Thanks so much for the comment. Our community of viewers is our motivation to keep greening our lives and making videos. It’s awesome that your blogs inspire you to do one action a day. People often ask us is doing one little thing each day or week is enough to make a difference. I remind them that I lost 50 lbs by changing my diet one little thing at a time, and that it was the domestic efforts in WWII that ensured fascism would not dominate the world. Little changes add up!

As we mention in the video, there will be a small amount of alcohol in there if you use this technique. It’s very small. I’d estimate that, in an 8oz serving, there’s at most .004oz of alcohol. This is a tiny drop, but some people are very concerned when they hear the word “alcohol”. It’s possible, though, for you to still use yeast to carbonate and be truly alcohol-free…you can start the yeast in a bottle of sugar water, cap the bottle, and run a hose into the bottle with the soft drink in it. It’s less efficient, but it’ll still work as long as the system is airtight.

Personally, I’d consider that tiniest amount of alcohol to not be of concern. My family started letting me drink small amounts of non-alcoholic beer and yeast-carbonated soft ciders when I was about 10, and it hasn’t hurt me.

If you do find a homebrew soft drink that goes over well with your kids, we’d love the recipe and even some pictures!

And congratulations on your marriage!

Believe it or not, we’d planned on shooting this episode at our brewing co-op which is three blocks away. We were out of beer and wine to serve our guests (and ourselves), so we’d headed over to the shop to brew more, and were in such a hurry that we forgot the camera.

We do our brewing at a supply shop and co-op. The beer is made with a mix of malt and malt extracts and we have the supervision of two brewmasters. The wine is also made there, but the brewing process for wine is pretty simple– sanitize the fermenter, add the grape juice, add some wood chips, activate and add the yeast, and leave it for a month. Because beer requires heating to various temperatures and careful temperature control, it can actually be the trickier thing to get right. Wines and meades are easier. Meades take a while to get tasty, though.

I’ve found recipes for beer that can be made without special equipment, and once we finish the wedding celebration with our families, I’ll be trying them out. It might make a good option…we’ll see.

What problems have you been having with your homebrew?

I havent actually tried to make alcoholic beverages yet, but I have had a few friends try their hand at it-both beer and wine-and the results fell flat with every one who tried their concotions. I am thinking about trying it sometime this summer, but being the perfectionist planner that I am, I need to do more research first and find some tried and true recipies.

If you’re looking for research and recipes, I highly recommend The Complete Joy of Homebrewing. I’m reading it right now to better understand the recipes I use. It really demystifies the entire process and its introductory recipes are quite simple to follow. It was recommended to me by our brewmaster, actually.

If yeast freaks you out, the other option is to go back to the seltzer bottle like the ones you see from classic physical comedy routines. Just sweeten and flavor the water, and you’re set. I believe the small CO2 cartridges are aluminum and recyclable. If not, the secret is to just up the size of your CO2 reservoir until it’s a size that is returnable and thus reusable.

Why does yeast concern you, if you don’t mind my asking?

Thanks for the nice vote. I’m catching up on the blog while Amy sleeps, so I haven’t had time to see your vlog yet. We just got married yesterday and we’re playing catch-up. I’m going to watch your videos tomorrow. Just looking at the banner tells me I’m going to love them.

Yeast freaks me out because it’s like this weird powder that’s alive — I get creeped out by things like plants that move (Venus fly trap) or powders that make things bubble and grow and stuff (like, what’s it doing in my stomach then?). Also am totally freaked by monkeys… they’re just way too close to being humans. I like concrete dividers between human, animal, plant and mineral.

Can you tell I flunked science?

Now I don’t feel so bad when I show up as Science Geek Boy on your blog.

Hi! Good day, your recipe really rocks, i really enjoy doing it over and over, you are right, the key of success on fermentation is cleanliness, the first time i do it, it horribly fails due to i forgot to sanitize everything. But now it’s pretty cool, plus the fact that i almost forgot to drink ordinary cola.

p.s.

Please forgive my english, since i’m not a native english speaker i hope one of these days if you are not busy, could you please post it here on your blog your _secret_ recipe on how to make a _beer_. :p

Best regards,

Ronald

Your English is quite good, and I’m sure it’s better than my ability with your native language. Where are you from, out of curiosity? We’ve seen peoplee all over the world view our videos, and we love knowing where people are from.

We’re really glad you like the recipe, and if you find another recipe that words well, we’d love to know. I’m brewing a soft drink right now that uses green tea and pomegranate, and it looks like it might be good, but I don’t know yet.

We absolutely will be doing an upcoming episode on beer. The owner of our brew shop would love to. We just need to finish drinking the current beer. We also have some wine on the way. We’re also waiting to try out a way to make small amounts of beer without special equipment.