I have made two batches now and both are flat! I followed the directions that came in the box, "Rainbow flavors" root beer.

How I did it was I made a 3 gallon batch, I took one gallon and put it in a pot on the stove to boil. Once it was boiling I put in the required amount of sugar in the water to dissolve. I put 1.5 gallons in the bucket (cold) and added the root beer extract and stirred it up real nice!

I put the required amount of yeast in one cup of warm water 95 degrees and stirred it up, I let it sit for about 15 minutes to dissolve.

I poured the pot from the stove in the bucket and mixed it all up real nice, the cold water cooled the hot water and it wasn't long before it was about 95 degrees. At that point I added the yeast mix to the bucket and stirred it up again real nice!

Now this is where my trouble begins I think, I have read many posts on the web and all of them I have read say to bottle the soda right away.
I probably left it in the bucket for 20 min both times, while I was getting the bottling stuff together and then bottled the soda.

My question to you is, how long do I leave the root beer in the bucket before I bottle it? and please tell me if I am doing something else wrong I am new to this and will take all the help I can get!

Joe73 - there are several factors that could contribute....I wouldn't add the yeast until the mixture is a bit cooler. 95 degrees may be too hot and possibly killed your yeast. Bottling right away may help some, but make sure your yeast is active and fresh. What kind of yeast are you using? What temperature were the bottles stored? How long was the root beer bottled before you opened it? Others may have some more insight, but that's a start.

Hi Joe, just to add on the what steveb suggested, leaving the "tea" in the pot for 20 minutes wouldn't affect the fermentation, the main concern with leaving the tea in the pot for an extended period of time would be contaminating the root beer via airborn bacteria, which will spoil the taste, not the fermentation.

I suspect the temperature is too high as well, you should be shooting for between 70-76 degrees farenheit, higher than that you run the risk of killing the yeast, and ending up with a flat drink.

Its a fun hobby, but frustrating at times.

I have had challenges getting soda to carbonate in a keg if the keg was very full. I'd pressurize the keg, but the amount of airspace was small and the CO2 amount in it relative to the volume of the liquid was small and it required me to keep repressurizing the keg as the CO2 was absorbed. I get better result using about 3 gallons of liquid (with 2 gallons of headspace), and I start with flushing the air out a couple of times so that more CO2 will be in the space, then I pressurize. It seems to carbonate better that way for me.

95 degrees is optimal range for re-hydrating yeast. Your not killing them at that temp. (their optimal reproduction rate temp is 120-145 degrees),hence, when your baking bread.
To help with your question though, root beer is most likely flat do to your carbonating time. this is the most crucial part of making root beer. depending on your Yeast type & amount
used will be anywhere from 12 hours to 36 hours. best way to know is after u bottle & seal the soda pop, gently squeeze the bottle (will be "flimsy" at first).
The bottle gets tighter as it carbonates, too tight & it sucks. I know this post was really old but I wanted to correct the above suggestions stating that your killing them with high temp.
if that were true, bread as we all know it wouldn't exist...