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Recipe At-A-Glance

Not only is homemade root beer fun to make, but it’s also so much more flavorful than anything you can get at the store! Feel free to tweak this recipe to appeal to your tastes. We’re going to try a bit more cinnamon, vanilla, and orange zest next time.

Vegan, Gluten-Free

Ready in 72 hours

We had an absolutely amazing time at our baby shower this past weekend. My Mama and sister really out-did themselves and managed to throw a party that was totally perfect for Craig and me! We’re not fussy baby shower type folks, so we requested early on that our shower be two things (a) a co-ed shower (Craig wanted to be part of the fun, too!) and (b) totally casual.

baby j pool

Honestly, we wereย mostly just looking forward to getting together with our friends and family one last time before Baby J shows up, and that’s what we wanted the day to focus on. And it did! We had beer (well, other people did), burgers, brats, and a ton of laughs. It was so amazing to see everyone. And everyone was so sweet and generous. We’re very spoiled!

baby j banner

One of things I requested when we decided on a casual baby shower was root beer! Craig and my Dad have become master craft brewers over the past year, and packed up three of their homemade beersย for party guests to enjoy (and everyone raved about them), but I didn’t want to be left out, so I requested that we try our hand at homebrewing some root beer, too. It took a few trials, but we managed to land on a crazy delicious homemade root beer that everyone seemed to enjoy! It was so good I almost didn’t miss the real beer. Almost.

root beer

Brewing root beer at home seems complicated, but it was actually a pretty simple process. Basically, you just make a big batch of tea using roots and spices, add a sweetener and yeast, and then let it carbonate by sitting at room temperature for a few days. Admittedly, it helped that we have all the equipment from homebrewing beer, but that’s definitely not a necessity.

root beer ingredients

We loved being able to do this ourselves because we could control the amount and kind of sugar, and we could control the flavors and spices. In fact, we actually scrapped our first batch because it was too heavy on the licorice flavor. We landed on a pretty delicious final combination, but I can still see us tweaking it more in the future. I think I might add a bit more vanilla and a touch more cinnamon (to add some bite to it!) in our next batch.

root beer brew

Traditional root beer is made using the root of the sassafras tree. But back in the 60s, the FDA banned sassafras root from commercially-made root beer because of a (what I think is flawed) study that found that ridiculously high amounts of a compound from sassafrasย injected in rats caused a higher riskย of cancer (it was basically the equivalent of drinking 32-12 ounce root beers a day for an extended period of time). The irony is, the FDAย never tested it on humans, and in fact, many independent studies show that regular, but moderate, consumption of sassafras in humans actually lowers cancer risk. Humans have been consuming sassafras root tea for centuries for its health benefits, even! But that’s up for you to decide on your own.

root beer

Anywho! You’d think after a rant like that, I’d go into saying that there is sassafras root in our root beer recipe, but there isn’t any. But it’s not because of the FDAs ruling, it’s because buying sassafras root is mega expensive! And while sassafras trees grow rampant in our area, it’s best to harvest sassafras for brewing in late summer or early fallโ€”i.e. not now. Just like we learned with sugaring, when trees are budding and leafing out in spring, the sap becomes bitter. And no one wants bitter root beer!

We’ll probably tweak this recipe come summer or fall to include sassafras root from our property, but for now, we’re using an affordable mixture of spices and roots that approximate the flavor of sassafras. Bonus is, this recipe works for folks who don’t have sassafras trees growing rampant (I’m looking at you, West Coasters). And if the FDA ruling on sassafras worries you, you can make this recipe without concern.

root beer

A note about bottling: because of the high levels of sugar in root beer, it carbonates really quickly! Many home root beer brewers actually recommend you store root beer in plastic bottles because glass ones have been known to explode from the rapid carbonation. Quite frankly, we don’t store any of our food in plastic, and we weren’t about to start with our homemade root beer, so we chanced it and bottled it in regular ole beer bottles with regular caps. To prevent a mess, while the bottles were carbonating, we wrapped each one in bubble wrap, and put them in a large cooler. That way, if one went off, it hopefully wouldn’t cause a chain reaction. And at the very least, it would keep the mess contained. But, thankfully, we didn’t have any issues.

root beer

Some folks also use flip-top style bottlesย (they help release a touch of the pressure) or even canning jars with the lids not 100% tightened. We just liked living on the edge by using regular bottles. We also checked our bottles every 12 hours after brewing for carbonation. Once it hit the sweet spot (it took about 48 hours in our 70ยฐ house), we popped the bottles in the fridge to slow the carbonation process down and prevent them from getting overcarbonated.

