# Third time's the charm - Root Beer mead



## Ty520 (Mar 15, 2021)

After 3 attempts, I'm finally happy with my Root Beer mead recipe. the rich, bold color was also a pleasant surprise, as well.

Definitely going to make this one again - almost like drinking a hard soda (but not quite as sweet)


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## dmw_chef (Mar 15, 2021)

I mean, you can't just not supply your ingredients and process.


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## Ty520 (Mar 15, 2021)

Oh, I suppose... ;-)

Batch size: 1 gallon

*Ingredients:*

36 oz Orange Blossom honey
16 oz Avocado honey
12 oz brown sugar
1 gallon water
D47 yeast
12 tbs sarsparilla root
3 tbs birch bark
0.75 tbs wintergreen
3 tsp ginger root
3 tsp licorice root
1 clove
½ cinnamon stick
½ star anise
2 vanilla beans
0.5 ounces med toast american oak
Go-ferm
Fermaid O
0.25 tsp potassium sorbate
0.25 tsp potassium metabisulfite

*Method:*

Bring water (minus 4 oz for yeast rehydration) to a simmer. Add spices (sans vanilla) in a brew sock and simmer for 20 minutes, then remove from heat and steep for 1 hour.
Rehydrate yeast w/ go ferm and pitch per instructions.
Add tea, honey and brown sugar to primary vessel. Stir vigorously to dissolve honey and sugar and oxygenate.
Pitch yeast once must has reached acceptable temperatures
Degas twice daily for 5 days
Add fermaid o per tosna protocol
Rack at 2 months
Add K sorbate and K meta to stabilize
Add vanilla beans, split lengthwise
Rack at 4 months, pull vanilla, add oak
Pull oak at 5 months
Rack again at 7 months
Bottle at 10 months


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## BernardSmith (Mar 16, 2021)

Wow! THAT is a high gravity must: the sugar will add 30 points of gravity and the honey has about 35 points per lb and 52 oz is 3.25 lbs ) so this starts at 1.144 . That is about 18-19% ABV - although I suspect that the D47 will give up the ghost before all the sugar is converted - so perhaps a final gravity of about 25 -30 points of sweetness and so a "beer" of about 15% ABV


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## Ty520 (Mar 16, 2021)

BernardSmith said:


> Wow! THAT is a high gravity must: the sugar will add 30 points of gravity and the honey has about 35 points per lb and 52 oz is 3.25 lbs ) so this starts at 1.144 . That is about 18-19% ABV - although I suspect that the D47 will give up the ghost before all the sugar is converted - so perhaps a final gravity of about 25 -30 points of sweetness and so a "beer" of about 15% ABV



yes - however i found that the bittering agents are also very potent and require the sweetness for balance. My first experimental micro batch was very dry at 0.99, and it just tasted like a muddy vegetal mess - like licking the bottom of a lawnmower - the spices just blurred together, and the ingredients were undiscernible; the second run came in at 1010, but also unpleasantly vegetal and bitter. I find that sweetness is essential to lifting up herbs and spices and actually making them distinctive.

In the end, I actually just made very basic modifications to my grandfather's traditional root beer soda recipe and reverse calc'd the sugars so that the FG would be almost equivalent, but a bit drier ( say, like Barq's rather than A&W)


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## franc1969 (Mar 16, 2021)

So what is your final gravity? and not sparkling or carbonated, correct?


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## Ty520 (Mar 16, 2021)

franc1969 said:


> So what is your final gravity? and not sparkling or carbonated, correct?



It is not carbonated/sparkling (but i would force carbonate next time)

It clocked in at 1030 FG, 16.5% abv.


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## Ty520 (Mar 16, 2021)

BernardSmith said:


> Wow! THAT is a high gravity must: the sugar will add 30 points of gravity and the honey has about 35 points per lb and 52 oz is 3.25 lbs ) so this starts at 1.144 . That is about 18-19% ABV - although I suspect that the D47 will give up the ghost before all the sugar is converted - so perhaps a final gravity of about 25 -30 points of sweetness and so a "beer" of about 15% ABV



the sugar is actually 47 points per pound, so the OG was 1.152 ish if i recall - I was definitely pushing close to boundaries. The yeast gave up at 16.5% abv w/ an FG of 1030


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## BernardSmith (Mar 17, 2021)

I stand corrected - although I meant to write 40 points per pound from the sugar. Forty-seven is more than I imagined.


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## Ty520 (Mar 17, 2021)

BernardSmith said:


> I stand corrected - although I meant to write 40 points per pound from the sugar. Forty-seven is more than I imagined.



