DIY Rootbeer

So Becky's post today had a great DIY wedding gift idea. And she encouraged us all to go visit her friends Kimba at A Soft Place to Land and maybe even take part in her DIY party.

I've been meaning to share my homemade Rootbeer recipe with you all since some of you were asking about it.

So Voila'! I'm going to combine the two.

Actually, I should first confess that this rootbeer recipe is not my own. A couple of good friends from church shared it with me. And I also have to say that it is so GOOD!!!! And COLD!!!!

So, here is what you do.

You start with a 5 gallon thermal container.
One important thing to remember is that once you make root beer in this container - that's all it's good for anymore because forever more after anything else you put in there will have a vague root beer flavor. And I don't know about you but I don't think I would like my water or tea to have a vague root beer taste. Root beer flavor must be strong!

So, the next step is sugar. Lots of sugar. This almost stopped me from making it because I couldn't imagine drinking this much sugar. But then I figured once a year is okay.

Add 5 pounds of sugar to your container. Yes, you heard me right. Five pounds of sugar.

Okay, have you recovered? Next you add a whole 2 ounce bottle of Root Beer concentrate. You can buy it at the grocery store with the vanilla and almond extract bottles.
My camera didn't focus to well on this one - sorry!

Then you add water until the container is 3/4's of the way full and stir it until that 5 pounds of sugar dissolves.

Now comes the fun part. You need to add about 7-8 pounds of dry ice. I don't understand what dry ice really is or why it does what it does to root beer but I'm telling you - it's like magic. Be sure to have the kids around for this part - you will really impress them.
Be very careful not to touch the dry ice with your hands - it will burn you. It's that cold. So we wore some oven mitts to work with it and that worked just fine. Your concoction will smoke and sound like it's boiling! It's really crazy. I topped if off with a little more water but by this time it's hard to see what you really have going on because of all the smoke. Or steam, Or whatever it is.

Now just put the lid on and wait about 10 minutes. Because in about 10 minutes you will have the COLDEST rootbeer ever. The dry ice not only makes it cold but it also carbonates it. Weird, I know.

We drank all five gallons that day. And I've tried not to think about the sugar ever since. But I would do it again. Oh yes I would!