Basic (Licorice) Root Beer Recipe

 This is a basic root beer recipe that has taken me quite some time to make work.  The ingredients and the basic recipe are similar to many found all over the web, but I had several problems actually getting it right due to, it turns out, not enough information.  My biggest problem was with getting flavor out of the herbs involved without getting a bitter, root-like aftertaste.  But I have a solution, and now I share this recipe with the world.

 Modern root beer uses a main ingredient of wintergreen oil, or methyl salicylate, as the most important flavor ingredient.  This recipe comes close to a modern root beer flavor, but there are some small things missing.  But this is a starting point for trying out your own root beer recipes.  Feel free to add flavors and try new things, and let me know how it turns out, or post it on the forums ! 

*WARNING* Make sure the wintergreen essential oil you use is food grade, as well as the anise oil.  Be careful with the amounts you use, because it is very concentrated.  High doses of wintergreen oil can be toxic ! 

This recipe has a pretty strong licorice taste, which comes from the anise oil.  I really like the flavor, personally.  Some people don't like the licorice flavor, but without the anise oil it feels like something is missing.  I believe the anise needs to be added in smaller quantities, which I will try in the future and add a new recipe.  Right now I'm only adding 1 drop of anise oil, so in order to add a smaller amount it will require making larger batches or making a flavoring mixture and adding only a part of it to the root beer.  All this will come in future recipes as I do more experimenting, trying to come up with a less licoricey, more commercial root beer flavor.

This recipe is for a 22oz bottle of root beer.  It's a small amount because I'm still doing test runs.  You can scale this up to a 2 liter bottle if you want.  I'll probably post a scaled up version later. 

Ingredients:

Herbs and barks:
0.03oz (~1/2tsp or less even) Sarsaparilla Root Bark, dried and shredded
1 juniper berry (optional)

Other ingredients:
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp molasses
5 drops of concentrated lemon juice (for acidity, optional)
22 oz water

Essential Oils:
2 drops wintergreen essential oil
1 drop anise oil

Emulsifiers:
25 drops propylene glycol (or 90% alcohol, either vodka or grain alcohol would do I think)

Equipment needed:
22 oz bottle with cap
Pot with cover
Reusable tea bags, paper reseable tea bags, or optionally cheese cloth
Funnel
Measuring spoons
Scale is useful for measuring out bark amounts
Small bottle or test tube, with cap or cork

I've provided sources for many ingredients and equipment in our resources section. 

Instructions: 

*Remember: If you are planning to carbonate with yeast, clean your equipment and utensils thoroughly with a bleach solution, boil them, or use a disinfecting solution from your local brew store! 

First, bring water to a boil in the pot, and then lower heat until it is no longer simmering.  This is important, because if the water is boiling it will draw out the bark flavor of the herbs, which is pretty nasty.
Add sarsaparilla and juniper berry to a tea bag (either cotton reusable tea bag, or a paper sealable  tea bag), and put it in the water. Or if all you have is cheese cloth just add it straight to the water. 

Let it steep for 10 minutes.  Any longer than about 20 minutes will bring out the bark flavor, which is nasty.  These are the steps I was missing before.  I tried many different times, boiling and not boiling, and I kept getting a nasty bark flavor, until I finally figured this out with the help of some fellow root beer brewers.

While the herbs are steeping, in a test tube add your propylene glycol (or alcohol) and oils.  Cap it and shake thoroughly to mix.  Oil and water don't mix naturally, so in order to mix the essential oils with your root beer you need to mix them first with the emulsifier, which is what we are doing now.  After shaking thoroughly, I usually remove the cap and add a small amount of water, then shake it again for a while, to make sure it is mixing with the water.

If you are using tea bags, which I recommend (instead of cheese cloth): 

After the water/herbs are done steeping, remove the tea bag and add sugar, lemon juice, vanilla, molasses.  Add your oil/emulsifier mix.  I usually add a little more water to the test tube, shake, then pour this water in the pot as well, because the flavoring is so concentrated, just to make sure I get all of the flavoring.  Stir these while still on heat to dissolve.

Remove from heat and cool thoroughly to at least room temperature.  I usually put the top on the pan, put the pan in my sink with ice and water, and cool it that way.

Using a funnel, transfer to your bottle and cap it.  Then carbonate using one of the methods in our carbonation section.  You have root beer! 

With cheese cloth:

If you don't have tea bags and choose to use cheese cloth instead, the instructions are a little different because the herbs will absorb the oils if you add the oils too early.  So, after the herbs are done steeping, add sugar, lemon juice, vanilla, molasses, but not the oil/emulsifier.  Mix to dissolve the sugar and molasses. 

Remove from heat.  Cool, to room temperature or below.  Then, put your cheese cloth across the top of your funnel, and pour the root beer into your bottle through the cheese cloth/funnel, to remove the herbs. Unfortunately you won't get all of the herbs out, so it may look a little foggy, may have particles floating around, which is why I prefer to use tea bags.

Add oil/emulsifier mix to the bottle.  Add a little water to the test tube, shake, and pour that in the bottle as well, to remove any residual flavor.  Cap the bottle, and shake it a little to mix the root beer with the flavoring oils.  Carbonate, and voila! You have root beer!

I plan to add recipes for larger amounts of root beer, variations on flavor, and also I want to add a version of root beer that uses entirely herbs with no oils.  That all comes in the future.  Keep coming back to the website for updates!

Update, 2/23/2008:

I finally got around to trying a scaled up version of this recipe. I made a version for a 2-liter bottle of root beer.  Based on my calculations, I needed to multiply everything up by roughly 3.  Here is the 2-liter version:

0.09oz sarsaparilla (~1 3/4 tsp, but measure to be sure, very little)
3 tsp vanilla extract
75 drops propylene glycol
6 drops wintergreen essential oil (buy it here , or here for bulk)
3 drops anise essential oil (buy it here , or here for bulk)
3/4 tsp molasses
15 drops concentrated lemon juice
3 juniper berries
0.36 oz maltodextrin (~3 tsp), for enhanced head foam.  This is new.
1 1/3 cup sugar
2 liters water

Directions are the same as above.

I've been using maltodextrin recently to try and get head foam retention.  I don't really know how well it's working yet, so that's pretty optional, but I included it because I actually included it when I made this recipe.  According to the website, NOW Carbo Gain is pure maltodextrin powder, so it should work. Obviously the fact that this is a carbo gainer means there are some calories in it, but we're using a very small amount. I use maltodextrin I got from my local brew store, although the link above may actually be cheaper.

Magnum 

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