An easy general rule of thumb is to take the sugar content as a percentage, then divide by half to get the gravity points per pound per gallon ( you do have to accommodate for non fermentables and impurities which will knock it down a couple points though). Brown sugar is only 94% pure because of the molasses. So 94/2 = 47.


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## dmw_chef (Mar 18, 2021)

This calculator makes it easy to calculate gravity for multi sugar musts:



http://meadcalc.freevar.com/


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## papabearRN (Feb 12, 2022)

Was the Ginger root fresh or dried?


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## Ty520 (Feb 12, 2022)

Dried


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## papabearRN (Feb 13, 2022)

Thank you!


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## Jim Welch (Feb 13, 2022)

@Ty520 How much of the honey flavor comes through? I made a mead with coffee clossom honey based on your coffee lactose mead recipe and still have quite a bit of that. Do you think the coffee blossom honey would work here? Also, what was the must temperature range during fermentation?


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## hounddawg (Feb 16, 2022)

Ty520 said:


> Oh, I suppose... ;-)
> 
> Batch size: 1 gallon
> 
> ...


nice, i make sa


Ty520 said:


> Oh, I suppose... ;-)
> 
> Batch size: 1 gallon
> 
> ...


i make sasperrilia tea/soda most years , seen many a recipe, but yours looks awfully good
Dawg ,


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## Ty520 (Feb 18, 2022)

Jim Welch said:


> @Ty520 How much of the honey flavor comes through? I made a mead with coffee clossom honey based on your coffee lactose mead recipe and still have quite a bit of that. Do you think the coffee blossom honey would work here? Also, what was the must temperature range during fermentation?



Yes I think the coffee blossom honey would work well. 

It would have been about 72 degrees


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## Jim Welch (Feb 20, 2022)

Ty520 said:


> Yes I think the coffee blossom honey would work well.
> 
> It would have been about 72 degrees


Thanks for that. Where did you source the sasparilla root, birch bark, wintergreen, dried ginger root, and licorice root? I've looked and it seems there are multiple species of plants going by at least some these common names and I want to make sure I get the right type. Would like to find a one stop shop to buy all of these at if possible. The rest of the spice ingredients I either have or can get locally.
Thanks in advance.


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## Ty520 (Feb 20, 2022)

Jim Welch said:


> Thanks for that. Where did you source the sasparilla root, birch bark, wintergreen, dried ginger root, and licorice root? I've looked and it seems there are multiple species of plants going by at least some these common names and I want to make sure I get the right type. Would like to find a one stop shop to buy all of these at if possible. The rest of the spice ingredients I either have or can get locally.
> Thanks in advance.



I got all the ingredients at Mountain Rose Herbs. Many come in various sizes ranging from ground powder to large whole pieces - make sure to get the smaller pieces, but not ground.


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## Jim Welch (Feb 24, 2022)

@Ty520 Thank you


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## papabearRN (Mar 2, 2022)

Two more clarifications, if you don't mind. First, light or dark brown sugar? And second, how long were the cinnamon sticks to start? I have 4" and 8" sticks. 
thanks 
Dennis


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## Ty520 (Mar 2, 2022)

papabearRN said:


> Two more clarifications, if you don't mind. First, light or dark brown sugar? And second, how long were the cinnamon sticks to start? I have 4" and 8" sticks.
> thanks
> Dennis



I used dark brown; i would go with at least medium.

i cut my cinnamon stick to 1 ounce


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## papabearRN (Mar 2, 2022)

Thanks! I'll let you know how it turned out!


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## David Violante (Mar 24, 2022)

I just about have all the ingredients to try this myself~ very much looking forward to trying it out!


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## David Violante (Mar 25, 2022)

So I have everything but wanted to clarify the wintergreen~ I picked up wintergreen oil, and then was thinking, hmmm… was that supposed to be wintergreen dried leaves? Thank you @Ty520 for the recipe! @papabearRN how did yours turn out?


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## Ty520 (Mar 25, 2022)

David Violante said:


> So I have everything but wanted to clarify the wintergreen~ I picked up wintergreen oil, and then was thinking, hmmm… was that supposed to be wintergreen dried leaves? Thank you @Ty520 for the recipe! @papabearRN how did yours turn out?



Yes it should be dried leaves


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## David Violante (Mar 25, 2022)

Great thank you much!


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## papabearRN (Mar 26, 2022)

David Violante said:


> So I have everything but wanted to clarify the wintergreen~ I picked up wintergreen oil, and then was thinking, hmmm… was that supposed to be wintergreen dried leaves? Thank you @Ty520 for the recipe! @papabearRN how did yours turn out?


