Adding yeast to bottles?

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alee

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OK, After my previous threads and the advice I was given about waiting out a slow (maybe non-existent) bottle carbonation, I tried an experiment. 3 Days ago, I poured one of my previous batches of ale into a glass and drank it! I then took one of my "4 weeks in the bottle" ales and poured a little out. Then I added the dreggs from the previous beer to this bottle and recapped it with a sterile cap. I repeated this with another then placed the bottles in the kitchen.

Long story short, I opened one tonight and to my delight it had a 1 inch head on it and was about 1/2 way carbonated. Could it be that it was lack of yeast all along?

The question is: How do I innoculate the rest of the batch of bottles with good yeast. I obviously can't do one at a time. Do I need to make a starter, or will rehydrating some dry yeast and injecting it equally into the bottles with a sterile syringe work?

Thanks again for everyones help.
 
I'm really having a hard time believing that there wasn't enough yeast to begin with. Did you filter it in some way? There should be plenty of yeast left in suspension to carbonate with. That being said, I'm not sure what would be the best way to add a little more yeast to the bottles.
 
Not sure if you've tried rousing the yeast in the bottles, but that would be my first idea. Next step would be to uncap each bottle and put a couple "grains" of dried yeast into each one and re-cap. Time consuming? Yes. Worth it if you have a great beer on your hands? Definately!!
 

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