Dead Liquid Yeast

[egolds77]

I recently experienced a yeast failure from a packet of Wyeast 1187. I followed their instructions on the Wyeast packet for creating a yeast starter but it never took off. The batch date was only Jun 09.

I was wondering if others have experienced this and if so how often and with what brand of liquid yeast?

 

[Ross]

Did you smack the pack & wait for it to swell? would take a lot to totally kill a fresh wyeast - I suspect you have not noticed it ferment....what makes you think it's dead?

Cheers Ross

 

[mrpolly]

Your Poll needs to have never as an option

 

[Stuster]

Where's the never option? :unsure:

 

[lczaban]

How about the "Never" option??

I've used several WhiteLabs and Wyeast liquid yeats, and they have all fired. Some have taken longer than others. I wonder what is different about the way you have used yours, or what has happened to it that would explain why it has failed to fire... Did you "smack the pack" correctly? How long did it take to swell? How long has it been since the yeast was pitched? Where did you buy it from? How long did it take to get home, and how much time elapsed between then and when you used the yeast? Did you refridgerate the pack if it that time was longer than about 6 hours? Have you used liquid teasts before and if so, how many and which ones? There are so many questions that need answering about the what, why and how that it is pointless slagging off liquid yeasts until we know some more details. Giving your felow forum users some more info would help determine if indeed you have a genuine gripe, or if there is some else obviously wrong that has caused your yeast to fail (if indeed it has)...

Dammit Stuster, beat me to it!

 

[Steve]

Where's the never option? :unsure:

+1. Got an old British Ale from a mate, a year past its use by date, smacked, swell.....all was good. Tell us what you did Elton.

Edit....even if you didnt smack the nutrient pack you still wouldnt have a dead yeast starter

 

[Sammus]

Yep, another never. I've even smacked 2 year old packs that worked fine... after a bit of coaxing of course

 

[egolds77]

I smacked the pack as directed and sat it aside for the 3 hours but it just never swelled. I went ahead and added it to the starter wort I made up, which was around 4pm Saturday. By 1pm Sunday the yeast starter still wasn't bubbling or showing any signs of activity. I pitched the yeast anyway in desperite hope and by 5pm monday still nothing so I pitched some Safale S-04 to save the Wort as I couldn't get another liquid yeast quickly as all my LHB stores don't stock liquid yeast.

 

[Steve]

I smacked the pack as directed and sat it aside for the 3 hours but it just never swelled. I went ahead and added it to the starter wort I made up, which was around 4pm Saturday. By 1pm Sunday the yeast starter still wasn't bubbling or showing any signs of activity. I pitched the yeast anyway in desperite hope and by 5pm monday still nothing so I pitched some Safale S-04 to save the Wort as I couldn't get another liquid yeast quickly as all my LHB stores don't stock liquid yeast.

They normally take more than 3 hours to swell. More like overnight (at the right temperature). It'll be right.. you just were a pit too impatient. You need to make a starter about 2-3 days before pitching. Is there any krausen after pitching the dry yeast on Monday?
Cheers
Steve

 

[egolds77]

The Wort is fermenting away nicely now after the addition of the dry yeast.

I would have thought after 21 hrs in wort @ 20 C the starter would have been showing some signs of taking off, then another 28 hrs in the 20L wort, still no further signs of activity.

 

[lczaban]

I smacked the pack as directed and sat it aside for the 3 hours but it just never swelled. I went ahead and added it to the starter wort I made up, which was around 4pm Saturday. By 1pm Sunday the yeast starter still wasn't bubbling or showing any signs of activity. I pitched the yeast anyway in desperite hope and by 5pm monday still nothing so I pitched some Safale S-04 to save the Wort as I couldn't get another liquid yeast quickly as all my LHB stores don't stock liquid yeast.

1187 aka Ringwood yeast is one that is known to be a bit slow on the uptake sometimes. Some people have their Ringwood yeast take off fairly uniformly, while others have to wait up to 72 hours before they get signs of fermentation occurring. I personally would have waited another 24 hours before contemplating repitching.

Apart from some of the questions I posed earlier, what did you do in terms of preparing your starter? Who did you buy your liquid yeast from, and was it shipped in some sort of cooling pack/kit? Liquid yeast is a pack/vial of living organisms that can be sensitive to warm/hot temperatures over a prolonged period. While you've answered some questions, you need to give us the complete picture (in as much detail as possible) about what has happened to this yeast from when this yeast pack first came into your possession (and beforehand preferably) up until and beyond when you have pitched the yeast into your wort.

 

[Wolfy]

Give that the Wyeast packs are smack-packs, what did you actually do?
Did you make a starter and tip your pack in, as it seems you are saying, or did you smack the pack and wait for it to swell until it looked like it was going to explode?
How did it fail, what happened, and what did you do?

I've had some 6-12m old packs that still work fine if you give them enough time to kick-start and then step them up gradually with starters.
Note: "Enough time" could be days! Not just hours. I think I waited about 3 days once, but it still worked fine.
As Ross kindly explained to me on the phone when I was concerned about a slow start, the packs are sterile and ideal environments for the yeast to grow, follow the instructions and then wait for it to activate and swell the pack till its nearly bursting, then think about using it in either a starter or pitch it directly.

