WOOT beer...now THERE'S a quality comment for ya

I got this for my seven year old little brother for his birthday and it was a huge hit. We even ended up adding flavors to the root beer after it was done to experiment even further. Apparently peppermint root beer is NOT good. Who would have thunk it?

Well then let's just all have a beer and get down to the root of things.

They had this for the same price, but WITH the refill kit (so twice as much rootbeer) on August 28th.

However, it's definitely very good rootbeer! I added a little extra vanilla and it smoothed it out awesomely.

any concession for diet soda drinkers?

My son is a connoisseur of root beer. So I thought how cool it would be to actually make some. The directions are very specific so I recommend reading them over a couple of times before you begin. My husband and I loved the results. My son said it was a little too strong for his taste. I would think that you could add a little seltzer water or club soda to dilute it but we didn't try that.

gfunk6058 Said:

I got this for my seven year old little brother for his birthday and it was a huge hit. We even ended up adding flavors to the root beer after it was done to experiment even further. Apparently peppermint root beer is NOT good. Who would have thunk it?

In the listed Features it reads:
Due to this carbonation process your root beer contains trace amounts of alcohol (about 1% ABW). = Alcohol By Weight

So about 1/5 of what a common beer is, so how much root beer does seven year old little brother need to drink to get hammered ?

bethofspring wrote:any concession for diet soda drinkers?

The sugar is necessary for yeast to produce carbon dioxide. I suppose you could try just adding the flavoring and some artificial sweetner to pre-carbonated water to get instant diet root beer, but at best the end result would be just like diet root beer you could buy in the store. It would kind of miss the whole point about this kit, which is to produce naturally fermented root beer.

timefortag wrote:So about 1/5 of what a common beer is, so how much root beer does seven year old little brother need to drink to get hammered ?

1% ABW is around 1.25% ABV, which is how American beer is measured. So one of these is about 1/4 of a beer.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that little brother would be feeling more ill from drinking a liter (or 2 or 3) of root beer than drunk from the minimal alcohol content.

Just bought for my cousin's 8th birthday. I think he's going to love it.

I bought 3 for the boys. But worried that this might be a gateway beverage for harder energy drinks.

I generaly read the little "stories" WOOT writes going along with products sometimes laughing and sometimes rolling my eyes but none the less enjoy these little snippets. However, I was taking somewhat aback with this one that starts out, "I've got cancer. I'm going to die...". There are many thousands out there that have lost and continue to lose loved ones every day to cancer, as I have. I am sure WOOT does not mean to appear callus in any way but this does hit home for many and I feel was not in all that good of taste. Just sayin'

charliecarroll wrote:I generaly read the little "stories" WOOT writes going along with products sometimes laughing and sometimes rolling my eyes but none the less enjoy these little snippets. However, I was taking somewhat aback with this one that starts out, "I've got cancer. I'm going to die...". There are many thousands out there that have lost and continue to lose loved ones every day to cancer, as I have. I am sure WOOT does not mean to appear callus in any way but this does hit home for many and I feel was not in all that good of taste. Just sayin'

I get your point, but really, it was pretty obvious right away that this was a Breaking Bad parody, even to me - someone who doesn't watch the show AND has recently lost a loved one to cancer.

Can we add blue food coloring for authenticity?

dsdmd wrote:

I agree. Cancer is NOT funny to those of us who have had it or those whose family members have had it. Especially if they really ARE dying or have died from it. Yes, it was obvious it was a joke, but cancer is not a joking matter.

dsdmd wrote:I agree. Cancer is NOT funny to those of us who have had it or those whose family members have had it. Especially if they really ARE dying or have died from it. Yes, it was obvious it was a joke, but cancer is not a joking matter.

Really? Because I have a friend who has lost two, yes, two, partners to cancer, and really at that point, you just kinda have to laugh.

Also, she's a comedian.

For those (like me) wondering how much this makes, assuming it is the same kit as http://www.mrbeer.com/category-exec/category_id/179, it makes 2 batches about 1 gallon each batch. Also, for those worried about alcohol content, the same site says is is "approx. 1/2 of 1% ABV", or about what you would get in non-alcoholic "near beer".

