Root Beer

Ingredients

• Take an ounce of each ingredient to two gallons of water.
• adding toward the end and to the proportion cited above a pound of sugar
• twenty to twenty-five drops of the oil of sassafras or spruce.
• the above proportion is eight tablespoons of liquid yeast

Method

1. 1

   In making the beer wash the roots very clean.

2. 2

   Then bruise them so that their peculiar virtue or quality will readily yield itself.

3. 3

   Put in the cold water and your roots, etc., set over the fire and bring slowly to boil.

4. 4

   Simmer for about half an hour, adding toward the end a pound of sugar and twenty to twenty-five drops of the oil of sassafras or spruce.

5. 5

   Put slowly into an earthen crock and cool to lukewarm.

6. 6

   Then add the yeast, stir in the yeast, cover and set away to ferment.

7. 7

   In from three to six hours it will be drinkable.

As published

This recipe was extracted from The home cook book (1905) by Christine Frederick, page 213. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

ROOT BEER Root beer is a wholesome drink, as our American fore- fathers realized when in the springtime they took their chil- BEVERAGES: HOT AND COLD 891 dren into the woods and taught them how to choose roots and herbs for it. In those days that was one of the "object-les- sons" in Nature. What did they choose in those fields and skirting forests? Dandelion and burdock and yellow dock roots, the bark of the wild cherry also, and birch bark. They had hanging in the garret a bag of hops of the last year's picking from the wild vine that ran over tree and fence. Then out in the fields again they found sarsaparilla and elecampane and spikenard. In making the beer wash the roots very clean. Then bruise them so that their peculiar virtue or quality will readily yield itself. Take an ounce of each ingredient to two gallons of water. Be sure the big kettle you boil in is per- fectly scoured and clean. Put in the cold water and your roots, etc., set over the fire and bring slowly to boil. Simmer for about half an hour, adding toward the end and to the pro- portion cited above a pound of sugar and twenty to twenty- five drops of the oil of sassafras or spruce. Put slowly into an earthen crock and cool to lukewarm. Then add the yeast, which to the above proportion is eight tablespoons of liquid yeast

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.