How to get liquid yeast overseas

[CoTron]

My dilemma is that I can't get liquid yeast in Russia. Mail takes a couple weeks (at least) to get here from the US. Also, I probably won't be going back to the States anytime soon. I could have someone bring some over for me if I could make it an easy process for them to bring it over without looking like they are helping create some kind of biological weapon.

Another option is trying to find some bottle-conditioned commercial beer from which I could harvest the yeast, but there again, the options here arn't what they are in the US.

Anyway, with winter coming it's a pretty important thing to get some quality yeast to give me something worth drinking when it's cold and dark.

Any ideas are appreciated!

 

[jordanmills]

I wonder if you could inoculate some sterilized media, like brown rice, or even damp malt, and ship that. I assume you're willing to put in the work to propagate it yourself.

 

[Biobrewer]

I wonder if you could inoculate some sterilized media, like brown rice, or even damp malt, and ship that. I assume you're willing to put in the work to propagate it yourself.

In this case, why not just send over vials? Sure the viability will suffer terribly, but OP can just prop it up.

Also, OP, if you have the resources, have someone buy you a bunch of vials of the strains you want, and streak them out onto sterile plates, which are much more stable than liquid culture. Then, when you're ready to propagate a culture, pressure cook some media, and grab some yeast from the plate, and start growing. All you really need for this is refrigeration, media, plates, inoculation loop(s) and a pressure cooker.

Cheers, and good luck!

 

[DannPM]

You can probably get fresher European beers than us in the USA, right? Why not get some of those and setup a little yeast bank propping from the bottle dregs? You'd essentially be doing the same thing shipping vials and smack packs from American yeast manufacturers after that variable of transit times.

 

[GrogNerd]

you'll need millions of little passports

 

[Awfers]

If you're in Russia, why not order it from the UK or Germany and ask them to ship it via DHL or FedEx 1 or 2 day delivery... And then start your own yeast bank?