We got this from the kids Woot! (I think) sale. It is a fantastic kit, but because you are actually performing chemistry it's not as instantly fun for the kids as you might suspect. There's no doubt they will like the result, and you can definitely engage them in most of the steps of the process, but it's tough to sell "and now we're going to sterilize everything!" as a super-fun activity.

That said, the result is pretty amazing. We got super-smooth root bear with nice foam (it's champagne yeast, so you get a gorgeous stream of bubbles). We used baker's sugar (a smaller granulate) for the white sugar portion of the recipe, and it was pretty much ready overnight (it can take up to two days for it to ferment fully). The next batch we're going to use buckwheat honey, which should give it a nicer bass note and not be so sugary. The instructions say you can cut the white sugar in half, but I think we're just going to try a straight swap, honey for both types of sugar. We'll end up with some sort of crazy root mead.

Bottom line: go for it, but be sure you manage expectations. It takes a good two hours to prepare and bottle, and then you have at least an overnight wait. If you're unprepared for that (or more importantly, if the kids are unprepared), it will be like that time when you bought a lego X-wing for a birthday and ended up doing most of it yourself while the kid ran around with a cardboard tube pretending to be Luke.

charliecarroll wrote:I generaly read the little "stories" WOOT writes going along with products sometimes laughing and sometimes rolling my eyes but none the less enjoy these little snippets. However, I was taking somewhat aback with this one that starts out, "I've got cancer. I'm going to die...". There are many thousands out there that have lost and continue to lose loved ones every day to cancer, as I have. I am sure WOOT does not mean to appear callus in any way but this does hit home for many and I feel was not in all that good of taste. Just sayin'

Do you really not get that's Breaking Bad? Sheesh.

So I bought this the last time it was for sale.

One thing I learned very quickly, after reading the lengthy instructions.... I AM FAR TOO LAZY TO BE DOING THIS.

I'd rather just go out and buy real root beer.

agbertoni wrote:So I bought this the last time it was for sale.

One thing I learned very quickly, after reading the lengthy instructions.... I AM FAR TOO LAZY TO BE DOING THIS.

I'd rather just go out and buy real root beer.

I'm not sure naturally fermented root beer is even available for purchase, outside of a local brewpub.

dsdmd wrote:I agree. Cancer is NOT funny to those of us who have had it or those whose family members have had it. Especially if they really ARE dying or have died from it. Yes, it was obvious it was a joke, but cancer is not a joking matter.

Cancer is not used in a joking matter. There happens to be a sentence in which the word cancer appears. It is literally a person saying, "I have cancer."

There is plenty of actually offensive stuff on the internet; you don't have to try so hard to try to invent some.

In danger of being a spoilsport, woot did sell this for $12.99 before as well, but it had a refill kit and an extra rinse packet last time. I linked to the comments part of that sale, though, but you can click at the top to the description page like you can here:
http://sellout.woot.com/forums/viewpost.aspx?postid=5144203

bdskelly wrote:I bought 3 for the boys. But worried that this might be a gateway beverage for harder energy drinks.

Now THIS is a quality post. : )

llandar wrote:Cancer is not used in a joking matter. There happens to be a sentence in which the word cancer appears. It is literally a person saying, "I have cancer."

There is plenty of actually offensive stuff on the internet; you don't have to try so hard to try to invent some.

You in your effort to debate, and that is not what I was looking for used a "bite" to prove your point and not the text as it was. It did not simply say, "I have cancer". It said, "I have cancer. I am going to die". I agree there is more offensive stuff out there but, because one is more offensive than this, does not make this right. The same scenario could have been use, "I am not going to live forever so.....". But, it was not. OK, STAFF, you think there is no problem here? Fine by me. Hope you don't have to learn like I have the importance of not taking things for granted. And to the responder that stated he/she had a friend that lost three and could still laugh. And also stated the person was a comedian, that is great and good for them. I only had to loose one at a very young age to see what the disease does. It is never funny to most. Again, it was in very poor taste. I did not 'invent' a thing. Myself and my family were all part of the disease because it is not just the patient but all that love the patient. So, continue on and write on all you wish. I feel no need to say anymore. As 'staff' you would always have the last say.