Soda Makin’

 

Making home made sodas with fresh ingredients and not with flavored extracts is relatively easy and is great activity to do with family and friends.  It is wonderful to see the connection between the ingredients you use and the flavors they produce.  You also have the ability to tailor the flavors to your own taste buds, find the amount of honey you like to sweeten with, and even come up with your own ideas about what would taste good as a beverage and substitute your own ideas for the recipes listed below.  It is a wonderful thing to dig up actual burdock, yellow dock and dandelion roots for your root beer and then combine them with the famous flavors of dried sarsaparilla and sassafras we associate with root beer.  A great resource to get further ideas from is a book called Homemade Root Beer, Soda, and Pop by Stephen Cresswell put out by Storey Books out of Pownal, Vermont.

The general process to make 1 gallon batches of soda goes like this:  simmer your ingredients in two quarts of water for twenty minutes to a half hour.  Let the ingredients steep for another 20 min to ½ hour.  Strain the ingredients off and let themcool to room temperature.  At this point, you have two different choices as far as getting your soda carbonated.  One way is to use yeast to create carbonation in a sealed bottle.  This is the technique I prefer, but is not without a word of caution.  The bottles will be under pressure and can explode.  There are ways listed later on to ensure this does not happen.  The other way is to simply save your two quarts of soda concentrate in the fridge in a tightly sealed container and then when you want to serve the beverage to your guests, simply add two quarts of chilled seltzer water for a bubbly refreshing drink.  Please see both ways of carbonating at the end of the recipes to see which one is for you.

There also follows the soda making portion of this document a section on beverages that are somewhat beyond the sweetness we associate with soda.  In our culture sour and tart or bitter flavors are often considered undesirable and sweet or salty flavors are good.  I feel our taste buds have been trained by the mass food market to only choose sweet or salty flavors.   Bitter, tart, and sour flavors can be a wonderful adventure and often these beverages have significant health benefits.  

 

Equipment needed for making soda:

A pot capable of holding more than two quarts

Funnel

Cheese cloth for straining out ingredients

1 Gallon jar or another pot

Ladle

Granulated bread, wine, or beer yeast, (or 2 quarts seltzer water)

Bottles and caps

 

Ginger Hibiscus Ale

1 ½ Cups fresh grated ginger root

1 ½ Cups honey

¼  Cup dried hibiscus flowers

1 Gallon water

Juice of 1 lemon and 1 lime

-Bring 2 quarts of water to a boil and add the ginger root and let simmer for 20 minutes to a half hour. 

-Take off heat and add the honey and lemon and lime juice. 

-Cover and let sit for a half hour to half a day.

-If you are not planning to bottle carbonate your soda, simply strain off your ingredients and put themin your fridge until you are ready to serve your soda.  Add two quarts of chilled seltzer water just before you drink it to make the batch fizzy and refreshing. 

-If you are planning to bottle carbonate, take 2 quarts of cool water and put into a gallon jug. 

- Strain the soda concentrate off through a cheese cloth or a fine strainer into the jug.  If the soda concentrate is still hot, be sure to have the cool water in the jug before you pour the soda concentrate to prevent heat shock from cracking the jug.

-Cover and let the soda cool to room temperature. 

-See bottling instructions

 

Root Beer Tonic with Fresh Roots

Root beer is a traditional spring tonic used to rejuvenate the systemafter a winter of eating a sluggish diet heavy with slated foods.  The roots used are all known by herbalists for their blood purifying and liver supporting properties.  The roots would be dug in early spring while the energy of the plant is concentrated in the root and has not yet left to produce new leaf growth for the coming summer.  There are two variations to this recipe, one with some fresh roots and dried ingredients, and one with using all dried ingredients.  Sarsaparilla and sassafras are two main roots used in root beer that do not grow here in Vermontso you must buy these dried. 

