Root beer carbing without alcohol?

[BrutalBrew]

My wife asked me if we can make root beer for the kids. I dont have a kegging system. Is it possible to do this without force carbing. Can you use yeast without producing alcohol? Is it exspensive to do rootbeer?

 

[Yooper]

My wife asked me if we can make root beer for the kids. I dont have a kegging system. Is it possible to do this without force carbing. Can you use yeast without producing alcohol? Is it exspensive to do rootbeer?

You can use yeast to carb the soda, but one of the by products of yeast eating sugar is a minute amount of alcohol.

Root beer can be very cheap, depending on your recipe. One of my son's favorites was just the cheap McCormick Root Beer extract from the grocery store, white sugar, and a tablespoon of malto-dextrin. I'd mix it up in a gallon pitcher at a time, until he was able to do it himself starting at about age 15. I've done it with different extracts, brown sugar, etc, but his flavorite was just the simple McCormick's.

I used 1/3 package of champagne yeast, more or less, for a gallon batch. I think the yeast was $.49 cents.

 

[TyTanium]

You can use yeast to carb the soda, but one of the by products of yeast eating sugar is a minute amount of alcohol.

And minute means less alcohol than orange juice, or so I've read. Less than 0.25%...it's not physically possible to drink enough to feel any effects. But I've never tried.

 

[BrutalBrew]

Thanks for great info. Think we are going to go with McCormick's recipe and seltzer water at first. If the kids like it then we will move up to carbing it ourselves. Thank guys ( and Lady) :rockin:

 

[dantose]

My wife asked me if we can make root beer for the kids. I dont have a kegging system. Is it possible to do this without force carbing. Can you use yeast without producing alcohol? Is it exspensive to do rootbeer?

Assuming 3 volumes of CO2, you'd be talking about around 10g of ethanol in the whole 2 liter. No one will get drunk off properly made rootbeer, don't worry.

 

[solbes]

If you've ever thought about kegging, buying a CO2 tank & regulator and getting it filled is not that expensive. Maybe $80 or so. Add $10-15 for a Carbonator cap. Now you can carb root beer in 3 or 4 minutes by shaking at 35 psi. We make it once a month for our kids. We have used the Gnome extract with sugar so far. Tastes pretty good!

And you are 1/3 to 1/2 way to a kegging system if you decide to go that route. Have never tried the natural carb route, but it sounds like that would work too. We have really young kids, so any alcohol is just not something I would consider.