Running Root Beer through brew-house?

[CharlosCarlies]

We put a small 1/2 BBL batch of root beer out in our taproom and it sold out faster than we could have expected. I'm wanting to use our brewhouse to produce a larger batch, but wanted to make sure it wouldn't cause any issues w/ our beer.

We already made the mistake of not using a dedicated root beer serving line (root beer flavored saison anyone?), so my first thought is to setup a separate knock-out/transfer hose for root beer only. Other than the potential hose taint, do you guys see any other issue w/ running a full batch through the brewhouse perhaps over to our brite tank for packaging?

Cheers and thanks in advance!

[porter]

How are you making it?

Do you mix water and sugar hot and then add the flavoring or are you using real herbs and spices?

At BJ's we used to make a sugar solution in the kettle then knockout into a dedicated root beer bright tank where we would add the flavoring and carbonate.
This way, all we were doing was putting sugar water through the brewhouse, heat x, and hoses.

[CharlosCarlies]

Hadn't thought of doing it that way, but I like it.

We only have one brite though...any issue with using it assuming we clean the crap out of it after?

[brewmaster 2011]

I do all my sodas in kegs. Mix the water and sugar in a bucket pour it into the keg, add the flavor extract in the keg seal and pressurize to carbonate. I Use 50 L kegs and make 10 gal of soda in them.

[CharlosCarlies]

Thanks brewmaster, that's what we've been doing as well but we're easily going through a 1/2 BBL/wk and often don't have the time to set aside from brewing. Was hoping to stock-pile up a 5-10 BBL batch.

[Inthelab]

You can put soda in your bright as long as you keep a separate set of soft parts. Valves, gaskets, sight glass, carb stone gaskets(I would have a separate carb stone honestly) and kegging lines. I would also mark soda kegs and keep them separate, the potential for carry over in the soft parts is too high to risk root beer flavored beer.

[billk]

We made our sugar water in the brewhouse as mentioned but then carbonated it in a brite. We had dedicated kegs for the root beer only. We added the flavoring to the empty kegs and then topped with the carbonated sugar water. The only thing that came into contact with the flavoring was the keg and the line (run completely separate from the beer lines) we dispensed out of. It allowed us to make about a months worth at a time and only have our brite tied up for the roughly 24 hours we took to carbonate it.

Good luck

Bill

[GlacierBrewing]

For our sodas, I heat the water and sugar in the kettle, transfer and cool through the heat x and into a brite tank. I add the flavorings and spices into the brite where I carbonate. I have been making root beer, Cherry creme, pepper soda for over a decade like this and have never had a flavor carry over issue. I do use dedicated tap lines though.
My two cents....


Prost!
Dave