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Please Read the Warning in the Forums Soda Pop Area!!
Welcome to the Kid Zone!
Since my daughter, Lauren has helped me in my Beer and Wine making I thought I would reward her. My thoughts turned to this when at our local Beer and Wine supply store she asked if she could make her own Pop. What she choose was a sarsaparilla, or root-beer kit. So here is a step by step instruction, featuring my 10 year old daughter.
As always we laid everything out that we thought we would need to make the particular brew we were making. In this case the extract, measuring devices, bottles, capper, yeast, thermometer and the ever present instructions.
I had an idea though, and made a change to what you see here. This is just another reason to lay things out. I remembered I was not going to make this kit, it was my 10 year old.
We Drink a lot of water out here, and in so doing we seem to collect a lot of water bottles, something I deemed safer for my daughter than the beer bottles I was going to let her use. Not to mention the first thing she asked after we bought the kit is she was going to be allowed to bring some into school so she can show her friends.
Alright Mom and Dad, time to teach the children well. As you can see Lauren was asked to sit and read the instructions. This is not the first time I asked her to read them either.
She read them three times in total, which made for a smooth process when the work began. I cannot stress the step enough, it will make the kids job easier and take a load off your nerves as well.
Cleanliness is still the rule of the day. And since we are not boiling anything or making alcohol this is even a bigger step than when we make Beer or Wine.
As I had just bottled my beer I had some sanitizer and let Lauren use it to sanitize the plastic water bottles. You can see the ones she has already cleaned in the air dryer. I use a no rinse sanitizer for this step in my beer making as well.
It does the heart good to see a child smile like this after she has 'done the dishes' just do not tell them that is what they have done.
We did ten bottles for the gallon of Pop she was making. They are 16.9 oz each and we should not need them all, but better too many than not enough.
The microwave made the next step easy. We needed water at 98 degrees to put the yeast into. 30 seconds later she took the water out. No Stove, no real heat just simple and easy steps.
Ok I should tell you about me a bit. I have a tendency to go overboard when I buy things, why settle for the standard 800 watt Microwave when our Big Box Store has a 1200 watt modle for the same price. 30 seconds was 12 degrees too hot, but no matter we let it cool a bit and worked on the next step.
Back at the microwave we needed just a little bit of warmed water to dissolve sugar in. A minute should do the trick.
Her instructions called for 2 cups of sugar. Now before I get the hate mail I want to add a few comments.
Sugar is natural, it is not evil. Corn syrup is evil in my opinion, not to mention 'My' pop has not tasted right ever since they got away from using real sugar. And we are making a gallon of this Pop, 2 cups is less than what 'some' people use to make 2 quarts of Kool-Aid!
Ok so the Public Service Message is over and Lauren continues with the process. She adds the sugar to the luke Warm Water..........
She measures and then adds the sarsaparilla extract........
And Stirs. By Now our water is cool enough to get the yeast going.
Measureing the yeast. It called for 1/8-1/4 teaspoon, here she is measuring the 1/4 teaspoon I suggested.
Now as the yeast goes, you can use just about any yeast, in fact to prove a point she is using regular Red Star bakers yeast. You can use your favorite Beer or wine yeast just the same.
After stirring the yeast she added it to the extract and stirred a little more.
Now for the part that should make a dad proud, my little girl needed a little help.
Dad needed to pour the water into the jug, so she could mix everything together. Of course Lauren was happy to be back on the side of the camera she likes best as well, so we both won.
Lauren likes her Root-Beer shaken not stirred. She used a clean 2.5 gallon container to shake everything together. Again, simple and clean.
Again I come in to lend a hand, but if you have more than one child one could pour while the other holds the bottle, in this case Lauren took the pictures.
In any case we filled 7 of the 10 bottles she cleaned.
Lauren was not without her duties, she placed and tightened all the caps on the bottles.
Using the plastic bottles has another advantage. The instructions suggested using 2 liter bottles so we can tell when the carbonation was taking place. By squeezing the bottles in a week or so we can tell if carbonation is taking place, the bottles should feel tight with the extra air in them.
Here Lauren is tasting a bit of the handiwork, just like every Beer-mister does. she really liked it and cannot wait till it is carbonated and cold. This was also just before she was told that she now needed to clean up the kitchen.
I put the bottles in one of our cabinets, they need to be in a cool dark place. In 2 weeks we will move a few to the refrigerator and have ourselves an Ice-cream Float. Now I might make home made Ice-cream for that!