I think I remember hearing this somewhere from a TBM, but I can't remember for certain. Has anyone else heard this?

No...I think someone is pulling your leg..They probably didn't know how to make it and used that as an excuse.

My TBM family that would never have touched coke or anything "bad" literally had homemade rootbeer running in their veins. I have to say that I liked it quite a bit myself, but it is not easy to make and other less talented people might need an excuse to not partake of such a wholesome product.

I never heard of such a thing. I fondly recall drinking and even making root beer at Mormon campouts when I was a teen.
A 3-day "fermentation" period isn't going to make anyone tipsy.

If that were the case, then you should also stay away from sourdough bread, tofu, and sauerkraut.

I think the list is so long now, regarding the things Mormons should stay away from, that they should just publish a short list at church entitled:

"Things You Are Allowed to Eat and Drink"



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/23/2013 06:15PM by senoritalamanita.

I've never heard of that, but then again, I've never lived in the Morridor.

When I was a teen I drank some homemade rootbeer in Oregon that was very yeasty and partly fermented by the taste of it. Funny thing was, the guy who made it had dropped out of the Mormon church. This was in the seventies. No one had yet coined the word exMormon.

No, many of the homeschool TMBs are fermenting all sorts of things. They are even making water kiefer grape "soda" which tastes like grape beer to me. It's part of a big heath movement in some Utah and Arizona communities. Bet the kids take nice, long naps after lunch!

The Russians, which I learned from my ex-wife who is a Russian, have what they call children's beer. It is a very lightly fermented, barely fermented drink, but still has trace amounts of alcohol in it. Everyone drinks it for lunch, the way we would drink a cola. Probably healthier.

I remember concerns about it growing up. As kids, we were told that the process our extended family used was ok within the WOW.

Of course, we endlessly discussed topics like cooking wine and vanilla extract.

Vanilla Extract?

Made of alcohol. To truly avoid it you'd want to use a glycerin vanilla extract. Or simply vanilla powder.

my grandpa made me homemade root beer once. It was HORRIBLE! I hated it. It's NOTHING like what we drink today.

Well there is the appearance of evil "beer".

I remember a church activity where we made fresh root beer in a galvanized trash can. It was the best I have ever had. Must be something with the metal of the can that made it so good.

Yes!

My grandpa made rootbeer in a big metal container, and the stuff stores sell is a pale imitation of this stuff.

My mother, who occasionally banned chocolate for its high caffeine content was very concerned about this stuff after hearing how it was made.
My dad promised her that they would drop dry ice in it instead of fermenting future batches after she expressed her concern, but I don't think they did. :)

It was a great excuse to get some dry ice, pretend to have used it, and set off dry ice bombs out in the back yard.

My favorite part of the dry ice method is when the root beer is almost gone and th bottom of the cooler is all slushy... root beer icee!

They sell alcoholic root beer at many of your finer liquor stores.

One thing about Florida, our liquor stores come in two flavors. We have your standard ghetto mart liquor stores that indicate you are in a poor neighborhood, and high end liquor stores that sell high end booze, wine, micro-beers, and novelty drinks that indicate you are in a nicer area. I actually live walking distance, smack dab between both extremes.

The bishoprics of the student wards I attended at BYU-I used to make us homemade root beer all the time for our ward activities. I thought it tasted good. I have no idea if it ferments because there was never any left at the end of the activities.

When I was young my father decided to make some "good old-fashioned root beer." The root beer was put in jars which "popped" because of the fermentation! I didn't get to taste it. I would like to get some and ferment it! Since it is "not intentional" I might get by with it, despite agreement with TBM DW re drinking.

The root beer experiment by my father was probably about 1952.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/24/2013 05:36PM by rhgc.

This happened when I was growing up too, only the root beer was in bottles when the tops blew off. Some of the bottles had been put away in kitchen cupboards, and there were wooden crates of filled bottles elsewhere in the house, and when those tops blew off, root beer spewed EVERYWHERE!!!

Took months (maybe longer...I was little when this happened) to clean it all off whatever it was on.

My Dad made GOOD root beer, though...and I'd love to be able to have some again.

No, but I discovered home-made cider is good precisely because it ferments.

1. Grind/squeeze apples, get juice
2. Add preservative to some, bottle it as a cover story for DW
3. Add some to a big jug, dose with corn syrup and potent champagne yeast.
4. Wait a few days
5. Good Times



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/24/2013 06:07PM by rationalguy.

If you use yeast for carbonation, you will have traces of alcohol. Vanilla extract--a big component of root beer, dr pepper, coca cola flavor-- is 35% alcohol too. Muslims are careful about soft drinks for this reason.

My MO neighbors growing up "force carbonated" theirs by sealing it up in a 5 gallon Gott-style cooler with dry ice. The dry ice sublimates and CO2 dissolves into the drink. I'm not sure how much pressure one of those can take before blowing the lid off, though.

If I were doing it, I'd use plastic 2 litre bottles. They can take *much* more pressure. Takes only 10 grams or so of dry Ice to carbonate 2 litres IIRC.

Yep. My grandma used to use yeast to carbonate her homemade root beer. With that method, it's the fermentation that causes the carbonation. So yeah, that's home-brewed, fermented root beer. And I knew plenty of Mormons who drank it like it was going out of style.

My dad always made it in a pressure cooker and used dry ice to carbonate it. The finished product is quite different from the yeast kind. And it's ultimately just sugar water with flavor, color, and bubbles forced into it. No fermentation involved.

So really, we're talking about two different substances with the same name. They're both called "root beer", but they're not the same thing.

All I know is we tried to make some on my mission in old sake bottles, it wound up giving me a headache.

True story

One of the first things we had to deal with moving to Utah was the diffrent liquor laws. We are not big drinkers. But as native Californians we were surprised how different they are.

One fun difference is going to a brewer and having them bottle a take home growler on tap.

One Friday in my way home from work I picked up a growler from Wasatch. I Brewery. I sat it on the kitchen counter. We didn't open it. We have left beer on the counter in the summer before.

Sunday morning it went *****BOOM!*****

There was beer and glass shards all over the kitchen. There was glass around the corner in the bathroom. There were pieces of glass penetrating the walls and cupboard. My husband was in the kitchen at the time this happened and was untouched by glass. He was shielded by a bowl on the counter separating him from the growler.

My first exMormon miracle! This was on Fast Sunday.

Apple Hill (just outside Sacramento) has an apple festival every fall. We would buy the home made apple cider in gallon jugs. We would crack open the top a little and leave the jugs in the garage for a little while. The drink then became a little "zippy".

Fermented foods are very good for you! look up a book call nourishing traditions. i make root beer, butter milk, cream cheese, kimchi, coleslaw. these are heavy in probiotics.

T-man Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Fermented foods are very good for you! look up a
> book call nourishing traditions. i make root beer,
> butter milk, cream cheese, kimchi, coleslaw. these
> are heavy in probiotics.

Absolutely true. I don't make them myself, and the ones I buy at Whole Foods are pretty expensive, but fermented foods like these are VERY good for everyone!!!

choking on a gnat but swallowing a camel.

I heard that it was GOOD because it ferments...

It's called Root Beer because it is a fermented beverage, a "beer" of sorts.

The stuff sold as soda is not true root beer, just flavored soda water. Have to go to liquor store or make it yourself if you want real root beer.

Soda root beer reminds me of the "apple beer" found on tap at chuck-o-rama in the morridor. The "apple beer" is only a soda, nothing like the real, and very delicious, thing.