Homemade Root Beer

Homemade Root Beer

Yield: 16 12-ounce bottles
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 45 minutes
Additional Time: 3 days 1 hour
Total Time: 3 days 1 hour 50 minutes

Not only is homemade root beer fun to make, but it's also so much more flavorful than anything you can get at the store! Feel free to tweak this recipe to appeal to your tastes. We're going to try a bit more cinnamon, vanilla, and orange zest next time.

Ingredients

  • 7 quarts filtered water, divided
  • 1/2 teaspoon brewer's yeast
  • 4 tablespoons licorice root (you can buy licorice root tea bags and open them up)
  • 8 star anise pods, crushed
  • 12 whole cloves, crushed
  • 4 cinnamon sticks, broken in half
  • 4 vanilla beans, sliced in half lengthwise
  • 1 teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg
  • 20 allspice, crushed
  • Zest of one orange (or 1/4 cup lime or lemon juice)
  • 2 tablespoons wintergreen leaves
  • 3/4 cup molasses
  • 1 3/4 cup packed brown sugar

Instructions

  1. Take 1/2 cup of the water and heat in a small saucepan until boiling. Remove from heat and let cool until around 80°. Stir in the yeast and set aside to allow to bloom.
  2. In a large stock pot, combine the licorice root, star anise, cloves, cinnamon, vanilla beans, nutmeg, allspice, orange zest, wintergreen leaves and water. Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes.
  3. Stir in the molasses and brown sugar until dissolved. Continue to cook for another 15 minutes. Remove mixture from heat, cover, and let steep and cool for at least an hour, or until the temperature reaches around 80°.
  4. Strain the mixture over cheesecloth, and discard the roots and herbs. Stir the yeast mixture in to the root beer mixture. Transfer to bottles, and allow to carbonate at room temperature for 36-72 hours, or until the desired carbonation is reached (check every 12 hours). We like to keep the bottles in a closed cooler just in case one of them gets a little too overzealous with carbonating and explodes.
  5. Once the root beer is carbonated enough, transfer to the fridge to chill and slow carbonation.
Nutrition Information:
Yield: 16 Serving Size: 12 ounces
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 148Total Fat: 0gSaturated Fat: 0gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 0gCholesterol: 0mgSodium: 41mgCarbohydrates: 38gFiber: 1gSugar: 33gProtein: 0g

At Wholefully, we believe that good nutrition is about much more than just the numbers on the nutrition facts panel. Please use the above information as only a small part of what helps you decide what foods are nourishing for you.

ย Have you ever made your own homemade soft drinks?

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37 Comments

    1. Hola Marco! We’ve never made root beer in a beer barrel or served it that way so we’re not sure. Lo siento! Si lo pruebas, por favor cuรฉntanos cรณmo te va!

  1. Would love to try this recipe. Think it would be so cool to give out as Gifts. How do you check the carbonation.

    Thank you,

    Sheryl

    1. We’ve been using flip-top bottles to brew more recently, which makes it easier to pop open and see how carbonated it is. ๐Ÿ™‚

  2. This works when I brew and bottle ciders and beer. The reason bottles are exploding is pressure in the bottle. But if you cap glass bottles really good and one plastic you can monitor the pressure with the plastic bottle. When the plastic bottle feels hard like a new soda, you know the glass bottles are ready. Then heat a pot of water to 180 degrees, turn off the burner (this is crucial) , place the glass bottles in the liquid for 10 minute it will kill off the yeast leavening the desired carbonation and create a shelf stable item and no explorations.

    I havenโ€™t tried it with soda but I think it will work. Canโ€™t wait to try this.

  3. I am gluten free, and the brewerโ€™s yeast I see has gluten. Can I leave it out or substitute something?