A scientist stole my root beer | Hacker News Reader

A scientist stole my root beer

naturespoisons.com

198 pointsjwmerrill40 comments

Ok - this is something I have experimented with before. Making root beer the traditional way is possible at home, as is buying or harvesting sassafras.

Sassafras tastes and smells very much like root beer, as you would expect, except "more". That is the best way I can describe it. It has a flavor profile that is more complete than what you get in standard root beers. As the above article states, it is pretty difficult to get a satisfactory extract from it. The smell of the root/bark is great, but the concentration/taste of the brewed liquid is very difficult to gauge. It requires significant amounts of sugar to make it taste "like root beer".

To get around the challenges with Safrole, the root beer industry turned first to Wintergreen, which is a very similar flavor profile, and it is wintergreen,or artificial wintergreen that makes up the bulk of modern day commercial root beers. Boutique makers also include vanilla, cinnamon, ginger, and other botanicals to get a flavor they want, but Wintergreen is the key to modern root beer. Many online recipes include many of these ingredients too. I've never had much luck with them.

I've made some of these myself before, and always had an exceptional difficulty getting the flavors to be concentrated enough to even approach the commercial stuff - perhaps my ingredients or methods were sub-par. I always wanted to get a mixture that I could make strong enough without making it too sweet. The difficulty there is that it is hard to make any mixture strong enough to mix with carbonated water, or, it is hard to carbonate by fermentation without adding significant amounts of sugar.(over time, I've made probably 10 attempts at this, and bought several hundred dollars worth of ingredients/equipment. I've had much better luck with real beer.)

Finally, as a caveat, do not attempt to eat or cook with any wintergreen oil, or wintergreen essential oil. It is almost pure Methyl Salicylate - According to wikipedia, 1 fl oz of wintergreen oil is equivalent to taking 55g of aspirin, equivalent to 171 adult sized tablets. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wintergreen

I bought a legit sarsaparilla mix with some friends years ago and made it using dry ice. Worked out fairly well. But in general sarsaparilla root beer is a lot better than regular root beer.

The flavor profile is just.. different. Maybe has a kind of spiciness that root beer lacks. Definitely worth trying.

I bought some roasted chicory root from Sweet Maria's to make Blue Bottle's nola recipe: http://www.bluebottlecoffee.com/preparation-guides/new-orlea...

Throwing some in with iced-tea and ginger flavoring and carbonating was somewhat reminiscent of root beer so I may keep experimenting with it.

The roasted chicory packs a strong punch, so perhaps roasting other roots would amplify their flavor.

I'm getting an offline for maintenance page, so here's the cached version: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:mY-oh-...

I was hoping you'd share a way to make root beer the traditional way? Sounds like a fun weekend experiment for me and the kids.

I think his point was that he was unsuccessful over ten attempts. Probably not a good introduction to the world of home preservation and fermentation.

I reckon you could probably use the naptha method to get the good stuff out.

Good article, but I think the more accurate title would be "a government bureaucrat stole my root beer in order to cover their ass"

Sadly yes - the "science" that the author calls out is absurdly and blatantly bad. Apparently some people have never heard the saying "the dose makes the poison"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_Additives_Amendment_of_19...

Another type of fermented non-alcoholic drink that looks like beer is Kvass. It is popular in Eastern Europe. They would sell from a large barrel on wheels on the corners of the street.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kvass

It is made from fermented bread (toasted croutons), maybe some flavourings, and yeast.

And it is one of my favourite soft drinks. And I don't drink sugary soft drinks, but I would drink kvass. It is slightly tangy and earthy (woodsy) flavour. When it is hot outside, there is nothing better than a large mug filled with cold kvass with a nice head on it.

Kvass does contain alcohol, just a lower amount.

It is still considered non-alcoholic. Many commercial soft drinks contain similar amounts of alcohol.

Thank you for posting this. IMHO this is how _real_ rootbeer is made. My family always makes rootbeer at home, and it seems that the key ingredient is "yeast." I have never tasted any rootbeer that comes close to the amazing flavour and _kick_ that home made rootbeer has. Rootbeer that is so carbonated it burns your throat before even tasting it. Mmmmmm…

I have actually found a comparable Rootbeer in some common grocery stores that tastes almost exactly like my home made rootbeer, but not quite as strong. If any of you love _real_ rootbeer as much as I do, I urge you to try this!

http://www.amazon.com/Bundaberg-Root-Beer-4-pack/dp/B00HGGW6...

If you find it in a grocery store, STOCK UP! They are imported from Germany, and when they are out of stock, it seems to take about a month to re-stock.

Edit: Okay, I think the store clerk was either misinformed or lying to me, because "Bundaberg" is in Australia. Perhaps it is imported from Germany… and that is why it takes 1 month. But every store I find it at, seems to have only a couple left, and seems to take a long time before they "re-up."