  When using fresh roots, it seems as though it is more difficult to control a consistent flavor for your soda.  Flavor intensity varies from year to year so your measurements for one year that turned out good might be overpowering the following year.  This is a trait I prefer.  The flavor of this root beer is earthy and unique.  Solely using dried ingredients will give a more consistent taste.  I dig my roots in the late fall or early spring, other wise I’ll use the dried ingredients.  If you do dig your own roots, you must be able to accurately identify them beyond a doubt before using them.  In terms of use in a tonic, the yellow dock you want is the rumex crispus variety, not the rumex obtusifolius broad leaf dock.  The two can look pretty similar, especially when they are young.  

-Add the dried roots and vanilla bean and simmer for 20 minutes. 

minutes.  If you let it steep much beyond 20 minutes the roots will tend to impart an over powering bitterness. 

-If you are not planning to bottle carbonate your soda, simply strain off your ingredients and put themin your fridge until you are ready to serve your soda.  Add two quarts of chilled seltzer water just before you drink it to make the batch fizzy and refreshing. 

 

Mint Lime Cooler

This is a recipe from Stephen Crosswell’s book Homemade Root Beer, Soda and Pop, except I’ve substituted honey for the sugar.

-5 springs of mint or spearmint

-Juice of 5 limes, more if they are on the dry side

-Juice of 1 lemon

-1 gallon of water

-1 ½ cups of honey

-Bring two quarts of water to a boil and remove from heat.  Put the mint sprigs in the pot, cover and steep for 1 hour or longer. 

-Strain off the sprigs and gather the mint tea into a jug. 

-Juice the lemons and lime and add to the mint tea along with the honey.

-If you are not planning to bottle carbonate your soda, simply strain off your ingredients and put themin your fridge until you are ready to serve your soda.  Add two quarts of chilled seltzer water just before you drink it to make the batch fizzy and refreshing. 

-If you are bottle carbonating, add two quarts of water to the mint, lemon and lime and honey concentrate. 

-See bottling instructions

 

Rhubarb Bliss

CAUTION! Your bottles will be under pressure and can explode!  Bottling soda is different than bottling up home made beer.  It will be helpful to understand a little of yeast fermentation and beer making.  With beer, all of the fermentable sugars are consumed by the yeast during a fermentation period ranging from 7-14 days.  The yeast creates waste in the form of ethanol alcohol and carbon dioxide gas.  During the fermentation process of beer making the carbon dioxide escapes through an air lock.  At bottling time there is no more sugar available for the yeast to feed on.  If you were to bottle up the beer at this point, you would have flat beer.  The home brewer at this point adds a small measured amount of an additional sugar source.  The beer is bottled and capped at this point and the yeast consumes the fresh supply of food. But because the new sugar source is very limited, the yeast quickly runs out of food and creates the desired amount of carbonation in the bottle by the trapped carbon dioxide gas. 

Things are a little different with soda because the point is to not create an alcoholic beverage.  Technically speaking, you cannot have yeast produce the carbon dioxide required for carbonation without also making the alcohol by product as well.  If you carbonate these sodas in the bottle, they technically do have a small amount of alcohol produced.  The amount is highly negligible.  Listed below is a way to get a carbonation sparkle to your sodas without this method.  The term soft drink came into use when beverage companies developed the technology to pump carbon dioxide into the bottle and thus, not have to bottle condition their soda carbonation.   Instead of being used up in a period of 7 to 14 days as in beer brewing, your initial sugar source with soda, in this case honey, is never used up before bottling.    Therefore, a substantial amount of food supply for the yeast still exists in the capped bottle.  The carbon dioxide in the case of soda making is not a measured amount as in bottling up beer so the pressure created will explode the bottle over time if the yeast is not inhibited.  The yeasts used in beer, wine and bread making do not operate well in cold temperatures.  Once you bottled up your soda, it is important to pay attention to it over the course of the next few 1-3 days.  The time it takes to develop carbonation will depend on seasonal temperatures; figure on about a day in the summer and up to three days if you make your soda in the winter.  There is a reliable way to test your carbonation.  Whether you bottle up in glass or plastic bottles, always for each batch you do use at least one plastic bottle as a test bottle.  I use a regular plastic soda bottle with a screw cap.  Once you fill your bottles, at least twice a day give this one a squeeze.  After filling and screwing the cap on you will notice the plastic bottle is very pliable.  Compare it with an unopened store bought soda which is rigid and firm the a squeeze.  You will notice over the course of 1 to 3 days that as the yeast consume the honey the carbon dioxide gas creates pressure in the bottle as carbonation increases.   When your plastic test bottle is as tight to the squeeze as the store bought soda, put all your bottles into the refrigerator.  Once inside they are safe for a period of I’d say around 6 weeks.  The yeast will be shocked and become inactive for a period of time.  I’ve actually never had soda stick around that long—one of the benefits of working in small batches. 

