Really dumb question: White Labs yeast vials

Every time I open a vial of White Labs yeast, I get a vigorous expulsion of stuff from the vial. I finally learned to expect this, and so I StarSan the vial before pitching now.

This is fine when I'm pitching into a bucket -- there's a nice wide target to hit . But last night I pitched into an Erlenmeyer flask, and the entire mess didn't make it in. Grrr...

Is there a secret to opening these eff'ing vials? I need to shake them at least a bit in order to get everything into suspension before opening the vial, but that just makes the explosion that much more vigorous.

Or is it just me?

Thanks!

I sanitize them first, then open them slowly until you hear the gas escaping. Once it is about to spray yeast everywhere, cap it back up and wait for it to settle. Usually I will put it back in the sanitizer while I wait. Keep repeating this until you can actually open it up.

I use a stainless steel funnel.

Yep... it happens to all of us.

When you take it out of the fridge for awhile, the yeast wakes up and starts producing CO2 pressure in the Vial. It's similar to shaking a carbonated beverage before opening it.

The best fix is to do same thing you do with an over carbonated bottle. Crack it open, and close it quick; repeat a few times to vent the excess CO2. It works better if you start the process right when you first take the vial out of the refrigerator.....

Never have a problem: Crack the cap open soon after you pull them out of the fridge then snug up the cap and give 'em a good shake. Then, every hour or so, crack the cap slowly to relieve any built up pressure, snug it back up and shake again. If there's too much pressure in an hour go to 45 min or so. You just gotta remember to crack the cap open BEFORE you shake! Sounds like a bit of a hassle but i just put them in a convenient area and do the above periodically when I walk by during my brewing.

After using Wyeast for years, I found this out the hard way the first time I used a White Labs vial. AND the second time I since I use them so seldom.

We have a little different approach. Since we use the vials for feeding slants or pitched into a starter, we never shake the vials. After 2 hours of normalizing the temp, the vial is depressurized a couple of times over 10-15 minutes and then the yeast clump is scooped and pushed down using a sterile stainless reagent digger. The starter agitation breaks up the clump in a few seconds.