Starting Old Yeast

[mika]

Haven't had a lot of joy with the wYeast Kolsch strain and no-one over here carries White Labs, so thought I'd give a ProCulture sample a go.
Unfortunately the HB store I chose only had really old stock of the strain I wanted (PRO-107). Not sure whether it was a Born on Date or Use Before date, but was marked as December last year, which I didn't think was really that bad as I've started up wYeast packs from the Bargain bin and they've usually worked fine.
To add to that, looking thru the outside of the vial the yeast at the bottom still looked kinda creamy.
So shake it up, dump it into the starter wort and notice it's now quite dark and left behind in the vial is a fair bit of black junk which I presume to be dead yeast cells.... but I'm not sure.
Anyone else been down this path ?
Am I wasting my time ?
Is there anything I should do when/if the starter fires up ? I've only started with 1L and was then going to step up to 5L. Don't want to go thu all the hassle only to end up with yeast that won't play nice, or an infection.

 

[Wolfy]

The vial should have been made in sterile lab conditions, so even if the yeast is a bit old and not in the best shape, it will not introduce any infection to your starter (more at question are the procedures that you used to make the starter).
I think the date on the ProCulture packs are a production one, but even so there still should be ample yeast for your 1L starter, so I don't think you are wasting your time, and there is probably not much else you could have done.
Klsch yeast is a bit strange and funky at times, but give it a chance and I think you'll be fine.

 

[Screwtop]

Why not ask someone who WOULD have a clue

Email Wayne: [email protected]


Nice bloke, he should have some pointers!

Screwy

 

[mika]

Cheers Wolfy and Screwy. Yeah, guess e-mailing Wayne is a good idea for peace of mind.

 

[mika]

Got a reply back from Dr. Wayne.

The black matter is typically a result of the autoclaving process on the media and this precipitates out over time

The date on the vial is a Born on Date. Apparently they're revising the packaging to make this a bit clearer.

Other than that he seemed to be OK with what I was doing and didn't suggest I do anything further. Checked it last night and looks like it might have taken off already, so looks like I'm running out of excuses.