You Really Gotta Root For Root Beer

About author / Christine Gable

Culinary enthusiast; kids cuisine and slow cooking; magazine recipe developer; professional writer. Her simple recipes are great for family dinners.

It was something my son had mentioned to me in passing several times—several too many times. It was something that I had put off out of remembrance of its time-intensive and and messy manner, in the many and subtle ways that adults do best:

“How about if we do that once the weather gets warmer?” … “Oh, once we can be outside it’ll be much easier,”… “Let’s look that up sometime …”

But as time sped by, I began to see that if I didn’t take advantage of his interest now, it could soon be too late. So I wrote myself a note on the calendar: 'root beer making kit.'

We had actually made homemade root beer several times over the past years—with ultimately disappointing results. Oh sure, we had taken the time to wash the bottles, rinse them twice, secure bottle caps and use my husband’s ancient beer bottle capping paraphernalia. Not to mention finding the correct yeast and extract so that the soda really tasted like root beer. Or close to it.

Yeah, I remembered all that. And I remembered gathering everything, the stickiness and even the exploding, broken bottles in the basement. And that was the major reason I found myself hesitating and procrastinating. You know the score.

But with my son’s birthday rolling around, I hit upon an idea. Wouldn’t it make a nice treat to suggest that we do root beer making together as part of his birthday treat? (Since he seemed to be rather doubtful that I’d really enter into the whole soda making endeavor again, this was sure to be a good birthday surprise also.) And if this was planned as a gift, I knew that it would kick me into actually getting it done at the same time.

When I began to research what was available for making homemade root beer on the Internet, I was pleasantly surprised. I happened to find an all-in-one kit that supplied the bottles, sanitizer, yeast, flavoring and the all-important instructions.

Maybe this wouldn’t be so hard after all.

I placed the online order. The kit arrived in a nifty box several days later—and we made a date the following weekend to enter into the experience of full-fledged real homemade root beer making. The only thing I did was read over the instructions ahead of time, as suggested—wanting to be sure there wouldn’t be any unpleasant surprises awaiting us in the middle of the process. And since we had an empty gallon jug, a large stainless steel pot and sugar, it seemed like we were all set to go.

Surprisingly, I found that I was actually looking forward to it.

Fast forward two months later: Does this story have a happy ending? And do I still have a good feeling about making homemade root beer?

You bet.

And the good news is that the eight bottles from our first batch are long gone. But they didn’t explode in the basement—they were cold, crisp, bubbly and fully enjoyed with snacks and lunches. Best of all, we even have enough supplies for a couple more batches—whenever the brewmeister strikes again in our house. And forget all the washing and bleaching of glass bottles—this kit came ready to go with poly 16-oz. bottles, necessary to squeeze-check the level of CO2 as the soda is being naturally carbonated.

All in all, the entire soda making process took us less than an hour to measure, mix, heat and bottle. While there were several weeks in the waiting—for the room temperature soda to build carbon dioxide, and then the final finishing of the bottles in the refrig—it was a time of sweet anticipation.

My son did notice that the flavor improved over time—he said that the last two bottles had the best flavor. So if you and your kids have the willpower to let it age even longer, you’ll have a mellower yet more bubbling root beer the longer it rests.

Moral of the story: I’m really glad that I kicked myself into gear and didn’t miss out on this fun activity (and memory-maker). If you’ve got a soda brewer at your house, I encourage you to find an easy-to-use kit and give it a try.