Large Batch of Homemade Root Beer

Earlier today, I helped at my sons' school for "Pioneer Day." The kids dress up like pioneers and do all kinds of fun things related to that: play pioneer games, pretend to learn in a 1-room schoolhouse, etc. I helped out (with a few other parents and grandparents) by making homemade root beer next to school for the 4th, 5th, and 8th graders to try. Here was our process:

I picked up 10 lbs of "dry ice nuggets" from a local beverage place for $15 (including tax).

Two problems: "the big H" is slang for heroin, and "picnics" is spelled wrong. 

One bottle is good for 3 gallons. We made 10 gallons with 3 bottles.

Also, notice I'm wearing gloves in those last 2 photos. The dry ice was very cold (obviously), and even carrying that small 10 lb bundle wrapped in butcher paper for 30 seconds out to my car made my hands painfully cold. Don't mess around with that stuff!

We poured a little dry ice (SLOWLY as to not clump) into the water, sugar, and extract mixture 3 different times to show different classes the "exciting" part. It steams up like witches brew! We just had to stir for 30 minutes straight after that to keep the dry ice nuggets broken up, and to let them dissolve. (The nuggets looked like the size of those styrofoam packing peanuts that look like Cheetos Puffs.)

After adding about 2 lbs of dry ice to our mixture.

Now about 6-8 lbs of our 10 lbs had been added. LOTS OF FOAM!

The rest of the dry ice had been added, and things started to simmer down.
But notice we had some overflow - not too much, but just enough to be dramatic.  :)

Notice how low the root beer is - ALL THAT SPACE was
foam and dry ice "steam" in those photos above!

The principal came out to observe. (Also, we moved into the sun to help
warm it a little as we still had a few big chunks of icy root beer to break up.)

Our first class of kids! It went over REALLY well.

Serving lots of root beer.

Waiting for the next class to arrive.

We saved the water jugs and filled them up with extra at the end.

We went around and topped off cups if kids wanted seconds, and we still had nearly 4 gallons left over. Everyone loved it, and it was quite a show with the dry ice. It was pretty flat as we made so much that we had to stir and stir to get the frozen chunks dealt with. 

And now that I know where to get dry ice locally, I might have to do this on a smaller scale at home sometime! I think stirring it a LOT less and then just fishing out any left over chunks would lead to better carbonation. But there still needs to be plenty of stirring to get the dry ice mixed up, so it's a fine line.