Worst Root Beer EVER!!!!

[formergothardite]

So we were clearing some brush out from around the outside of our fence and I realized that a lot of this was sassafras. For those that don't know sassafras is what root beer was originally made out of until they found that huge quantities of it could kill rats. But I have some great childhood memories of digging up sassafras and making root beer with my grandparents along with sassafras tea. Since I have to dig this shit up it isn't like we are going to be consuming enough to hurt us, so I decide to make root beer.

 

I call my mom to see if she remembers the recipe my grandparents used, but she doesn't. So I go look online. I find recipes and realize that I don't have a bunch of the ingredients but I don't really want to drive around town trying to find them, so I continue on with what I have, which is a huge mistake. Ends up those other ingredients are important. Like really important and you just can't leave them out.

 

All I have is cinnamon sticks. sassafras roots, molasses, yeast and water. I simmer the cinnamon and sassafras for a couple of hours, strain then add molasses and then some brown sugar and make it into a syrup. I mix in water, sprinkle in some yeast and then sit it out to ferment for a while.

 

Holy shit this stuff is awful. It is so bad. I thought I was going to vomit when I tasted it. It is like a molasses soda with a little bit of a root beer taste.

 

The moral of this story is, when cooking, if you don't have most of the ingredients, wait till you actually have them to make it or it will most likely not turn out well.

 

I'm going to attempt this again when I have the rest of the stuff and perhaps cut down or completely leave out the molasses because I really hate the taste of that stuff.

[dawbs]

awesome.

Home-made good rootbeer IS awesomesauce.

(I was violently allergic to the yeast in it as a kid. I'd sneak it and then throw up all night.)

[formergothardite]

The stuff my grandparents made was soooo good. At least in my memory it was. I will figure out how to recreate it!

[dawbs]

I last had the home-made stuff in college...from a fundie friend (of course :-P)

I'll look and see if I have grandma's recipe but I'm mostly sure I don't--or at least I have't found it yet (I have 3 more 'bags' of recipes to go through)

[Ariel]

I found an alcoholic root beer that's at 19% abv. Magical. The bar I found it at also only let's you buy two glasses max

You should try that kind! :)

[DarkAnts]

I made homemade root beer once. Half the bottles exploded before I got around to drinking them. They were in new beer bottles, but there was too much CO2 production.

[micatite]

My dad tells tales of when he was a kid and his mom attempted to make homemade rootbeer. Apparently the whole family (mom, dad and 8 kids) were sitting around the supper table eating when they heard these loud banging and popping noises coming from the basement. Apparently the process reached a critical mass and POW...bottle caps blew and there was pop everywhere.