I brewed a braggot earlier this year using Scottish Ale Yeast.

The primary fermentation was extremely strong.  The yeast seemed to be in good shape after it was done.

What I didn’t realize was that after a long conditioning phase, counting on those yeast for bottle carbonation was not a good idea.

We have written about the subject of uncarbonated beer before and some of the steps to take before trying options to get it to carbonate.

Enough time had gone by (over two months) at warm temperatures (over 70 degrees F) that the yeast weren’t going to work their magic one last time.   So I decided to do something about it.

With one packet of champagne yeast, a small syringe that comes with OTC children’s cold medicine, and a number of new bottle caps, I tried to give my braggot a shot in the arm.

I picked out six bottles to use.  I thought that was  a good number because it left plenty of bottles to try something else if I am not successful and if I am successful, well, that’s 6 bottles of quality braggot to be consumed at a later date.

Here was my thinking:

1. Use champagne yeast since it is a clean tasting yeast.  It has a high alcohol tolerance.  Braggot is a beer/mead hybrid so using a wine yeast is all right in my book.

2. Use a syringe so I can measure out small but standard amounts of yeast to put into each bottle.  The kids’ medicine syringe dropper thing was perfect.  It was easy to clean and sanitize too.

3. Be quick about it.  Open up the bottles, add the yeast, and cap them.  Move them to a warm place and check one in a few weeks.

The amount of yeast I used was a guess on my part.  I used 1 milliliter because I could measure that amount easily and it seemed like a good amount for a 22 oz bottle.

We’ll see.  Maybe next week we’ll post a video of the results.