cool place (below 65 F). refrigerate overnight to thoroughly chill before serving. Crack the lid of the thoroughly chilled root beer just a little to release the pressure slowly. NOTE: Do not leave the finished root beer in a warm place once the bottle feels hard. After a couple weeks or so at room temperature, especially in the summer when the temperature is high, enough pressure may build up to explode the bottle! There is no danger of this if the finished root beer is refrigerated. 12) Move to a refrigerator overnight before opening. NOTE: There will be a sediment of yeast at the bottom of the bottle, so that the last bit of root beer will be turbid. It will not hurt you, but you can decant carefully if you wish to avoid this sediment. A WORD ABOUT THE ALCOHOL IN HOME MADE ROOT BEER (OR GINGER ALE ): I have received numerous inquiries about whether there might be alcohol in this home made soft drink. The answer is yes, but ... We have tested in our lab the alcoholic content which results from the fermentation of this root beer and found it to be between 0.35 and 0.5 %. Comparing this to the 6% in many beers, it would require a person to drink about a gallon and a half of this root beer to be equivalent to one 12 ounce beer. I would call this amount of alcohol negligible, but for persons with metabolic problems who cannot