it's nice and cold (though not frozen), so it should be fizzier than it is.

One change: I replaced the beer line with 3/16" hose instead of the 1/4" hose it had before (still 10' of it) which should help prevent it from generating too much head.

I'll be very interested in Cindy's impression. This is nicely wintergreen-ie, which she likes. It's not very lick-a-tree-ie, which she doesn't.

Hmm. More response after folks from our holiday party try some.

Updated: 10 minutes later... Ok, the first glass I tried has left a bit of a taste on my tongue. I'm not sure if its the wintergreen or something else. If feels like wintergreen. It's not entirely unpleasant, but it's not what I would prefer. :-/

Alright here's what I did today:

3gal nice clean drinking water (I have R/O water), about o1 gal of which is ice.
6c Organic Alfalfa honey (up from 5c) from a local bee keeper (Stoltley's Bee Farms)
3.5oz Sassafras (down from 4oz, all I had left; mental note, order more)
1tsp Anise seed (up from 1/2tsp)
3 vanilla beans (up from 2), cut and gutted, husks and all
2tsp Wintergreen extract

The usual procedure, with a few changes: Boil 2gal of water (I have a much larger pot now). Stir in honey slowly, making sure it doesn't hit bottom and burn. This should take about 5 minutes. Add sassafras, anise and vanilla beans (guts, husks, the whole thing). Bring to a _NEAR_ boil, just when you start seeing bubbles, then back off the heat a bit and stir constantly, preventing a full boil, for 15 to 20 minutes (kinda lost track). The key here is to not let it get to a full rip roarin' boil. I think this helps keep some of the bitter compounds out of the steep (kinda like with tea.) Kill the heat. Skim off the bulk of the chunky bits with a colander-on-a-stick (if anyone knows what this is really called, please educate me. Otherwise, I'll keep calling it a COLANDER ON A STEEK!!) I put these scoopings into another colandar in a small bowl to let them drain. Siphon the good stuff from the pot into a keg via The New And Improved Spiffy Cheapo FIlter-O-Matic, Mark ][ (tm, pat pend). This gets the majority of the good stuff, but some will be left at the bottom that you can't get with the siphon because it just sucks up too much chunky bits that clog the host. I did the rest with a ladle into the NaISCF-O-M][(tm, pat pend). Top off with ice, and pour in whatever drains out of the chunky bits you pulled out earlier. Add the wintergreen, seal up, shake to mix ice and wintergreen into the soda, pressurize, burp, and store in the kegerator for a few weeks.

This process was a bit more complex than before because I did a few new things:

- I did not bring the steep to a full boil. The theory here is something I picked up from being absolutely addicted to tea in the morning. If you steep tea straight from a full boil, it will be more bitter than if you steep a few degrees below a full boil (ie, let the water sit a bit, pull it before it boils, drop an ice cube in the pot, etc.) So I thought I'd try the same thing here. Initial tests are positive, but the proof is in the pour 2 weeks from now.

- I changed the ingredients around a bit, some out of necessity, some out of qualitative evaluation of previous batches. I upped the honey from 5 to 6 cups to add a bit more sweetness. I upped the anise from 1/2tsp to 1tsp 'cuz I still couldn't really taste it in the last batch. I upped the vanilla from 2 to 3 beans 'cuz I can't really taste it, and because they're probably nearing the end of their shelf life and need to get consumed. I decided to leave the wintergreen where it is, at 2tsp. I only had 3.5oz of sassafras, so that's all that went in. This was not intentional.

- I steeped at a lower concentration. Before, I only had a pot large enough to steep about 1gal of water. That pot was lost in the Great Jam Making Session of 2008 (plum jam burned in it; we still haven't been able to get the layer of carbon off the bottom), so we got a replacement, and apparently a larger one. So I was able to steep with about 2gal of water (might have been a little less; I didn't measure.) The final concentration didn't change, but the steeping concentration did, which can change the compounds that come out of the ingredients. We'll see what this does.

I spilled a bit while ladling at the end and tasted my mess; it was _GOOD_. Like, _REAL_GOOD_. We'll see how this turns out. I'm a little worried about having used so much honey; it's kinda sweet, but what I tasted was more concentrate than the final result, so we'll see.

Now, it's a waiting game. We're hosting a holiday party on Dec 13, 3 weeks from now, so the timing will be nearly perfect for a tasting. I'll post again after the party, if not a bit sooner.

Wow, that was a long 2 weeks...

Batch 14 was consumed several months ago at a party for my office. Got good reception, but no specific comments so nothing really worth writing up here.

Some of it also went as a bribe to a sister company who graciously offered to host some servers of ours for some business stuff we were doing. Again, I never got any specific feedback worthy of posting here.

And, it's been too long since I tasted it, I don't remember much. What I do remember, however, wasn't not favorable of the malted barley. I might try that again some other time, but not now. Also, the Avacado honey tastes good by itself, but not so much in the root beer.

So, next time (read: today), I'm using Alfalfa honey (what they had; I'm still waiting for Buckwheat again). Otherwise, I'm sticking with the same recipe.

I'll post again when I've written down a "as brewed" recipe and process.