Hibiscus Soda & Orange Soda

Tart.

Big brews doesn't have to be about beer, It can be about brewing up a soda too.

To that end while I was working on my Hibiscus Pale Ale as inspired by The Mad Fermentationist I made some batches of hibiscus tea in my brand new french press. After enjoying the tea I began to wonder how it would taste as a slightly sweetened soda. This gave way to me trying it as a slightly sweetened soda. In addition I wanted to take my vanilla almond cream soda and make it an orange cream soda. I've always enjoyed sodas but I find them overly sweet, and the idea of filling my body with uneccesary fake coloring is off putting. I wouldn't dye my beef red, why would I dye my soda red?

(read more after the break)

Making Sodas

For a long time I've wanted to make soda at home. This started as a dream to make my own good tasting cola to replace the ever increasing cost of my major brand sodas. We had a product, a marketing campaign, and labels all ready to go if we could just figure out how to make soda. We never had the capital to invest in this dream as college students. We couldn't afford to buy force carbonation equipment or ingredients to make test batches of soda. This has changed in recent times as we've begun to assemble our own at home breweries and the at home brewing equipment is largely the same as soda making.



(read more after the break.)