Flat Lambic

Hi there,

Just tested a bottle of my banana Lambic and it is almost completely flat. I've had the bottles conditioning at 70degrees for 11 weeks now so I was wondering if there was a possibility that too much of my yeast settled out in secondary.

I have checked numerous other threads on this subject before posting, and found that most people suggested waiting longer. However most of the problems related to bottles that had been conditioned for only a few weeks.

I plan to leave the Lambics to condition for 6 months at least, but I am worried that after six months they will still be flat. Ive seen threads suggest adding fresh yeast to the bottles, does anyone have more detailed instructions on how to do this/how much yeast to use etc....

Thankyou for your time, Simon

Welcome to the board!

If you're sure you put priming sugar in the bottling bucket and you're sure you blended it up properly and you're sure it isn't leaking CO2 out the cap and it isn't carbing, it may not hurt to add some yeast.

I might suggest getting a packet of dry yeast and sanitizing a pair of tweezers then open each bottle, one by one, and put a few "grains" of dry yeast into the bottle and then recapping. So long as you do it quickly and don't do it in an area likely to have a ton of dust floating around, the chance of infection is minimal; plus, it is a lambic and thus sort of "infected" already and not really likely to get a bottle bomb unless you really screw up! Most any good, dry ale yeast should work for you as would pretty much any wine yeast, assuming it isn't some super-high gravity lambic. It isn't likely to have much of an impact on flavor at this point. A lot of folks do use champagne yeast, however, and it isn't really any more expensive to get that than S-05.

Assuming there is sugar in the bottles and the yeasts aren't dead, it shouldn't take all that long to carb. 11 weeks is probably about as long as I would think it would take, in any case, but I have heard of 3 to 6 months to get a proper carb / flavor from a geuze so take that for what it's worth.

Don't know if that helps but it is what I have read in the past as a solution. Best of luck!

Thanks for the reply!

I reckon i might try leaving the bottles another couple of months, and if i still have no carb then i'll try adding some dry yeast.

Thanks very much for the help!