I haven't started it yet. I have the ingredients, waiting on a stockpot. I didn't want to steep in batches. I'm making what will be 6+ gallons. I'll let you know!!


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## David Violante (Mar 26, 2022)

Ahh fantastic! I just found a (much closer to home) place that has all the herbal ingredients. No idea what I was thinking with the wintergreen oil


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## papabearRN (Mar 26, 2022)

David Violante said:


> Ahh fantastic! I just found a (much closer to home) place that has all the herbal ingredients. No idea what I was thinking with the wintergreen oil


I don't know why you couldn't use oils if you could control the strength. Citrus zest is mainly oil, but not as concentrated. I have used lemon and orange oils when back sweetening, with success. I don't think the root beer would be a good one to start with though.


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## David Violante (Mar 26, 2022)

Yeah… I would rather follow TY’s recipe exactly at least this time around. I also think that the oil would have a different reaction in the fermentation than steeped leaves. The herbal store I found is in PA and has everything. Wish I had found them sooner, I had to order from a few different places to get the supplies. I’m looking forward to hearing how yours turns out!


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## Ty520 (Mar 26, 2022)

David Violante said:


> Yeah… I would rather follow TY’s recipe exactly at least this time around. I also think that the oil would have a different reaction in the fermentation than steeped leaves. The herbal store I found is in PA and has everything. Wish I had found them sooner, I had to order from a few different places to get the supplies. I’m looking forward to hearing how yours turns out!



Oils would need to be added in secondary. IMHO, once you start dabbling in oils,I feel it's close to cheating. May as well just get root beer extract and call it a day. Also, getting all of the essential oils would probably be quite expensive.

The first root beer mead I ever had was made with extract and it tasted very artificial.


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## David Violante (Mar 27, 2022)

I honestly just don’t know what I was thinking when I bought it. It hadn’t occurred to me until on the way home that it had to come from somewhere and that somewhere was actual wintergreen leaves...  Vapor lock… LOL

I do think the taste will be different when and how you add something, and in what form. Part of the art. I’m really looking forward to making this one, thank you again for the recipe.


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## Ty520 (Mar 27, 2022)

Honestly, you could probably just forgo the wintergreen. Many of the other ingredients have similar qualities


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## David Violante (Mar 27, 2022)

It’s coming early this week, I should be starting by the weekend. The fermenter should be open by then~ I’ll post some pics as it goes on~


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## Ty520 (Apr 24, 2022)

David Violante said:


> It’s coming early this week, I should be starting by the weekend. The fermenter should be open by then~ I’ll post some pics as it goes on~



Howd it turn out?


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## David Violante (Apr 25, 2022)

My son and I had a great time making it~ the house smelled so amazing when we were simmering the ingredients making the tea portion. At one point they got a little too hot I think, but we tried to keep it to a low simmer. The fermentation went quite well, and that part smelled great too. The OG was quite high at 1.130 and it fermented down to 1.002. I did use GoFerm and step fed with Fermaid O and K. The color is marvelous and it smells wonderful. I didn't have access to Avocado Honey so it is all raw wildflower. I used a darker honey not the traditional light amber color. It has really settled and I'm tempted to rack it and add the vanilla but your recipe says to wait for 2 months. I'll get my head into something else. My first early impression is to add a little more sarsaparilla, but it has to do it's thing and I need to wait until the end... boy is that tough to do!


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## Ty520 (Apr 25, 2022)

Good to hear. It looks like it has flocculated well. You could Probably go ahead and rack now 

There is ample room to play with the tea mixture to suit your taste. It wasn't until the third iteration that I found the one I liked best.


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## David Violante (Apr 25, 2022)

I was actually wondering about using some in the secondary, much like we do with oak.


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## Ty520 (Apr 25, 2022)

David Violante said:


> I was actually wondering about using some in the secondary, much like we do with oak.



I have aged on birch before, but not sarsaparilla root, but I assume it should work. Would be a good experiment to see how quickly it works. Let us know if you try it and how it comes out.

One thing I noted about this mead though is that the profile begins to noticeably lose flavor and aroma shortly after a year - probably best to drink 8-12 months...even at 6, i found it tasty


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## David Violante (Apr 25, 2022)

Ok that’s good to know. I’ll try a split and add some sarsaparilla to one and see the difference. I’m thinking it’s not going to last anywhere beyond 6-8 months…


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## papabearRN (Aug 28, 2022)

Ty520 said:


> I used dark brown; i would go with at least medium.
> 
> i cut my cinnamon stick to 1 ounce


It's finally finished and bottles. Came in at 16%. Mild, not overpowering flavor. Thanks again for all the help.


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