Yeah, the Bundaberg range is definitely Australian. They do ginger beer (what Australians call root beer) as well as sarsaparilla. Both are fantastic drinks.

Edit: so if you're doing a search, you're probably likely to find it as "bundaberg ginger beer" - eg http://www.bundaberg.com/info/product_range/ginger_beer/

Bundaberg sarsaparilla is the same formulation as the root beer, not the ginger beer (http://www.bundaberg.com/info/product_range/sarsaparilla)

Bundaberg is nice, but my favourite rootbeer-a-like is the Malaysian Sarsi made by F&N

Interesting. I like my Root Beer (Hanks, when I have my druthers) very much, not sure I'd like it more if it tasted like it's "supposed to". Sounds like the government stole his root beer though, not a scientist.

I think the real tragedy is not the missing root beer, but the apparent fact that there would be no way to lift that ban now, given the bloated and corrupt bureaucracy we're dealing with.

It's not difficult to get your hands on real sassafras and sarsaparilla. If you're in the right part of the country, the stuff literally grows on trees. If not, it's still definitely possible to find in local herb and spice stores (I've found it at Rainbow Grocery in San Francisco). There's no shortage of online recipes to make your own root beer.

My mom remembers drinking sassafras tea when she was a little girl.

I would love to make some "real" homemade root beer some time, as an experiment. Maybe it would taste good, or maybe I'm too used to the synthetic root beer I currently enjoy.

Here in central PA you can easily find a sassafras trees in the surrounding woods. I brew root beer occasionally but prefer making Ginger beer as I like it's peppery flavor.

Funny because the first picture showed a Bundy root beer. Bundy claims to use real sassafras roots to make their root beer (and I personally quite enjoy it). Not sure about the safrole content though. Will check it out at lunch

Most likely they just filter out the safrole.

So anybody that knows anything must already know and love Bundaberg rootbeer; thus the shorthand for its name. I feel a bit sheepish now having mentioned Bundaberg earlier as some sort of unknown miracle. :)

This harks a lot to Bad Science by Ben Goldacre, which is a great read. There are plenty of examples of governments making knee jerk reactions to scientific press. And even more of tabloids and other media outlets going crazy after they misinterpret papers.

On the other hand, if you've never tried 'real' root beer and you love the commercial stuff, is it a problem? One argument, albeit not valid here, would be that chemicals are chemicals regardless of whether they come from a plant or a laboratory. It may also be the case that the commercial stuff simply tastes better because they've had longer to play around with the formula.

Here's a link to a fairly well developed recipe for sassafras-based root beer:

http://honest-food.net/2010/07/04/sassafras-and-homemade-roo...

Herbal Sage Tea company sells Sassafras Tea if you are curious in trying some. It is pretty good (IMO), it tastes like unsweetened root beer ... http://www.herbalsage.com/proddetail.php?prod=SassafrassRoot

The renaissance fair in Muskogee always has Bud's Homemade Root Beer in from Alton, IL. The stuff is amazing and unlike any commercial root beer I've tried. http://www.budsrootbeer.com/

I make sassafras tea every year with my son. It is delicious and an adventure to harvest and make.

They have a really good root beer drink they call "Sassafras" at the Bristol Renaissance Faire in Wisconsin (http://www.renfair.com/bristol/)

Do you think those south American root beers I buy at my little latin market contain Safrole? They certainly taste different than US root beer.

Maybe they're using different sugar? Cane or beet sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup.

You know, I've had the Mexican versions of common soda brands, and I can't tell the difference. I think it's psychosomatic.

There are a lot of other flavour compounds at work that could be gumming up your senses, not allowing you taste the cane sugar. But my guess is that you've never had true cane sugar before (just like most people have never had true brown sugar ). Mass-produced brown sugar you buy in stores is simply processed white sugar and molasses, completely different from true brown sugar.

If you ever have the chance, try some raw sugars from places like Mauritius. There are many kinds, but they all come from sugar cane and their taste profile is wildly different. The "kind" of sugar depends on what stage of process it was taken. My personal favourite is molasses sugar [1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molasses_sugar

I can instantly taste the difference between US Coke and European Coke (And cola made in turkey, but that was becuase it was vile).

I am not sure if they change the recipe apart from the sugar but it is noticeable.

Haha! I tend to agree that's probably true for most people.

Some people can taste the difference (double blind and everything - I'm not sure if anyone has done the tests). I would think the water used would also make a difference.

I think with practice almost anyone can tell the difference.

It's about as subtle as the difference between velvet and silk to your finger -- I can see how you'd confuse them if you weren't thinking about it, but there's no way you'd stay confused if you paid attention and practiced.

the first thought into my head was, well is it made outside of the states and does someone make it correctly?

Surely someone does it right, somewhere.

A scientist stole my cocaine! That's right, they thought it made Coca Cola addictive! Good thing they removed it. Not remotely addictive any more.

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