 

Carbonating with seltzer water method

 

If creating carbonation inside the bottle frightens you or you would rather be sure absolutely not even a small amount of alcohol is present there is a simple answer.  After you have strained off the ingredients, you now have an intense concentration of soda flavor.  Put this into a jar and stick it in the fridge.  When you want to serve it as soda, add 2 quarts of seltzer water to your concentrate and voila!  Carbonation!

 

Carbonating with yeast in the bottle method

 

If you do want to carbonate in the bottle, one gallon batch of soda will yield eleven-- 12 fl.oz. bottles.   I like to use 4 22oz. glass bottles and one plastic liter bottle for each batch. You can use old glass beer bottles or plastic bottles.  Basically anything that came with a carbonated beverage in it.  Be sure to use at least one plastic test bottle if you decide to use glass bottles!  The glass bottles will need to have a pop off cap rather than a screw top, unless it is a ½ gallon growler.  Those screw tops are trust worthy.  You will also need to purchase a capper and caps from a local homebrew supply store.  If using plastic, you can simply reuse the screw caps. 

With a funnel and ladle, fill your bottles to within 1 ½ inches from the top of the bottle. Once all your bottles are filled, take your granulated bread, wine or beer yeast and literally add approximately a dozen yeast granules to each bottle.  I do this by taking a teaspoon and loading it about ½ full, holding the spoon above the bottle and tapping the spoon with my other finger to just let a small amount fall into the bottle.  For a one gallon batch using this method I do not use the entire ½ teaspoon.  The amount of yeast you need to add to carbonate is astonishingly small.

 

The sour thirst quenching beverages

 

      Beverages that hit the spot on a hot summer day need not be sweet to cool your taste buds.  Beet kvass and Kombucha tea are some wonderful drinks that are sour and quite unique.  These beverages are slightly alcoholic and have their roots in Eurasia.  The alcohol level is quite low as a result of both yeast and bacteria competing for the sugar source of the beverage.  The yeast produces alcohol as they metabolize the sugar and the bacteria are responsible for the sour and vinegary flavors.  Lactobacilli bacteria are everywhere and appear on the scene to produce lactic acid and give these drinks their characteristic tang as well as the health benefits to the digestive tract. A wonderful resource I highly recommend if these drinks appeal to you is Sandor Katz’s Wild Fermentation.  He wonderfully elaborates on the amazing world of microbes and our reliance upon them for our health and well being. 

 

Beet Kvass

The base of this recipe is from Sandor Katz’s book, and I simply add beets to give a great beety character to the beverage.

-1 loaf of dense European style bread.  I like to use rye breads or dark breads.

- 3 TBLS dried mint

-Juice of 1 lemon

-1/4 tsp salt

       - ¼ cup refreshed sourdough starter (or 1 package of yeast)

      - Some raisins

            -1 gallon of water

            -1/4 cup honey

            -1 medium to large beet

       -Cut up bread into cubes as if you were making a stuffing.  Toast for 20 minutes in an oven at 300 degrees Fahrenheit.

            -While waiting for the bread, bring 1 gallon of water to a boil. 

            - When bread is dry, add to a large pot and pour the boiling water over the bread. 

            -Add the mint and lemon juice and cover and let the concoction sit out overnight. 

            - Add all ingredients together and mix well. Let it sit over night and drink cold.  For fizzy variation, try substituting water with seltzer water.