How to Make Homemade Soft Drinks
Before the days of giant soft drink conglomerates, people made soft drinks at home. Sarsaparilla, root beer and ginger beer filled shelves in root cellars or basements of homes, to be enjoyed on hot summer days. You can make your own soft drinks today with a few flavorings, sugar and yeast. Purchase commercial flavorings or make your soda with natural ingredients such as fruit juice and spices. You can control the ingredients and flavors. Does this Spark an idea?
Other People Are Reading
Things You'll Need
- Water
- Sugar
- Flavorings or juice
- Brewer's yeast
- Glass bowl or pitcher
- Wooden spoon
- Funnel
- Glass bottles
- Bottle caps
- Bottle capper
Instructions
-
-
1
Combine 1 cup sugar and 1/4 teaspoon yeast. Add two quarts liquid---water, or half water, half juice. Stir in one teaspoon flavoring, such as root beer extract, lemon syrup or ginger syrup. Stir the mixture with a wooden spoon for several minutes to dissolve the yeast and sugar.
-
2
Pour the mixture into clean glass bottles, using the funnel. Leave at least 1 inch of space at the top of each bottle.
-
-
3
Cap the bottles with metal bottle caps, using the bottle capper.
-
4
Store the bottles at room temperature for two to three days. At the end of this time, move the bottles to a refrigerator to stop the fermentation process.
-
1
Tips & Warnings
Experiment with ginger, cinnamon or other flavorings to achieve the taste you like.
The yeast needs sugar to ferment, so you can't make this with artificial sweeteners. You can cut the amount of sugar in half and add an artificial sweetener to make up the difference if you like.
Purchase brewer's yeast at a home brew supply store. You can use bread yeast, but it makes the soda taste different.
Use heavy glass bottles made for soda or beer. You can also use clean wine or champagne bottles. Clean and sterilize the bottles before use by boiling them or running them through a sanitizing cycle in the dishwasher.
Fermentation causes carbonization, which gives drinks their characteristic fizziness, but this also creates pressure in the bottles, which can cause the bottles to explode. Using too much yeast or sugar increases the possibility of explosion, so measure ingredients carefully.
Don't store the bottles in a warm place, as this will speed fermentation and increase your risk of explosion.
Put bottles of new soda inside a large cooler during the initial fermentation. If a bottle explodes or cracks, it will make less of a mess and be easier to clean up.
Open bottles over the sink, as they can spew when the pressure is suddenly released.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit glass of soda image by Kalani from Fotolia.com
