busybee Food

Base recipe for 1 liter of root beer: half a tablespoon of root beer extract (I use Zatarain’s) and half a cup of sugar (raw/turbinado sugar is especially nice).

For typical root beer, make half a cup of simple syrup by combining the sugar with half a cup of water and heating until the sugar is dissolved, then add it and the extract to 750mL of sparkling water.

However, for home-brewed root beer, which has a more complex flavor (and a slight amount of alcohol), combine the sugar, extract, 1 liter of water, and 1 teaspoon of yeast (baker’s yeast is fine, champagne yeast is better) into a clean 1-liter plastic bottle. Squeeze the air out and cap, and allow to sit at room temperature until the bottle has expanded and become firm to the touch, and then move it into your refrigerator to chill. This process depends on the temperature, and can be sped up or better controlled using a sous vide circulator set to around 90°F which should make the fermentation take only a few hours.

NOTE: Be absolutely careful not to let this stay out past the time it has gotten firm, or else you run the risk of the bottle exploding and making a mess! And, for that matter, only use a flexible plastic bottle (I use leftover seltzer bottles) and not a firm bottle like a SodaStream or, worse yet, a glass bottle, as those will be very difficult to use safely and are very likely to explode on you.

Anyway, the nice thing about brewed rootbeer is that the flavor will continue to develop over time in the refrigerator, and it won’t easily go flat, as the yeast will continue to ferment and carbonate it even while cold. (This will also increase the alcohol content over time.)

I highly recommend storing the bottle upright, if possible, as the yeast will form a sediment on the bottom of the bottle and this doesn’t have a very good taste or texture. Keeping it upright makes it easier to pour off the root beer without ending up with the yeast slurry.

Ingredients:

• 75 grams coarsely ground coffee
• 500mL cold water

Combine the above in a large enough jar or pitcher. Allow to steep for 12-24 hours, then strain.

I use a Hario mizudashi pitcher (affiliate link) to make the process a lot easier.

This is pretty great on its own, but with my most recent batch (using the same overly-caramelly dark roast as in the coffee soda experiment), I poured it into a nitro cream whipper (affiliate link) and gave it a nitro boost. The resulting coffee was a bit foamy (I probably shook it too much and brought in too much nitrous) but it tasted way creamier and sweeter, without any need for cream or sugar. And, this has the benefit of being decaf; as far as I know none of the local or chain coffee shops offer decaf cold-brew, and certainly not nitro decaf.

Just a word of warning: decaf coffee still has some caffeine in it, and the cold-brew process is extremely efficient at extracting every last little bit. If you’re particularly caffeine-sensitive you’ll still want to limit your consumption of this.

For a simple piña colada mix, combine two 16-ounce cans of crushed or chunk pineapple (including the juice) and one 12-ounce can of coconut cream and blend until smooth. Then add a few tablespoons of lime juice.

This can be used for a whole bunch of things:

• Make it into an actual piña colada by combining 1 shot of rum, 1 cup of mix, and a bunch of ice in a blender and blending until smooth
• Combine with a splash of unflavored seltzer to make a virgin colada
• Make vegan pineapple-coconut ice cream by putting this in an ice cream maker (rum optional)
• Freeze into popsicles using popsicle molds (don’t add rum if you do this or it’ll never set)