Brown yeast in vial, good to use?
- Thread starter schmeek
- Start date
Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
What's the date on it?
I see a lot of white yeast too, so that's good. And you're going to make a starter, right?
I see a lot of white yeast too, so that's good. And you're going to make a starter, right?
If they have fresher looking ones maybe. Depends on how far the drive is I guess
I've made perfectly fine batches with yeast vials like that. Just be sure to make a starter and the healthy yeast cells will propogate
I've made perfectly fine batches with yeast vials like that. Just be sure to make a starter and the healthy yeast cells will propogate
It's 3 months old then, and although some browning is common, it's more than I would expect, although some yeasts do it more than others. Could be from poor storage, so watch out next time.
Whether to return it, your store may not have fresher ones, depending on their turn over. Can you pick or do they hand it to you from the back?
That doesn't determine whether to make a starter or not. With liquid yeast you should always make a starter, with a few exceptions noted (Brett, Blends, etc.). The vials and smack packs don't have enough cells for a 5 gallon pitch, even if they were made yesterday. Check Mr. Malty or Brewer's Friend calculators.
Yup Yup Yup, plus you can harvest clean healthy yeast from that starter so you don;t need to buy some next time. I'm on generation 7 or so with some of my harvested yeasts. I need another vegetable drawer in my fridge becuase I'm running out of space
schmeek
Well-Known Member
That came out wrong. Generally I do ALWAYS make a starter but I only brew ~3-4 gal batches and this one is only going to be 1.050 OG so I thought I might get away with making a starter, eating lunch and then brewing. I pitched about 30 min ago into a 1L starter. Figured I'd get brewing in about an hour and have it ready to pitch the starter into the batch around 8pm.
And yes, they get it from the back and put it directly in a bag. I checked the date this time because last time it was about a week from expiring, but I missed the brown color.
Btw if the date is march 8 2015 that would mean it's only 5 weeks old not 3 months. The best by date is 4 months after bottling.
And yes, they get it from the back and put it directly in a bag. I checked the date this time because last time it was about a week from expiring, but I missed the brown color.
Btw if the date is march 8 2015 that would mean it's only 5 weeks old not 3 months. The best by date is 4 months after bottling.
Even for a 3 gal 1.050 batch one vial is skimpy.
I hope you're cold crashing that starter though. Adding a liter of thin oxidized starter beer to your brew is not going to improve it.
If you use good sanitation, decant and pitch the yeast slurry tomorrow morning after it spent a night in the fridge. After decanting, have it warm up a bit to pitch temps. Keep some slurry behind to use for your next brew.
I actually decant the used starter beer into a sanitized container (quart mason jar or so). Then after pitching, and holding some slurry back, I add some of that saved starter beer back to the slurry, swish and pour it into a sanitized mason jar for keeps. I then top that jar up to the brim with the starter beer, cap and refrigerate. This is called yeast ranching, to distinguish it from harvesting which is done after fermentation.
Similar threads
