How to Make Root Beer at Home

A good foamy glass of homemade root beer.

Ever wanted to make your own root beer at home? Read on to get a step by step guide on how to brew homemade root beer in your own kitchen!

Things You'll Need

• root beer home brewing kit
• root beer extract
• cane sugar
• baker's yeast
• cold fresh water
• clean bottles
• clean bucket/barrell with lid
• dry funnel

Instructions

1. Look to get a homemade root beer brewing kit. This should include all the ingredients you need like root beer extract, yeast, etc. Make sure to get all the necessary items required to make sure you're ready to brew your first batch!

2. Be prepared to make a large batch. Most root beer extracts have instructions along the lines of: Dissolve x pounds of sugar into x gallons of boiling water. Follow these instructions exactly for the right mix.

3. The next step is fermentation. Use whatever yeast you've chosen (many suggest champagne yeast, but ale yeast is better in my experience), adding it to the sugar water AFTER the temperature goes from boiling to warm (around 75 degrees Fahrenheit). Cover the container to keep the bacteria from air.

4. Wait. Fermentation is a long process, and it will usually take a large few gallon batch about 12 hours to finish fermenting, but this is a necessary step to make root beer.

5. Once the fermentation of your homemade root beer is done, remove the cover and began bottling immediately. You can use tubes and a funnel, or if you have a bottle filler and capper, that's even better.

6. After bottling, store your homemade root beer in a fridge for cooling. Be aware that like real beer, the bottom of the batch might be silty and not nearly as appetizing as the rest.

7. That's how you make root beer at home. Now enjoy your fresh homemade root beer!

Tips & Warnings

• Ale yeast is better than champagne yeast because champagne yeast is far more likely to keep fermenting - meaning that when stored for a long time it's more likely to explode and bust the bottles.

• If the root beer isn't sweet enough for you, go ahead and add some natural sugar with the next batch, or things like honey or molasses to try to get the right taste.

• Keep everything as clean as possible

• There are methods to brew homemade root beer bottle by bottle, but I recommend waiting on this until you're good at brewing large batches.

• Root beer brewing kits may have similar, but not the same, directions. Follow these instructions exactly, or you might end up with a foul tasting mess.

Resources

• Root Beer Making Kit