Old Yeast - Slow Starter

[JEM Australia]

Hi there,

9 months ago I bought a tube of WLP German Lager Yeast. I made a big starter for my brew, but kept a couple of samples.

I used those vacuum seal preserving jars which I boiled for 15 mins, filled with boiled water and let cool (ie did my best with hygiene).

I pulled out the last one on Thursday night and made a starter. I took about 30 hours to crank up (room temp has been about 18 degrees during the day because of the rain here in Brisbane).

It smells OK (not sulphur but it is at room temp), and only has a very very thin layer of foam on it.

Has anyone used a yeast sample this old before? If I need to abandon it and go get a dry yeast, I have 3 hours before the HBS shuts.

JEM

 

[Sammus]

I'm no expert on the matter, but I think it will be fine, but you will probably have to build it up which could take a while. If your planning to brew this weekend it might be wise to go to the HBS. I guess it depends how big your sample was that you put away. I think usually with lagers you want to build up a 2-3L starter. Come to think of it, even if you do go the HBS to get more, you will still have to spend a couple days building up a starter...

 

[matti]

It shouldn't be a problem but as sammus suggests it may take longer then 30 hours to get a krausen.
I would expect 2-3 days at least if it's that old.

I 've read that one should allow the starter to ferment out prior to to splitting it. This way the cells have enough nutrion to survive a long time storage.

If you did split the starter during high krausen the yeast may take a bit longer because the cell count maybe a bit smaller.

If you see foam I think you are safe.
matti

 

[JEM Australia]

Thanks for responding guys. I'll take my chances and post the results in a few days.

 

[JEM Australia]

Just to complete this post for the benefit of others, I pitched the yeast starter into well aerated 18 celcius wort Saturday evening and by Sunday morning I had a strong fermentation going at 16 celcius. It smelt OK. I slowly dropped the temp 13 celcius and Monday morning I had the smell of sulphur so I suspect all is OK.

 

[etbandit]

Jem,

I used a 6 month and 3 month old starter aliquot (250ml) of wyeast 1056 and 3068 respectively and they all worked fine. I made a 3L starter with these and they all kicked started in about 3 days.

Last week I made a 2L starter from a 13 month old wyeast 3068 and it wasnt so good. It took about 6 days to to kick start even with a stir plate. Bear in mind, 3068 is a wheat yeast that works hard and die hard, so I think i pushed the limit with that one.

A few things to keep in mind when storing aliquots of yeast starter for future use:
1. Make a large enough starter 2-4L so you get sufficient yeast growth.
2. Aliquot enough starter (>200 ml) for storage to compensate for the numbers that will die during storage.
3. Use stored aliquots asap. Anything store beyond 1yr is suspect.