Root Beer Making Kit

Root beer is a classic drink with antique origins that is surprisingly easy to make. There are inexpensive kits readily available that provide almost everything necessary to make root beer. However, you can also put together a root beer-making kit from a collection of items that are available in most homes, a trip to the supermarket and ordering one item from a special store or online.

Root beer is a drink that was originally made using sassafras roots. Sassafras is a tree native to both the Eastern United States and Eastern Asia. The original form of root beer involved fermenting molasses, and thus it had a low alcohol content. Modern root beer is a soft drink made by diluting a syrup of sugar and extracts with carbonated water.

This kit includes enough materials for making 2 gallons of root beer, plus four 1-liter plastic bottles and accessories. The only extra ingredients required are sugar and water, and the only extra accessory is a good stainless steel pot or plastic bucket. As of March 2009, The Mr. Root Beer Home Root Beer Kit cost $25. There are also refill supplies available under the same brand.

This kit is similar to the Mr. Root Beer package, with two exceptions. First, it comes with enough supplies to make 4 gallons, not 2. Second, it does not come with its own plastic bottles, but these can be easily supplied using cleaned-up 2-liter soda bottles. At $15, it's cheaper, too.

While there are as many root beer kits on the market as there are for regular beer, assembling your own kit is relatively easy. First, there are plenty of suppliers for the necessary ingredient for making root beer at home: root beer extract. As of March 2009, you could get an 8-ounce bottle of it for $14. Other items you need to make your own kit are cleaned-up plastic 2-liter soda bottles, a funnel, sugar, water, baker's yeast and a refrigerator.

First, pour a cup of sugar into the 2-liter bottle. Then add 1/4 teaspoon of baker's yeast. Cap the bottle and shake these two ingredients up to stir them. Add 1 tablespoon of root beer extract, then fill the bottle halfway with water. Cap it and shake it again to stir everything up. Now fill the bottle with water, leaving about 1 inch of room at the top, and cap it again. Invert it top to bottom a few times to stir the contents some more and refrigerate overnight.