First Homebrew - Question

So I have been playing with the idea of homebrewing root beer for quite a while now. I have been collecting bottles when possible and stashing them away for when the time is right.

Anyway - Saturday I dropped my wife off at the airport Saturday and decided that it would be a fun project with the kids. I stopped by my local homebrew shop and obtained almost everything I needed for bottling and yeast (champaign yeast).

I picked up sanitizing tablets (chlorine based) from my local GFS.

I then went about looking for my ingredients. Locally I found everything but the Sarsaparilla and Sassafrass. Not to be deterred, I opted for extract as a "first run".

I sanitized my bottles and used a recipe I found on this forum which called for: (I'm at work so I will try to remember what I used - I believe this is it)

3 tbps extract
2-1/2 c sugar
1tbsp vanilla
1/2 c molassas
1/8 tsp yeast

The recipe would make (if I remember right - 2 gallons I could be wrong).

Anyhoo...

Cooked up my root beer with everything but the yeast. Let it cool to around 90-ish degrees and added my activated yeast. (activated by grabbing up about 4-5 tbsp of my root beer, heating it a small bit and adding my yeast. then I added it back in to the pot)

I sanitized my bottles and a large coleman water cooler.

I poured my big batch of rootbeer in and began to bottle. For the record, I am using some Abita Root Beer bottles and Mexican Coca-Cola bottles.

Left about 1.5 inch of free play at the top of the bottles, capped them and put them in a small cooler (bag) and placed them above the fridge.

Today at lunch, I went home and decided to check my bottles. It has been exactly 36 hours.

When I opened it, the cap popped off and the rootbeer spilled out...

Normal?

Also, I gave it a sample...

A bit bitter (maybe too much molassas). I transferred them to the fridge. Will the flavor change any over the next few days or is that pretty much it?

Thanks in advance for your help.

I'd give it at least another week or 2.

I am a homebrewer, and even though I am no expert I feel I know a good amount as of now. It is normal to get your root beer to fizz over in small bottles. I also use champaign yeast. There is no better yeast for root beer as far as I am concerned. Im also not a big fan of molassas in any root beer recipe. I use brown sugar to take place of white sugar and molassas.

Throwing the root beer in the fridge will make the yeast go dormant. Maybe not 100% but at the very least it will slow down their activity quite dramatically. I recently had success in carbonating 12 16oz bail top bottles. Lets just say that I measured the yeast using the tip of a sharp knife to scoop it out of the pouch. If I could put a numerical quantity on it, id say maybe 1/16tsp.

I dont know if it would help but I do have some videos on YouTube that may help in your "getting started". Just go to YouTube and search my name "KD0RVY". Thats a zero not an O. Its my ham call sign. Hope that helps you some.

Thanks for the replies.

I opened a cold, refrigerated bottle last night and it did not spill out when opening. Good.

I nailed down the taste and it is the molasses. I don't hate it but I don't really care for it either. I will switch to brown sugar for my next batch.

Also, thanks for the vids; I'll check them out.