# Sassafras/Root beer yeast



## Eddiejoes (16/3/14)

Hi all,

A friend recently donated a bunch of Rheem mython kegs that belonged to his grandad. The price agreed for 6 kegs and fittings was a batch of his pops Sassafras beer 



I'm fairly sure he wouldn't have had access to brewers yeast (the recipe is 50 odd years old) and would have been made with bakers yeast. What I'm wondering is what would be the best modern substitute. I've been thinking of using champagne yeast because it is so clean and shouldn't add much by way of flavour while fermenting unlike for instance a modern ale yeast. Would appreciate advice or suggestions

Cheers
Eddie


It's true brewers do it better!


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## MHB (16/3/14)

[SIZE=medium]Quite a lot of "Baker’s Yeast" is or more accurately was beer yeast, breweries produce quite a large amount of surplus yeast and it’s a bit of a pain in the waste processing stream, so as much as possible is sold off or even given away and it goes into a lot of products, vegemite, vitamin supplements, baking, animal feed...[/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]The recipe being the age it is the hops would almost certainly be POR flowers, and good luck finding Sassafras root for various reasons its getting harder to get a hold of tho Mulathie (Indian sarsaparilla) isn't too hard to find and should be a reasonable substitute, there is some sassafras on eBay.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=medium]What I can make out of the recipe: -[/SIZE]
[SIZE=medium]5 UK Gal - 22.7L[/SIZE]
[SIZE=medium]3 lbw Sugar - 1.36 Kg[/SIZE]
[SIZE=medium]Sassafras 2 oz - 57g[/SIZE]
[SIZE=medium]Hops 1 oz - 28g[/SIZE]
[SIZE=medium]And 3 whatever comes after the hops (love to know what it is, I do sort of collect old recipes)[/SIZE]
[SIZE=medium]It’s a bit of a worry, I think it’s a recipe for bottle bombs unless you drink the whole batch very fast, 1.36 Kg of sugar in 22.7 L gives you an OG of about 1.024, more than enough to blow all the bottles in fairly short order – especially with an aggressive highly attenuateive yeast like Champagne.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=medium]Personally I would make the brew, ferment it to dryness with any basic yeast (the new Workhorse in the Mangrove Jacks range would be a good choice) then prime the bottles or bulk prime as you would with a beer but aim for a bit more spritz than usual.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=medium]Anyway looks like fun[/SIZE]
[SIZE=medium]Mark[/SIZE]


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## Eddiejoes (16/3/14)

Hi mark,

Thanks for that, the 3d is old money for thruppence worth. 

Cheers eddie


It's true brewers do it better!


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## Eddiejoes (16/3/14)

Should also have mentioned that I have no intention of bottling straight from the boil kettle. Will ferment out and bottle once I get a stable FG

Eddie


It's true brewers do it better!


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## TimT (16/3/14)

You could possibly get yeast from the bark itself.

A number of the recipes floating around the net for standard house ginger beer will involve a starter of either yeast from ginger root or yeast from raisins/sultanas. The idea is you put a little bit of sugar, water, ginger, and a scattering of raisins in a bowl, cover it, wait a few days until it shows signs of activity, and then you feed it for a bit to encourage it - 'come on! come on, little yeast, don't be shy!' - before pitching it into a larger quantity of sugar/water for ginger beer.

I think I read somewhere that sassafras has a lot of wild yeast on it. Can't find the reference now.


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## MHB (16/3/14)

Been thinking about this (and thanks the 3d worth makes sense) I think the point of bottling straight away was to sweeten the brew, fermenting to dryness is probably going to make it taste - shall we less pleasant.
Might be worth bottling a couple of PET bottles as per the instructions and then refrigerating them when they are hard, give you a comparison to the rest of the batch that is fermented to dryness.

Jesus Tim you are a worry, the problem with wild yeast is that most of it makes bloody awful beer, the few occasions where it is actually beneficial are outweighed massively by the cost and inconvenience of throwing out batch after batch. most of the so called wild yeast out there is really thoroughly domesticated, having been selectively breed over hundreds of years in the same environment.
I suspect that dried milled sassafras root bark that is allowed to be imported is not going to have anything living in it - as is in sterile. If you want to make a really good old-fashioned ginger beer you really do need the ginger beer bug, which is a symbiotic colony of yeast and a very particular lacto bacillus, forms little jelly like blobs, its these colonies that you are trying to make by feeding a ginger beer starter - or you can buy them and be assured of really good ginger beer or take pot luck.
Me I like the products of my work to be worth drinking
Mark


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## wynnum1 (17/3/14)

Sassafras root contains SAFROLE may not be a good idea to buy from other countries
BACKGROUND – SAFROLE and REASONS for REGULATION
Safrole (tariff item 2932.94.00) and isosafrole (t
ariff item 2932.91.00) are chemicals legitimately
used in production of heliotropin (piperonal),
a fragrance and flavour substance used by the
food industry, piperonal butoxide (PBO), an ingredi
ent of some insecticides, and in perfumery
and production of perfumed soap. (Safrole and relate
d compounds were historically used in root
beer and sarsaparilla food flavours, but have been ph
ased out of use in the food industry, as
they are carcinogenic if ingested - their c
onsumption is linked with liver cancer.)

Safrole and isosafrole are also principal chemical
precursors to the prod
uction of the illicit drug
MDMA (ecstasy) – it is this use that gives
rise to the regulation of safrole and related
compounds. One kilogram of pure safrole or isos
afrole enables production of more than 3 000
MDMA tablets.


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## Eddiejoes (17/3/14)

The good news is that the Sassafras bark is coming from a Naturopathica in VIC and is all above board I could have used wild sassafras root but I wouldn't have recognised a sassafras tree if it fell on me. Was thinking about MHB's earlier post and doing some research, was thinking of swapping at least half of the table sugar for LME and using a low attenuation ESB yeast to try and preserve some sweetness while avoiding hand grenades. 

That said is my understanding of attenuation correct in saying that if a yeast has a typical attenuation of 60-70% that represents the amount of fermentable sugars present it will consume . And if so will using a low attenuation yeast with 3 kilos of table sugar not leave a large percentage of that sugar behind leaving it naturally sweet?


It's true brewers do it better!


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