Ok so a lot has happened sense I last posted. I made the sarsaparilla a few times over with mostly good results. Tried it with maltodextrin for mouthfeel, real vanilla, and a few other tweaks. All of that was in 5 gallon batches. As beer brewing keeps getting put off and 5 gallons of the same soda is a bit much I’m trying soda syrup. I’ll make a few cups or so of syrup and mix it with home carbonated water on a glass by glass basis. My first one is a lavender “lemon” soda. For the procedure I hobbled.together a few different things from around the internet.
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Ingredients:
.05 pound each of:
Lavender bosoms
Coriander seed
Lemon grass
2 cups sugar
2 cups water
A pinch of salt
Break up the coriander a little bit, not enough to powder it, just break open about 2/3s of the seeds.
Put the water and sugar in a sauce pan and heat. Once the sugar is dissolved add the rest of the ingredients and simmer for 15 minutes. Transfer everything to a French press. Pour the liquid into a heat safe jar, cap and refrigerate.
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Next time:
Only simmer for 10 minutes – the last one came out pretty dark and has an annoying caramel flavor
Reduce the lemongrass: it fills the pot so much I thought I wasn’t going to get more than a few drops out of the batch.
Add an acid to balance the sweet.
So, the corrected starting gravity of this beer was 1.0515 and the final gravity is, well I don’t know. I started bottling and was about half way through my bottling bucket when I decided to get off the floor and check my terminal gravity, unfortunately I had bottled more than planned and my hydrometer rested on the bottom of the bucket. Estimates on % alcohol content are in the 4-7 range, my personal guess being in the 6 vicinity.
Once bottled it took its sweet time carbonating – at the 2 week mark only a light sparkle was detectable, it took almost a full month to get to full carbonation. After a month of waiting, when we started drinking this batch regularly it matured slowly but very gracefully. Early bottles had strong Belgian yeast tones with an orange floral aroma while in later bottles, the smooth sweet orange flavor overcame the yeast.
When I make this recipe again I may use a different yeast to speed things up a bit and use more of the earthier flavors, angelica root and other spices yet to be determined.
Jackie is making the next batch, currently searching for an IPA receipt, watch here for her progress.
Cape Ann Brewing just around the corner,
Stacey