Again with the soda pop

[vakkotaur]

The fourth bottle of vanilla cream soda turned out pretty good. There's still a hint of yeast, but it's way in the background and probably unavoidable with this carbonation method. Compared to a commercial cream soda (Wildwood from Kwik Trip) it's still not as flavorful and is not nearly as sweet. The Wildwood is 120 Calories per 8 fluid ounces. Mine is 45. The next bottle will have yet more flavoring, and have the sweetness boosted with Splenda. This reminds me of something I heard at Penguicon. At least one of the people who mixed up the syrup for OpenCola wouldn't drink it or at least not very much of it, having seen the huge amount of sugar that goes into it.

The small bottle of anise flavored soda sort of worked out. Predictably, any yeast note was drowned by the anise and I figure I can cut back on the amount the flavoring. (jmaynard says I need to cut it back to zero as he claims including any just makes "yuck soda.") The carbonation seemed a bit weak, perhaps more time was needed as I cut everything in half for the lowered volume and perhaps the time needed to double.

I also tried making ginger ale. This worked, though it either needs a bit more ginger, or I need to find a finer cutting grater. It's decidedly ginger ale, just not quite ginger enough. Also, the warnings about keeping a closer eye on ginger ale than other sodas is true. Yeast loves something in ginger and the pressure builds fast. A day or maybe a day and a half is plenty for ginger ale while three or four days are needed for everything else.

And I really need to be patient and only do one bottle at a time or per week or such. Even cutting back on the sugar, I don't need more than one bottle of fizzy sugar water around at any given time.

Comments

[sheryl67.livejournal.com]

I'm enjoying reading about your soda experiments. It's very interesting. Thank you so much of sharing with us.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the reassurance that I'm not boring everybody.

Making Ginger Ale

[jugularjaguar.livejournal.com]

Alright

But is Root Beer on the horizon??

Re: Making Ginger Ale

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

Of course it is. It might be a while, but it will happen. I expect my first attempt or two will be pretty lousy, partly from not having the mix right and partly from using grocery store flavoring instead of proper extract, but I have to start somewhere. I do not expect to get something that compares with Sprecher's, even after a lot of refinement.

[thecanuckguy.livejournal.com]

BTW, what are you doing calling it soda pop? To the best of my knowledge you're a Minnesotan born and buttered, according to this you should be calling it just "pop"! (And, according to the same source, your roommate should be forgiven if he calls it "coke")

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

The map varies and it only shows the majority for the region, not all the variations within the region. Also, as I don't put it in crown capped bottles, which make the popping sound (especially with the plastic re-capping that was once common) there is not popping sound. And everyone reading understands 'soda' as well. With all the out of the way, I was born in Texas and grew up in Wisconsin and I do tend to call it pop. Soda is sodium oxide which is far too caustic to drink.