Can I use weeks old starter?

[Saxomophone]

I made a starter a few weeks ago thinking that I would have time to brew that week. After about a week I put the whole thing (covered with aluminum foil and plastic lid--probably not completely airtight) in the back of the fridge.

Here it is a few weeks later and I suddenly found time today to brew. So the question is, do you think the starter is OK to use if I decant off the top liquid, or should I not risk it and pitch a pack of dry yeast instead?

It looks OK. There is nothing swimming around in it or anything...Just don't know if it is worth the risk.

 

[highgravitybacon]

I made a starter a few weeks ago thinking that I would have time to brew that week. After about a week I put the whole thing (covered with aluminum foil and plastic lid--probably not completely airtight) in the back of the fridge.

Here it is a few weeks later and I suddenly found time today to brew. So the question is, do you think the starter is OK to use if I decant off the top liquid, or should I not risk it and pitch a pack of dry yeast instead?

It looks OK. There is nothing swimming around in it or anything...Just don't know if it is worth the risk.

I have always done a starter with yeast that's more than a few weeks old. But I have jars of slurry in the fridge that are 4 months old and they kick off in a starter quickly.

Your best chance of succees if you want to brew now is dry yeast. If you can wait a day or two make a 1L starter with the liquid yeast and use that.

 

[daksin]

It's definitely fine to use as long as it's been stored cold, sanitary and under beer. You could boil up a small amount of DME (less than you would use for a small starter) just to wake the yeast back up, but it'll be fine without.

 

[sikkingj]

I made a starter a few weeks ago thinking that I would have time to brew that week. After about a week I put the whole thing (covered with aluminum foil and plastic lid--probably not completely airtight) in the back of the fridge.

Here it is a few weeks later and I suddenly found time today to brew. So the question is, do you think the starter is OK to use if I decant off the top liquid, or should I not risk it and pitch a pack of dry yeast instead?

It looks OK. There is nothing swimming around in it or anything...Just don't know if it is worth the risk.

I second the previous post, the starter is good to use. I used two month old starters - stored in the fridge, under beer with the tinfoil on and both beers have fermented. Although on a side note, one of the beers took a number of days to kick-off, as the basement was cold.


-John

 

[Saxomophone]

Thanks, I'll give it a try and see how it goes. I figure as long as it doesn't smell funky or anything (maybe I'll give it a taste too), even if it doesn't work after a day or so I have the dry yeast as a back up.

 

[Cyclman]

You will have a high degree of dead yeast, so you should wash the yeast, make a new starter, and hope. I wouldn't risk a bad batch over a few bucks of yeast.

 

[Epimetheus]

You will have a high degree of dead yeast, so you should wash the yeast, make a new starter, and hope.

What problems are caused by the dead yeast?

 

[BBL_Brewer]

You don't need to wash it, but viability has dropped. I would step it up before you use it, but if it's only 3 weeks old, you could probably get away with using it as is. You'll be underpitching a little and you'll have a longer lag time.

 

[Cyclman]

Some think that dead yeast adds off flavors, others claim it has no effect. The older it gets, the less likely you are pitching adequately, and unless you're counting yeast with a microscope, you're at best guessing. The book Yeast recommends using yeast within a few weeks at most.

 

[Saxomophone]

I decided to give it a shot so I poured off the liquid (tasted fine to me...as fine as unhopped, uncarbonated beer can taste anyways) and used the sediment at the bottom.

So I pitched it last night at about 9:30 into about 3.5gal of a 1.068 OG brew. By this morning it was starting to bubble. By noon I had a decent krausen, and by around 9 tonight I had to hook up a blow off because it was blowing out the fermentation lock on a 5 gal carboy.

I'd say that yeast still had some life left in it.

The interesting thing to me is that I made the starter from some yeast I washed over a year ago that has been sitting in the back of my fridge.