Reviving very old yeast...smells off

[Bassaholic]

So I had a jar of WLP 066 London Fog that’s been sitting in my fridge since last June, about 10 months. It was just extra yeast from an overbuilt starter stored in sterilized water.

I’m planning on brewing an NEIPA next week and decided to see if I could salvage it. I made a 500ml 1.020 starter and pitched the yeast on a stir plate. There was activity within 12 hours, which was pretty surprising. After 36 hours I added 1500ml of 1.040 wort.

The whole time it’s had a strange smell to it that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I asked my wife to smell it and she said it smells like a can of beans. I’m thinking that could be from autolysis? I don’t know if it’s worth cold crashing and pitching or just tossing it out. I’m certainly not against tossing it, but I’m curious if it’s usable since it’s actively fermenting the starter sort.

 

[ryanm8]

Taste the starter. You will immediately know if it's bad. I make this a practice with every starter.

 

[stz]

While I'm not dissuaded trying to culture old/random things sometimes it isn't worth the effort and what comes back isn't always what you expected. How much are you spending on hops for this NEIPA?

When I've had doubts like clearly this is a big jar of dead yeast and trub I've done your first step, turned off the spinner, then taken the krausen and some of the active fermentation for my next stage leaving the stuff at the bottom behind because you can just tell by how fast it dropped out it is dead junk that doesn't need to be in the next stage.

Also don't rule out your yeast was fine, but your starter is compromised? Taste it, smell it. Mine are usually heavily skunked and oxidised so I have to ignore that flaw. My starter wort tends to be hopped process wort, take that potential lactics!

 

[IslandLizard]

It was just extra yeast from an overbuilt starter stored in sterilized water.

Why didn't you just keep it stored under the starter beer it came from? It keeps much better that way.
I've got over 30 jars of testimony to that. Water is not a good medium for yeast storage. Adding some salt to it would make it a lot better.

...it smells like a can of beans. I’m thinking that could be from autolysis?

Could well be, I usually detect marmite or burnt rubber aromas from autolyzed yeast.

As @ryanm8 said, tasting some of the starter beer may give you a conclusive answer.

 

[madscientist451]

I store my yeast in mason jars by dumping the slurry from the bottom of the carboy in the jar. Eventually, the yeast will settle down to take up 1/3 to 1/2 the jar space with the remainder being beer. I loosen the lid rings now and then to let off pressure, but usually I forget and there haven't been any issues.
To revive the yeast, I pour out the beer and either dump starter wort back in the jar or use a 1/2 gallon jug and an airlock.
I always taste the beer from the yeast jar, sometimes its drinkable, but usually it has an off taste and aroma.
The yeast with an off smell haven't been a problem. I have some hard to find yeast strains that I've kept going for years using the above method.
But if you are concerned about it, make a small 2 gallon simple smash brew APA and give your yeast a test run. If it works out OK, you'll have plenty of yeast to pitch into your NEIPA.
As someone already mentioned, if you are spending a lot of cash on this batch and using a ton of hops maybe its best to just start out with some fresher yeast.

 

[kh54s10]

I am not familiar with that yeast, but I think most yeasts smell bad. Some really bad. I haven't had the bad smelling yeasts make bad beer.

If you know that the yeast smells bad compared to what it did before I wouldn't use it in a beer like a NEIPA.

Maybe make a SMaSH, if it is good, save the yeast from that.

 

[Bassaholic]

Thanks all for the pointers. I cold crashed my starter and tasted it and it doesn’t have any noticeable off flavors. I’m not sure where I read that putting the yeast in sterilized water was a good storage method, but I will definitely just store it in starter liquid from now on. I’ve been storing my sour cultures in wort and have had better success with that for sure.

 

[TomBruin]

Thanks all for the pointers. I cold crashed my starter and tasted it and it doesn’t have any noticeable off flavors. I’m not sure where I read that putting the yeast in sterilized water was a good storage method, but I will definitely just store it in starter liquid from now on. I’ve been storing my sour cultures in wort and have had better success with that for sure.

I've read the same thing about sterilized water. I'm a touch lazy so I "wash" my yeast by only harvesting it from the slurry after racking out of secondary. Less gooey gross trub in the mason jar. Secondary harvesting means I'm mostly getting yeast that fall from suspension, stored in the beer it came from... that's what I tell myself anyways. Madscientist appears to have the same method.

Decant the old beer and make the starter from there - seems to work fine. Madscientist appears to have the same method. Good luck!

 

[kh54s10]

I've read the same thing about sterilized water. I'm a touch lazy so I "wash" my yeast by only harvesting it from the slurry after racking out of secondary. Less gooey gross trub in the mason jar. Secondary harvesting means I'm mostly getting yeast that fall from suspension, stored in the beer it came from... that's what I tell myself anyways. Madscientist appears to have the same method.

Decant the old beer and make the starter from there - seems to work fine. Madscientist appears to have the same method. Good luck!

If you are going to make a starter anyway, why do a secondary at all. You are going to take a small amount of yeast and trub to add to your starter. There won't be any great amount of trub getting to the new batch.

 

[IslandLizard]

I've read the same thing about sterilized water. I'm a touch lazy so I "wash" my yeast by only harvesting it from the slurry after racking out of secondary. Less gooey gross trub in the mason jar. Secondary harvesting means I'm mostly getting yeast that fall from suspension, stored in the beer it came from... that's what I tell myself anyways. Madscientist appears to have the same method.

Decant the old beer and make the starter from there - seems to work fine. Madscientist appears to have the same method. Good luck!

What @kh54s10 said^

Besides, it's generally NOT recommended harvesting yeast from secondaries. The hard working, early flocculating cells won't be present in large enough quantities. You'd be bottlenecking the yeast population.

Also generally, for most regular beers secondaries are not needed, or even wanted. Leave beer in primary until packaging. There are very few exceptions where a secondary may offer an advantage.

 

[TomBruin]

What @kh54s10 said^

Besides, it's generally NOT recommended harvesting yeast from secondaries. The hard working, early flocculating cells won't be present in large enough quantities. You'd be bottlenecking the yeast population.

Also generally, for most regular beers secondaries are not needed, or even wanted. Leave beer in primary until packaging. There are very few exceptions where a secondary may offer an advantage.

Good advice on harvesting early yeast, I had never thought of that. I thought yeast was yeast, some floccing early and some flocking later as it multiplies and matures.

I normally finish beers in a primary, unless I'm brewing a lot then I use my secondary carboys to free up primary buckets so I can make more beer! Working on a closed transfer system as funds make themselves available to reduce oxidization risk.

 

[Bassaholic]

So I ended up brewing my NEIPA with this yeast last week. It took almost 36 hours to show any signs of fermentation, then it had very little krausen. I decided to dry hop after 24 hours of “active” fermentation. Came home from work and saw an airlock filled with yeast and some beer that had overflowed through it. I guess some hop particles had clogged the airlock, so when I removed it there had been so much pressure built up it created a huge beer fountain straight into my face.

I’m guessing the yeast that grew in the starter wasn’t super healthy and just took a while to develop in the actual beer. I don’t notice any of the same smell in the beer though, so at least there’s some good news. Definitely changing up my yeast saving techniques for the future

 

[HTH1975]

You might consider yeast nutrient when repitching old yeast in the future. A drop a zinc works well, or you can buy ‘off the shelf’ vials from the likes of white labs. A tsp if marmite is said to do roughly the same thing, but I haven’t tried this myself. Maybe an exbeerment in the making.