Brewing Root Beer

Recently, I purchased a Root Beer brewing kit called Mr. Root Beer. I got it at a small brewing supply shop in IN, but they can also be purchased from the website for the same price, $25. I bought it because it seemed like a simple way to try my hand at brewing something, a hobby my husband and I would both like to try. The company that makes them also promotes them as an activity for children and families to try. My husband was interested enough that he was happy to take some time from his Nintendo Wii to give it a try. So it's got a "man factor" as well.

When I got home and found this tutorial online, I thought that perhaps I'd wasted my money when I could have done the same thing much less expensively. But I couldn't change that, so I opened up my kit and read through the directions. The kit has in it enough supplies to make two gallons of root beer and the bottles are plastic, but look like old fashioned glass ones. They have covers that include a rubber gasket with a slit in it so they won't explode. Both the bottles and the lids are reusable.

The directions were very clear, and I think older children would have an easy time understanding and following them. They would most likely need help with all the pouring back and forth of the ingredients that is involved, and with filling the bottles. I think for children, the kit would probably be much more fun than making root beer the more inexpensive way, since the box and the directions are geared toward them.

I don't know yet what the finished product tastes like, because you have to wait approximately a week after it's bottled for the carbonation to build up. We did taste the leftover drops of mix, however, and the flavor of that was awesome. Creamy and very root beer-y, we're pretty sure that if all goes well, this will be excellent root beer.

All in all, I do think this is a really good kit. It included absolutely everything you need, except for the gallon jug, water, sugar, and measuring spoons. I think the bottles are really cool looking, and the pressure release valve does provide a little piece of mind when you imagine what cleaning up an area in which root beer exploded might be like. The instructions were clear and fairly well written, and provided information about the science involved in making root beer. There are also a couple of other experiments outlined, like filling up a balloon by mixing vinegar and baking soda, that kids would really find fun.