Mark's Blog

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.

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!