31
Dec
Chop the sassafras and burdock roots into small pieces about 12 inch or smaller. Add the kombucha mix thoroughly and pour gently into sealable bottles leaving about two inches of room at the top.
Clean out the bottles with warm soapy water and allow them to air dry before pouring the root beer in them.
How to make root beer with sassafras. Place the root and vanilla in 2 quarts of water and simmer uncovered for about 25 minutes adding the sugar near the end. The water should take on a pronounced red or dark orange color and the room should be filled with a strong sassafras aroma. If color and aroma are weak add more root.
Remove from heat and let cool for 30 minutes. 00 Hour 10 Min. Makes about 2 12 quarts.
It consists of sugar yeast water and flavorings of choice left to ferment for natural fizziness. And though the FDA has eliminated sassafras from commercial use its apparent that plenty of people still reach for sassafras to get the authentic traditional root beer flavor they crave in what they make at home. 2 pounds of sugar or honey.
3 pounds of water. This and the fact that several other still legal foods like the aforementioned nutmeg also contain safrole makes the ban seem less science based and more the result of fear. So modern root beer is flavoured most often with artificial sassafras though sometimes with safrole-free sassafras too.
More important than checking the safrole content of your beverage though might be checking the alcohol content. Traditional root beer was usually alcoholic whereas modern root beer. Pour distilled water into a 5-gallon stainless steel pot.
Then add the mixture of herbs and roots including sassafras sarsaparilla mint wintergreen leaves cinnamon cloves star anise licorice ginger nutmeg and vanilla beans. Bring the pot to a boil at high heat for about 30 minutes. Pour the root beer into clean dry 1 litre 34 fl oz soda bottles.
Use a funnel when adding the root beer to the bottles to avoid spilling. Fill the bottles to 2 inches 51 cm below the cap to allow for a pocket for the carbonation. Clean out the bottles with warm soapy water and allow them to air dry before pouring the root beer in them.
Add the kombucha mix thoroughly and pour gently into sealable bottles leaving about two inches of room at the top. Let the bottles ferment for two to three days depending on temperature then transfer to the fridge and let them sit for another three. My recipe is heavy on the sassafras roots plus some burdock root molasses for color one clove a star anise some coriander seed and one drop of wintergreen extract.
It really does taste like store-bought root beer. Maybe not the root beer you get in a can now but then that no longer has any real sassafras. Root beer was first sold in 1876 as a dry extract.
Customers would mix the package of roots spices and herbs up with sugar yeast and water to make the fermented drink. In 1880 Hires then decided to sell it brewed as a concentrated syrup. It wasnt until 1893 that he brewed and bottled root beer and sold it as a ready-to-drink product.
Chop the sassafras and burdock roots into small pieces about 12 inch or smaller. Put the roots in a medium-sized heavy pot with the clove star anise and coriander seeds and cover with the water. Cover the pot and bring it to a boil.
Simmer this for 15 minutes. In a large saucepan combine water sassafras coriander star anise and clove. Set pot over high heat and bring to a boil then drop heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes.
Add molasses stir to combine and simmer for 5 more minutes. Remove saucepan from heat add mint leaves cover pot with a tight-fitting lid and let cool. Traditionally brewers made the drink by fermenting an herbal decoction made with sassafras bark sarsaparilla root and other herbs with sugar and yeast to make a naturally bubbly probiotic soft drink.
In the 20th century the traditional herbal recipe fell from favor and soft drink manufacturers began making it with artificial flavors. With sassafras tea popular for so many centuries it is easy to see how fermentation of the tea into root beer came to pass with the simple addition of sugar and a probiotic starter. With the Industrial Revolution so came the artificialization of root beer starting with the pharmacist Charles Hires.
Sassafras This is the flavor traditionally associated with root beer. Go easy on the sassafras if you are using other roots for flavor a little too much can overwhelm everything else. A piece of root about 20 inches long and the thickness of a pencil is a good start per gallon maybe less if.
All commercially produced root beer contains artificial flavoring because sassafras the herb that gives root beer its characteristic flavor was banned as an ingredient in any commercial beverage after scientists discovered the active ingredient in sassafras safrole made lab rats more prone to cancer when they were fed very large amount of.