DrankTank : The Beverage Blog

I made a really excellent keg of Sarsaparilla. (yeah, that’s my amature label making at work). If you’re going to throw a big party with lots of homebrew and you expect some Designated Drivers and/or kids, soda is a great idea for not leaving anyone out of the loop. Soda is so easy compared to beer. Since it is kinda tough to find many resources on the internet for soda kegging instructions (using homebrew beer equipment), I’ll post a little “how to” here.

Basically, you can buy a little 2 oz bottle of most soda extracts from homebrew stores. As always, I am a fan of buying local, but there are countless stores online too. Sarsaparilla, Root Beer, Cherry cola, orange soda, birch beer, ginger ale, and cream soda are just some of the options I have seen.

If you aren’t a homebrew kegger, there are instructions included in these extracts for naturally carbonating your soda in bottles… no need for special equipment. However, if you do have some 5 gallon cornelius (corny) kegs, you are in luck, because you can make a 4 gallon batch in about 10 minutes (although I highly recommend giving yourself 2 days… keep reading for why).

The key to getting soda that isn’t flat is carbonating much of the water before you add the extract and sugar. So, take one of your sanitized kegs, add about 3-3 1/2 gallons of water. Apply 30psi of Co2 and shake it as if you would a keg of beer. Keep this at 30psi for about 24 hours. (remember, cold liquid carbonates easier, so if possible, chill it before you do this). Then simply mix up your sugar and extract mixture (follow the instructions, but I think all of them are about 8 cups of sugar per 4 gallons) in about 1 gallon of water. Personally, I substituted some of the granulated sugar for molasses and corn syrup to make the sarsaparilla a little richer… so feel free to add unusual sugars instead of the plain ole stuff… since you aren’t fermenting like with beer, you can get a little more creative with sugars and not have to worry about stuff tasting funky.

Add your sugar mixture to the keg and top it off to 4 gallons with water. Then carbonate it again at 30psi. Unlike beer, you aren’t going to OVER carbonate this stuff, so shake the hell out of it. Let is sit for another 24 hours at 30psi if you can.

Then you’re ready to take the pressure down to 5psi and serve just like beer. Warning! Soda is a much stronger flavor than any beer… it will leave a flavor in your kegs O-rings. I suggest buying a set of O-rings just for soda, because I’ve read that bleach, boiling, etc. will not get the flavor out. And of course you don’t want that flavor getting into your next batch of beer.