Eric’s Gourmet Root Beer Blog – Page 36 – The blog of the gourmet root beer site.

GrowlerWerks – uKeg Pressurized Growler: God’s Gift to Home Root Beer Making

Nov 202019

GrowlerWerks uKeg

You may not know this, but I’ve dabbled quite a bit with home root beer brewing. I mean, you should know it, in as much as I’ve blogged my adventures of it. To summarize though, the biggest issue with making Seal of Approval quality brew was getting good carbonation. I had tried three main methods; Yeast, dry ice, and just using carbonated water. All had their drawbacks. Yeast you have to be careful with so it doesn’t over carbonated, explode, or generally make the root beer taste yeasty. Even in the best case scenarios, it makes the root beer taste a little yeasty. Dry ice is really cool for parties, but it’s hard to get a good carbonation from it. Trying to pressurize with dry ice also results is explosions. The best I could find was using carbonated water. This works decent, though the carbonation just isn’t quite there. But it had been my go to for awhile, and I had two nice 1.5 gallon ice tea dispensers that I’d use for root beer parties. But I’d always wished for a keg. The problem was, kegs are really expensive and a real pain to use in a home kitchen setting. Then one fateful day, a coworker told me about the GrowlerWerks uKeg.

The uKeg is a pressurized growler that’s intended to make people’s beer taste tap fresh for up to two weeks. It’s essentially a mini-keg system that’s easy to use, clean, transport, and finally let me get the perfect root beer I’d been searching for. Let me walk you through how it works. It has a pressure regulating cap that is charged with a standard food grade 16g CO2 cartridge. After filling the uKeg with liquid, you adjust the regulator until you get the desired pressure, displayed on a convenient gauge, and then you’re set. There’s a goose-neck tap to dispense your bubbly brew in the most satisfying way possible. Additionally, it’s vacuum insulated so you can keep it cold for nearly 8 hours outside of the fridge (I have verified this). And it’s small enough that it easily fits inside most fridge door milk shelves.

I immediately knew that this was at last the product I was searching for. While the instructions don’t really address homemade root beer, after extensive research I can share how this is easily done. There are really two ways to try and carbonate your root beer in the uKeg, full forced carbonation or starting with carbonated water and letting the uKeg finish it. I recommend the latter, as getting a good root beer fizz takes about 2 weeks and three CO2 canisters, whereas starting with carbonated water takes only 1 CO2 cartridge and 3 liters of carbonated water. You could even do 2 liters of carbonated water and 1 liter of regular water as long as you let it sit as least three days before serving. I’ve developed a nice base recipe that you can use to get started.

The basic idea is to make your own root beer syrup and then gently pour the syrup and the carbonated water into the uKeg after charging the cap. After it’s sealed set the pressure to 15 psi then swish the uKeg around to stir the mixture. Shaking is bad as it can get root beer into the regulator values and mess them up. Then just let it settle for awhile and you’re good to go. I recommend making it at least a day before you want to serve so it can fully settle. I also recommend making the syrup and chilling it and the carbonated water the night before, as the colder the ingredients when you mix them, the less CO2 will be lost.

So if you love making homemade root beer, you need to buy a uKeg. If you know someone who loves making root beer, it’s the perfect Christmas gift and just the right time to order for the holidays. Feel free to ask me any questions about additional root beer making tips and happy root beer brewing. I’ve been hosting root beer parties at home and at work this past year and it’s been a real hit. I’ll post new recipes from different extract brands from time to time.

Eric’s uKeg Root Beer Recipe

Syrup

1 1/2 Cups White Sugar
3/4 Cups Honey
1 1/2 Cups Water
3 Tsp McCormick Root Beer Concentrate
1 Tsp Vanilla Extract
1/8 Tsp Cinnamon
1/8 Tsp Ginger

Method

Mix sugar and honey in a pot with water
Bring to a boil
Add root beer concentrate, vanilla, and spices
Simmer for 15 minutes
Chill
Mix with 3 liters of chilled seltzer water in a uKeg
Let sit for at least 12 hours to settle

Kenny’s Candy Root Beer Licorice Twists

Root Beer Candy No Responses »

Nov 132019

Kenny's Candy Root Beer Licorice

Another find from Minnesota’s Largest Candy Store. Kenny’s was started in 1987 as a bulk supplier of red and black licorice twists. They’ve expanded into other types of candies, and other flavors of licorice, including this root beer. They actually make two types of licorice twists, these and an A&W but I’ll talk about those another time. I really, really love licorice so I have high expectations for these.

The root beer flavor is mild and generic. There’s a hint of wintergreen and I almost catch a hint of fruity in there. On the whole they’re very sweet but weak.

You can tell it is root beer flavored, but it’s not very satisfying when you’re looking for that root beer fix. I think I’ll pass on these in the future. There are better root beer flavored candies and better flavors of licorice. Hopefully I’ll find a better root beer licorice too. It shouldn’t be hard.

Summit Craft Root Beer

Bottled Root Beers No Responses »

Nov 062019

Summit Craft Root Beer Bottle Summit is an Aldi brand. Aldi is a discount market where they don’t give you bags and you need to put quarters in to get shopping carts. Their standard store brand root beer is Summit Suds, which comes only in cans. They’ve done glass versions before, though they weren’t very good. I was very happy last year when I heard this root beer was being made. But, despite living near an Aldi now it never showed up, and I was left to mourn when it disappeared from all of the shelves. Then, later this year, I got a random text from my wife who was shopping at Aldi with a picture of a four-pack of this asking if I’d tried it. What luck! My son felt very proud too, as he was the one who found it. It’s not often I get a second chance at these, so reviewing it became my top priority. I don’t understand the whole aviator dog on the label. I get that there are a lot of dogs on root beer labels, but why is it an aviator? The bottle gives no clues, and maybe we’re not to know. They probably did it just to annoy me, cause they know I rant about these dog labels. Anyhow, my review.

The Body is sweet with a classic root beer flavor and a sarsaparilla tinge. It’s a little on the mild side though. There’s a decent spice Bite, from some cloves. The Head is medium tall and very foamy. The Aftertaste is a mild vanilla with sarsaparilla.

It’s pretty good, just not quite all there. I don’t know It’s a lot better than their previous try with the Vintage root beer, so there’s that. See how it rates against other root beers.

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