5 boxes RAINBOW ROOT BEER REAL MC COY NOT A KNOCK OFF FREE SHIP & FREE YEAST

Description

Hard Root Beer
(5 gallons/19 L)
OG = 1.038 FG = 0.995 ABV = 5.5%
Kit Harrington of Root Sellers’ advises, “Sodium bicarbonate (baking soda), is great for knocking the acidity down and a little goes a long way! You will need to add it 1 tsp. at a time to dial in the right amount of pH.”
Ingredients
4 lbs. (1.8 kg) pure cane sugar
1 tablespoon (15 mL) molasses
½ tsp. yeast nutrient
Root beer extract (quantities vary based on extract)
2-4 tsp. baking soda (added to taste)
Clean fermenting ale yeast (Champagne works well also)
2 lbs. (0.91 kg) sugar to backsweeten (added to cold keg)
Step by step
Bring sugar, molasses, and water to a boil for 15 minutes. At flame out add yeast nutrient. Once cooled to yeast pitching temperature, add the yeast and allow the temperature to rise naturally to the upper limit of the yeast’s range; you want a good and fast ferment. After 10 days, cool to near-freezing to drop out as much yeast you can. Transfer the clear finished beer into an empty corny keg and add in the root beer extract and baking soda to taste. Finally, add the sugar (dissolved in 1 qt./1 L boiling water) to backsweeten. Mix all this very well or the dense sugar syrup will drop to the bottom and make for an awkward first pint.This beer likes to be well carbonated — try 2.4-2.7 volumes — and will stay good for quite a while in a kegerator.
Hard Ginger Beer
(5 gallons/19 L)
OG = 1.038 FG = 0.995 ABV = 5.5%
Kit Harrington of Root Sellers’ advises, “Start with the freshest ingredients possible, they really show when you make ginger beer. I recommend getting a cold press masticating juicer and juice the ginger yourself.”
Ingredients
4 lbs. (1.8 kg) pure cane sugar
1 tablespoon (15 mL) molasses
½ tsp. yeast nutrient
8 oz. (226 mL) lemon or lime (juiced)
8 oz. (226 mL) ginger root (juiced)
Clean fermenting ale yeast (Champagne works well also)
1 lb. (0.45 kg) sugar to backsweeten (added to cold keg)
Step by step
Bring sugar, molasses and water to a boil for 15 minutes. At flame out add yeast nutrient. Once cooled to yeast pitching temperature, add the yeast and allow the temperature to rise naturally to the upper limit of the yeast’s range; you want a good and fast ferment. After 10 days or so, cool to near freezing to drop out as much yeast you can. Transfer the clear finished ginger beer into an empty Corny keg and add the ginger juice, lemon (or lime) juice, and sugar (dissolved in 2 cups/500 mL boiling water) to backsweeten. Mix all this very well or the dense sugar syrup will drop to the bottom. Follow the same carbonation advice as the hard root beer recipe.
Packaging hard root and ginger beers:
Once the hard root beer or hard ginger beer fermentation has run its course, the next step is back sweetening and then bottling or kegging. If kegging, which is recommended for both brews over bottling, the root or ginger beer will be force carbonated. If you’re priming with corn sugar and bottling, do not use regular beer bottles as there will be more residual sugar than a normal beer, plus refermentation in the bottle, and this will likely result in exploding glass bottles, which are very dangerous and unpredictable. Instead, use bottles with thick, reinforced glass such as 750-mL bottles that are corked with a cage. Better still, use Champagne bottles. Store in                            refrigeration.
HOW TO MAKE ROOT BEER FROM EXTRACT
Step #1 - Buy some root beer extract. Don't get that stuff on the grocery store shelves, but go to your brewing supply store. . A good source of quality root beer extract is Hop Tech (a home/micro/pub brewery supply store). They have two styles of root beer extract, both made from natural ingredients. Tat . Many homebrewing supply stores carry root beer extract, and the most ubiquitous brand is "Homebrew" brand by Rainbow Flavors.  This brand is OK,
Step #2 - Follow the instructions on the extract bottle. Generally it is something like dissolving 4 pounds of sugar into 5 gallons of boiling water, and then adding the extract. Feel free to experiment by adding/subtracting a little sugar/extract. Nor do you have to stick with plain old table sugar (sucrose, made from sugar cane and/or beets). You can use corn syrup, which may produce a cleaner taste than table sugar when it goes through the fermentation process (this is why brewers sometimes use it when making beer). You can also try fructose, which is sweeter than other sugars, and this means you can use less sugar to produce the same sweetness with fewer calories (also used by brewers). Furthermore, if calories are a factor, then you might also want to use a combination of Sweet-n-Low or asparatame (Nutrasweet, Equal) and fructose to further reduce calories - it will taste 1000% better than store bought low calorie root beer. You might also want to experiment with honey, molasses, brown sugar, or malt extract (maltose) as a sweetener and flavoring component. Water is also important, if you don't like the way your tap water taste, then use bottled water (but not distilled water).
Step #3 - Fermentation time. This article is going to assume you are going to ferment your root beer, but it is also possible to force carbonate instead. For right now though, we'll just stick to fermentation. It is the process of fermentation that puts the little bubbles, carbon dioxide, into the root beer. It is also pretty simple to accomplish. Pour your flavored sugar water into a bucket that can be covered, and then add a package of ale yeast when the liquids temperature is warm (about 75 degrees F.). Over the next 12 hours the yeast will start eating the sugar and huge amounts of carbonation and foam will result and then subside. Now it is time to bottle. But before we bottle, just a couple notes. Do NOT use champagne yeast, which is often recommended by root beer manufacturers and books written 20 years ago (I'll explain why under the bottling section). The type of yeast that you use will substantially effect the final flavor, so experiment. Liquid yeast costs a lot more, but tastes much cleaner and should probably be used if you're making a traditional root beer from natural ingredients. Hop Tech, mentioned above, has a full line of yeast - just remember to use
ale
yeast. One thing that must be followed strictly is to KEEP EVERY THING CLEAN. Bacteria can easily contaminate your root beer and make it really nasty (I am understating the importance of this - please keep everything clean). Along the same lines, don't leave your root beer exposed to air, keep it covered, or bacteria will get into it. Now, a note on tradition, fermenting root beer was how things were originally done. By 1866 (and probably much earlier), even though carbonation by fermentation was still popular, it was not uncommon to force carbonate.
Step #4 - Let's get this stuff bottled. After the initial carbonation subsides, about 12 hours, you can start bottling. If you don't have a good uniform fermentation going, you might want to consider letting it ferment another 12 hours or so, which will help ensure you have a uniform yeast population throughout the brew.  Once again, any homebrew supplier can help with bottling supplies. You will need a bottle-filler, which is much easier than a funnel, and keeps your root beer from being exposed to air. You will also need some bottles. Make sure all bottles are clean (you have to guard against bacteria). Now all you have to do is transfer the root beer to the bottles. You will need to keep an eye on the bottles.   The reason you don't want to want to use champagne yeast is that champagne yeast has been developed to live at much higher pressures than ale yeast and your root beer can continue fermenting until the bottles explode. Although this *can* also happen with ale yeast, it is very rare and the conditions have to be just right (including glass of less than the best quality). Once the pressure in your bottles gets to a certain point, the ale yeast will be killed off because it can't live in a high pressure environment.