I recently moved from Washington to Texas and have brewed twice since I've been down here. In Washington, I was ordering everything from Northern Brewer and never had an issue with my yeast arriving hot, even in the middle of summer.
I ordered my first batch from NB after moving and my yeast was almost toast when it arrived. I managed to revive it after about 3 days on a stir plate in 1200ml of wort. This past time, I ordered from Austin Homebrew on a Monday and everything arrived on Wednesday but it didn't matter - my yeast was fried again. This time, I put it on a stir plate for about 2.5 days in 800ml of wort (for a 1.047 beer) and I didn't check the gravity but I definitely had CO2 in the Erlenmeyer flask and it smelled yeasty so I assumed it was okay.
I went ahead and pitched it yesterday at around 12PM and today, 24 hours later, there is absolutely no visible activity. I've been brewing on average once a month for over 3 years now and have never had a lag time of 24 hours or greater. I'm hoping this yeast will take off within the next 24 hours or I might just pitch the whole batch because I'm so freakin pissed.
What do you guys do who live in hot climates? The options I'm weighing are:
1) Stock up in the spring before it gets hot and just store it in the refrigerator and forfeit some viability come summer time
2) Start doing yeast slants and build up a bank in my fridge for use year round
3) Buy White Labs tubes in the winter and then pour a little bit out and add 15% - 20% glycerol and freeze until ready to use in the summer
What would you all recommend?
Option 2 seems like a fun little project from everything I've read about it but options 1 and 3 definitely seem more practical. I might end up doing all three but I just want to get some opinions of fellow homebrewers who live in hot ass climates like west f'ing Texas.
I ordered my first batch from NB after moving and my yeast was almost toast when it arrived. I managed to revive it after about 3 days on a stir plate in 1200ml of wort. This past time, I ordered from Austin Homebrew on a Monday and everything arrived on Wednesday but it didn't matter - my yeast was fried again. This time, I put it on a stir plate for about 2.5 days in 800ml of wort (for a 1.047 beer) and I didn't check the gravity but I definitely had CO2 in the Erlenmeyer flask and it smelled yeasty so I assumed it was okay.
I went ahead and pitched it yesterday at around 12PM and today, 24 hours later, there is absolutely no visible activity. I've been brewing on average once a month for over 3 years now and have never had a lag time of 24 hours or greater. I'm hoping this yeast will take off within the next 24 hours or I might just pitch the whole batch because I'm so freakin pissed.
What do you guys do who live in hot climates? The options I'm weighing are:
1) Stock up in the spring before it gets hot and just store it in the refrigerator and forfeit some viability come summer time
2) Start doing yeast slants and build up a bank in my fridge for use year round
3) Buy White Labs tubes in the winter and then pour a little bit out and add 15% - 20% glycerol and freeze until ready to use in the summer
What would you all recommend?
Option 2 seems like a fun little project from everything I've read about it but options 1 and 3 definitely seem more practical. I might end up doing all three but I just want to get some opinions of fellow homebrewers who live in hot ass climates like west f'ing Texas.
