Hires Root Beer Extract

Winchester

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Do you remember the old Hires root beer extract? Rick's mom used to make that quite often when we were younger. Well, we were talking about it yesterday and I decided to look for it. Found some on Amazon; it's from Hires, but is not the original. But I decided to give it a shot and ordered some (also ordered a couple jumbo muffin pans....but that's another story :) )

I think I understand why, when the FedEx guy came to the house last week, he said, "Hi Rick!".
 

MoonstoneWolf

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I remember the name. We always just made ice sassafras tea that tastes identical. Of course now we no longer have a sassafras tea so I get A & W root beer down the street if I want some. I can't remember if my Grandparents had Hires or not though
 

lizzie

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My mother in law used to make homemade root beer.It wasn't Hires but it sure was delicious!I want to say I think it was crosse and blackwell,but I'm not sure.It was years ago.
 

Mia6

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I remember drinking Hires but not the extract. I bet homemade was great!
 
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Winchester

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The root beer extract came on Saturday. I was going to make some right away, but we need dry ice. While we're down at Lowes on Monday morning, we'll stop at the grocery store for ice. You can either use dry ice or use yeast. I wanted to use yeast, but with yeast, it must be bottled and allowed to set for four days. I don't have bottling equipment, so the yeast is out. Dry ice, it is.

Stay tuned!
 

lizzie

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The root beer extract came on Saturday. I was going to make some right away, but we need dry ice. While we're down at Lowes on Monday morning, we'll stop at the grocery store for ice. You can either use dry ice or use yeast. I wanted to use yeast, but with yeast, it must be bottled and allowed to set for four days. I don't have bottling equipment, so the yeast is out. Dry ice, it is.

Stay tuned!
If this is any help to you,when his mother made it,she used yeast and "bottled" the root beer in half gallon orange juice bottles and let them set in the fridge.I've never made it,so I don't know,but I know that's what she did.
 
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lizzie lizzie I have several half gallon orange juice bottles and, well, that's what I was thinking of doing. We could just keep it in the fridge for the four days and let it go that way. Thanks!
 

Kat0121

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How did your root beer come out? I normally don't drink soda but I do love a good root beer. :yummy:
 
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I just put it in the fridge this morning. Will let you know tomorrow/Tuesday!
 
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Awful stuff! Simply awful stuff! Oh, it doesn't really taste all that bad, but we can't get past the smell. I don't know what I did, but Rick won't even drink it. We thought maybe my yeast was bad (and it is kind of old), but really, 1/16 teaspoon of yeast should not make it smell that terrible. I poured it down the drain. Yuck. It did have a wee bit of carbonation. But bad, bad, bad.

I can't find yeast in the grocery stores yet. We were going to run into the farmers' market because I know they have pound bags of SAF instant yeast. But it's inside the building and the idea of going inside the building (where people are not wearing masks) makes both of us a little squeamish. I may do an order for King Arthur and include yeast in the order. I need to do a Penzey order, too.

They recommend using dry ice, but I can't find dry ice anywhere either. Grocery stores don't carry it, beer distributors don't carry it. Even WalMart doesn't have it (I called both the local WalMarts).

But honestly? I followed the directions explicitly. I don't know what happened, but it was really bad stuff. That cured me of root beer extract!
 

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Winchester Winchester just an FYI about dry ice. I live in NY and my county has been declared a state of emergency due to tropical storm Isasis damage. Our local utility company sent us an email regarding dry ice distribution. It stated there is a regional shortage of dry ice due to Covid restrictions that affected the manufacturing of dry ice.
Sorry to hear your root beer was a bust.
 
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