Root Beer Report

I tried the root beer today--two days later, and it was pretty good, although it smelled a little yeasty. I read on a site that if I use brewers' or champagne yeast, that could remedy this problem. Anyone know where to find brewers' yeast in Korea?

As far as alcohol content, I suspect there is a little, but Fankhauser's site (see below) assures me that the alcohol level is minimal.

The carbonation was nice, although it could use a little more, in my opinion. According to the directions, leaving it in the fridge for a few days will help, so I'll do that with the other bottle.

Homemade Root Beer

I just finished mixing up my first batch of homemade root beer. I made it using regular Fleischman’s yeast and McCormick’s Root Beer Extract, which I picked up in the U.S. It’s really easy to mix up—I took my time, and was done in fifteen minutes.

Basically, the process is as follows:

Mix 1 tablespoon extract with 2 ½ cups sugar. Add 4 litres of spring water, and mix until dissolved. Dissolve the yeast in 1 cup of warm (85-95 degrees F) water

After tasting the pre-yeast mixture, it didn’t seem very special, so I added a bit of pure vanilla to give it some creaminess. It also crossed my mind that root beer is made from different tree bark extracts (wild cherry bark is listed on the McCormick’s bottle), and I’ve also tasted Birch beer, which wasn’t quite as good, but still worth trying. Why not make a sort of Canadian version of root beer, with maple syrup? There was a little left after I was finished filling the bottles, so I mixed it with a bit of maple syrup and tried it. It was different, but not too bad! I’d like to say that I’m well on my way to inventing a new beverage, but a quick Google search revealed that others have gone before, with little success. (I found one maple-flavoured root beer on a “worst beers” website!)

I’m imagining that it would be possible to make ginger beer the same way, just with ground/sliced ginger instead of extract. You could put all sorts of other things in there too, to spice up the mixture: cinnamon, fenugreek, etc. I’d like to try some Korean roots and herbs—perhaps ginseng root beer should be my next invention! I’d also like to try some other extracts—Hires, Zatarains, and any others I can find. The shipping to Korea would be outrageous, though!

David B. Fankhauser has perhaps the best site for homebrewing soft drinks His page about root beer is very detailed and illustrated with useful photos (http://biology.clc.uc.edu/fankhauser/Cheese/ROOTBEER_Jn0.htm ). He also has several pages about cheesemaking, but I’ll save that for another post.

I’ve wondered a little why it is nearly impossible to find root beer here in Korea, unless you’re connected in some way to a US military base. It’s pretty much unknown here—even web searches in Korean yield few results. Well, this summer we took some kids to Canada and I bought them some root beer. They tasted it, spit it out, and refused to have any more. I guess that’s why no one sells it here.

Just before I left this summer, found some Bundaberg Ginger Beer (an Australian import http://www.bundaberg-brew.com.au/ ) at a very reasonable price in the Family Mart near Migliore at the Dongdaemun Clothing Market. I bought about half their stock and savoured every last drop. I also found it available online at Jung Imported Foods (http://www.jungfood.com). However, when returned at the end of the summer, they no longer carried it. It’s a real shame, because it was the best ginger beer I’ve ever had. If you can tell me where I can find it, you’ll make me a very happy man! Until then, I guess I’ll just have to brew it myself.

공갈빵 – Kong kal bbang -- Liar’s Bread

I’m not sure where this comes from, but it has a lot of resemblance to Chinese Hoddeok (중국호떡), the main difference being that this one is baked on a pan in an oven, so it swells up very big.

The name of this bread comes from the word 공갈, which means “blackmail, deceit, treachery.” When you see a pile of these in the bakery, they look impressive, but there is little substance to them.

When I first tried them, I was amazed at how they puffed up into nearly perfect globes. I’ve asked many people how to make them, but they seem to be a trade secret among bakers—no one makes them at home.

Even more amazing is how simple this is—the dough is water, yeast and flour. After letting the dough rise, one takes a small ball of dough, fills it with brown sugar, roasted sesame seeds, and cinnamon, seals the ball, rolls it out into a thin saucer-sized circle, and then bakes it at about 210 degrees C for about 20-25 minutes. They are really good hot!

You should be careful when baking not to let them bake too long. I have some issues with my oven, so by the time they looked done on the outside, they were burnt on the inside. Possibly I need to fiddle with the filling mixture as well.

There is an excellent site in Korean with pictures describing how to make this delicious bread. http://blog.paran.com/monstermong

Here’s the recipe, translated.

Water – 125 grams/ml

Flour – 200 grams (about 375 ml or 1 ½ cups)

Yeast – 1 ½ tsp.

Mix, knead into a nice dough, and let rise. The dough should be just a little sticky.

Filling:

Dark Brown Sugar, Cinnamon, roasted sesame seeds (according to your preference) The recipe also suggests adding some bean powder, but I’m pretty sure most bakers don’t use it, and I would leave it out.)

I don’t see any reason why you couldn’t make a chocolate or some other version of this