I bought this unsweetened root beer extract off of Amazon as it had pretty good reviews. My partner and I tried making root beer without using the soda Stream. We failed.
The challenge was we have to carbonate the water first generating cold, carbonated water. Soda Stream goes crazy with anything but pure water. When adding stevia (SweetLeaf) sweetener, it got all clumpy.
Wondering if anyone has ideas on how to use this so it doesn’t go in the trashcan. Soda is one option, but wondering if there are any other thoughts or recipes.
I don’t know of any diabetic friendly recipes, but if you don’t want to end up throwing it away, you could use it to make root beer float cookies, and then just give them away. I’ve made this recipe for my kids at school (I teach grade 2), and they were a big hit : http://www.sixsistersstuff.com/2012/04/root-beer-float-cookies.html
Why not just stir some of that and some stevia or whatnot into the already carbonated water? I realize some of the bubbles will evaporate with stirring, but if it’s well carbonated, should still be reasonably fizzy. I don’t like root beer at all myself, so not sure if the taste profile would be appealing in the following applications, but I use bitters (basically flavor extracts commonly used for cocktails but can be applied to many things; my favorite is mexican chocolate) in seltzer, in almond milk, added to iced coffee, yogurt, oatmeal, etc (with or without sweetener, as desired). Usually a very small amount is plenty! If you’re a drinker, could probably use to make some great cocktails too.
Yes to all of that. I bought a selection of similar flavorings a while back. You can put them in anything you would like. The hard part is finding the proper amount. I do just as Cardamom says. I put it in seltzer water and also use it to make cocktails at times. Use your imagination. You may want to look at other flavorings. There are some that are made specifically for candy and others that are made specifically for beverages.
I do not use Stevia or any other artificial sweeteners as they all create major digestive issues for me. But you can use liquid Stevia instead of powder. The powder is actually not Stevia. It is usually made from chicory root and use to dilute and carry the sweetener. That is why it separates. It does not cook well either. But there is no fiber in the liquid form.
Take a used Torani coffee syrup bottle. Get a bag of sucralose, a pot and a funnel. Measure out 3 cups sucralose and put it in a bowl. Put 3 cups of water in a pot and bring it to a boil. Stir in the sucralose until it dissolves. Pour the “sugar water” into the Torani bottle. Add one teaspoon of root beer extract per cup of sucralose water(or a little less) and add more (if needed) to taste. You now have root beer coffee syrup, you can easily add it to unflavored sparkling water (or lattes–I like root beer a lot). Store the bottle in the fridge. If you don’t use it a lot, make a smaller batch.
Use it with a real beer? There is a mix I know of where you add a pint of Guinness to a shot or two of Blackcurrant syrup. Just replace the syrup with a root beer extract.
My Dad use to make Root Beer soda. I remember him using sugar (try Equal), yeast, extract
and then he would bottle them until ready. He also made Sarsaparilla.
Make sure you order the 160 PSI - They have a 60 PSI model for a few $ less but it does not quite reach 60 PSI so won’t work.
Bottle connection
Ballcock and Hose - Mine was out of stock but here is a replacement
The tank I got at my local welding and oxygen supplier. I bought the 20 LB tank and they refill it every couple of years. The shutoff valve between the Taprite Gauge and the hose, I got at FW Webb, our local national plumbing supply house.
Takes about 15 minutes to assemble with a screw driver and open end wrench. Kids love to watch!!! - Enjoy and let me know if I forgot anything or you need any help. I reuse 2L soda bottles from the store and after using them 50+ times they start to distort a little but even after 100’s of re-fills have never had one burst. I fill the water to just over the ink jet date on the 2 L bottles and put in fridge overnight. Water needs to be cold to carbonate so in freezer 20 minutes or several hours in fridge.
I’m always interested in better setups! My current oneset uses a Soda Stream conversion kit. 7 lb CO2 tank (odd size, but we got it cheap), regulator, hose, and an adapter that screws into the existing Soda Machine we already had… So you can stop buying their ridiculously expensive CO2 cartridges.
It’s not an ideal setup by any means, though. I actually had to Dremel the back of the machine off to tighten the connection enough that it wouldn’t leak. I’m also loving that can you use any bottle with yours. I’m currently limited to the 1 1-liter bottle that came with the original kit. Which basically means the bottle is always empty when I want some.
Does that carbonation cap screw onto the bottle in any way, or do you just hold it on? The stem is so short, so I’m guessing the bottle needs nearly filled. I’m imagining water erupting all over the house without a tight fit on the cap.
Also, is there an on/off valve anywhere in that setup other than the one directly on the tank? I’d like to not have to turn the main valve on and off every time I carbonate something. It’s hard on my inflammed fingers. Technically, I don’t HAVE to now. But the Soda Stream isn’t made to take prolonged exposure to the higher pressure, and the seals start to leak. So we just turn it off and bleed the line every time.
“Does that carbonation cap screw onto the bottle in any way, or do you just hold it on?” Yes, the cap screw does screw on to any 2-liter bottle of soda you buy at any grocery store. I tighten and loosen the cap screw with a 1- 1/16" open-end wrench. The cap screw has 2 long “flats” that are quite forgiving so any open-end SAE or metric wrench of about that size will work. - See pictures below.
"Also, is there an on/off valve anywhere in that setup other than the one directly on the tank? " Yes, if you look at the end of the red line, I installed a small ball valve with a red handle. It takes almost no force to open or close which I usually do using just my thumb and forefinger. There is also a turn knob on top of the tank, but that is a little harder to turn on and off. I normally turn both off as 4 liters of soda will last me a few days, but you could get away with just turning off the ball valve.