 

[Bribie G]

Some yeasts in starters don't produce heaps of krausens, bubbling, yeast bombs going up and down in the flask etc etc. and it's easy to come to the conclusion that they are dead. For example with my last Ringwood I had the beer in a cube waiting for a fermenter and decided to start the pack and breed it up for two or three days and pitch. I made up a fairly strong malt extract wort. After two days absolutely no apparent activity.

Now Ringwood of all yeasts is a heavy 'top cropper' so should have been fighting its way out of the flask, but nothing. After a couple of days I decided to do a hydro check to see what was happening. I was initially concerned that I had made the wort too chewy and zonked out the yeast. Before taking a hydro sample I did a quick taste with a sterilised spoon and the wort was as dry as the proverbial. It had all fermented out.

Pitched it and within 36 hours I had a magnificent krausen. However, quietly, the yeast bulk had been building up and building up and when I pitched the slurry it was heaps more than what had come out of the smack pack.

 

[brianman]

The Wort is fermenting away nicely now after the addition of the dry yeast.

I would have thought after 21 hrs in wort @ 20 C the starter would have been showing some signs of taking off, then another 28 hrs in the 20L wort, still no further signs of activity.

Pitched my first liquid yeast (wyeast 1272 II) on Thursday 5pm, didn't read the instructions early, so smacked a few times, finally got the slippery bugger to pop. 5pm Friday nothing, should i have waited 3hrs?, Saturday morning, ahh life , Sat. arvo good krausen, must have really taken off Sat. night., finished sometime Sunday night, Monday morning. Are all liquid yeasts slow starters.
Cheers
Briby

 

[haysie]

Are all liquid yeasts slow starters.

In a word NO, lotsa variables as others have posted above. I had a 1007 require a blowoff on a 50ish altbier that i only started with a litre and no stirplate, the same yeast is threating too b low the lids off two fermenters holding kolsch and alt2 after only 24hours. Temparature @16

I have had some starters where I missed the fermentation, no krausen at all but the wort was stone dry.

 

[Bribie G]

Pitched my first liquid yeast (wyeast 1272 II) on Thursday 5pm, didn't read the instructions early, so smacked a few times, finally got the slippery bugger to pop. 5pm Friday nothing, should i have waited 3hrs?, Saturday morning, ahh life , Sat. arvo good krausen, must have really taken off Sat. night., finished sometime Sunday night, Monday morning. Are all liquid yeasts slow starters.
Cheers
Briby

From what I understand, dry yeasts are all primed with magnificent cell walls etc, and ready to go provided you rehydrate them (and that's a matter of debate on the forum but they usually take off like a rocket). On the other hand I have gained the impression that liquid yeasts are just live yeasts in suspended animation like space travellers arriving at Alpha Centauri and need a bit of nutrient and coffee and a massage to wake them up so they can do their job.

What I have found, however, is that if you reculture a sample of these yeasts from a yeast cake and pitch a really good whack of live cells they take off like buggery. Currently I have a stout on Ringwood that I pitched yesterday morning and now it's coated the lid of the fermenter on the inside and just oozing up into the airlock and it's only at 18 degrees. :beerbang:

 

[egolds77]

Sounds like I was too impatient with it. I haven't done too many liquid yeast before and expected some activity after 48 hrs. Maybe I should have taken a hydrometer sample before adding the dry yeast. I'm definitely doing this recipe again to compare the two.

I followed Wyeast's instructions on the back of the smack pack on How to make a starter.

I'll be sure to start my yeast starter on a thursday for the weekend next time.

 

[redmond]

I had a Wyeast 1084 that I smacked 12hrs before pitching that didn't swell at all. Got a little impatient and ptiched it anyway, I don't recall having seen any activity in the fermenter for the first 3 days. I went away for the weekend and decided to take the gravity when I got home. It had fermented out by then.

Jason.

 

[browndog]

Where's the never option? :unsure:

+1

Browndog

 

[manticle]

So far my liquid yeast experience is from one single packet of 3787.

In the first instance I smacked it according to advice from Grain and Grape - half a day for every month after manufacture (if I remember correctly - would hate to misquote).

The pack swelled up. After this time (I think it was 4 months so two days smacked) I made a starter although it was a quick one - 1L water and 100g LDME. The brew took off within 20 hours (probably less) and foamed out the airlock, through the window and inot the little bear's ears.

I took some of the krausen and some of the slurry. Both were placed in sanitised coopers bottles with boiled cooled water and refrigerated. One day my fridge was accidentally unplugged and one bottle exploded. Viable yeast, I would say.

A few weeks later, brewing a similar type beer again I took the three remaining bottles, made a starter with the sediment, water contained within each bottle and some malt. Left for two days, covered in a warmish place. Pitched into brew, started within 12 hours.

I'm getting into the habit of starters for everything - even dry.