Menu Icon


Looking for homebrewing gift ideas? Check out our previous gift guides here or here!
Also, if you enjoy BrewUnited, please consider doing your Amazon shopping via our affiliate link!



You are here: Home --> Forum Home --> Brewing Forum --> Brewing Discussion --> trying to bring some yeast back from the dead

Jump to:    1 2 3 [Next] [Last Page]
homebrewdad
Charter Member
Birmingham, AL
2480 Posts


So, I'm planning to brew my Christmas beer this weekend, made my trip to the LHBS today. Owner was super chatty, pulled samples of two of his beers for me to try; was pretty fun. For the record, he's convinced that I'm overdoing the c-malts; he even bagged them in their own bags in case I changed my mind before I brewed, whereas he usually puts it all in one bag. Heh, we'll see if this is a caramel tour de force or abomination...

But I digress.

I had planned to use perhaps my favorite strain of yeast for this one - WLP037, which I find plays nicely with c-malts, and ferments quite dry.

Uh-oh. I knew I had perhaps procrastinated a bit on keeping some of my yeast fresh, but this is bad. Even for me.

One vial is surely shot - I had lost power in a fridge for some time. I had another vial in my yeast fridge, but it's, er, almost a... ahem... *year* old. I'd guesstimate that it started with ~60 billion cells, so, by the calc, I *might* have 5 billion cells.

Might. It might be totally dead.

I figure I'm gonna make a half liter starter at around 1.020 or so. If it does anything, I'll step it up from there.

Sigh. 7 gallons of 1.076 wort, plus a 100 billion overbuild... I need 466 billion cells. I have maybe five.

Time to see how hardy this yeast is!




Posted 34 days ago.

homebrewdad
Charter Member
Birmingham, AL
2480 Posts


I guess, on the bright side, I have some blog fodder.




Posted 34 days ago.

rayfound
Charter Member
Riverside, CA
313 Posts


It'll be fine, but contamination is a bigger concern. Anything that was alive in there that wasn't your intended yeast is also going to get propagated nicely, you may way to hop your starter slightly to help discourage some bugs.




Posted 34 days ago.

homebrewdad
Charter Member
Birmingham, AL
2480 Posts


We'll see soon enough, I suppose.

What do you think of the plan to do a half liter, low gravity starter prior to stepping up?




Posted 34 days ago.

homebrewdad
Charter Member
Birmingham, AL
2480 Posts


Starter spinning. Two hop pellets included. Yeast vial smelled fine, not that such likely matters.





Posted 34 days ago.

vinpaysdoc
Charter Member
High Point, NC
321 Posts


Give it several days on the plate before you call it a lost cause. I just finished refreshing my 12 yeast library after 3 months and it took many of them 2-3 days to show activity (The vials are kept in the fridge left with the beer from the starter as the supernatant).




Posted 34 days ago.

davidg
Kula, HI
137 Posts


I'm curious to see how this plays out for you.  I have a bunch of yeast that has to be on the verge of being usable or not.  My plan was to go with liter starters, with a similar OG.  

Ray, when you say to add some hop to the starter...that's something I've never done before.  Just add a pellet or two?  




Posted 34 days ago.

testingapril
Charter Member
Atlanta, GA
595 Posts


I wouldn't have hopped the starter. Hops affect yeast reproduction too, just not to the degree that it affects bacteria.

What I would have done is fully built or nearly fully built my pitch and then washed with chlorine dioxide to kill the bacteria. It's actually really gentle to yeast and it's super effective against bacteria. Now, if you have a wild yeast contamination, it won't help you there.




Posted 34 days ago.

homebrewdad
Charter Member
Birmingham, AL
2480 Posts


I don't have chlorine dioxide. I used exactly two hop pellets, lol.

Anyway, I have Krausen this morning, so I am very hopeful.





Posted 34 days ago.

testingapril
Charter Member
Atlanta, GA
595 Posts


Sounds like it was healthy and hearty!

chlorine dioxide is readily available on amazon or in just about any well stocked camping/outdoors store. 1 tablet per 100mL of slurry. It is recommended to crash and decant to reduce overall volume (and therefore cost). Put it back on the stir plate with the chlorine dioxide and let it run 30 minutes, but it really doesn't even need that long. Then you can add more wort for a new starter or you can pitch it directly. Depends on if you have concerns about adding that amount of chlorine dioxide to your beer or not.

http://www.amazon.com/Potable-Aqua-Chlorine-DioxideTablets-Tablets/dp/B000IBY64W/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1441285597&sr=8-3&keywords=potable+aqua




Posted 34 days ago.

homebrewdad
Charter Member
Birmingham, AL
2480 Posts


Thanks for the edumacation, sir.

Yeah, I'm surprised it took off this quickly. Makes me think I had more viable yest than I thought.

I need to thank Greg for this one. Apparently, his sanitation was flawless, as this was a vial he shared with me.

On Sep 3, 2015 8:09 AM, "testingapril" <[email protected]> wrote:
Sounds like it was healthy and hearty!

chlorine dioxide is readily available on amazon or in just about any well stocked camping/outdoors store. 1 tablet per 100mL of slurry. It is recommended to crash and decant to reduce overall volume (and therefore cost). Put it back on the stir plate with the chlorine dioxide and let it run 30 minutes, but it really doesn't even need that long. Then you can add more wort for a new starter or you can pitch it directly. Depends on if you have concerns about adding that amount of chlorine dioxide to your beer or not.

http://www.amazon.com/Potable-Aqua-Chlorine-DioxideTablets-Tablets/dp/B000IBY64W/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1441285597&sr=8-3&keywords=potable+aqua


View this topic on the BrewUnited forums

Unsubscribe from this topic




Posted 34 days ago.

testingapril
Charter Member
Atlanta, GA
595 Posts


I chickened out on using the 940 he gave me for my vienna. I initially was going to make 10 gals of vienna split between 940 and WY2001, but I decided to sour half of it and I went with WY2001 because I'm going to enter it as a Czech Amber and a Vienna, and I really liked the Czech Amber I had at club night made with WY2001 by the guy that gave the talk on those styles. I'll use the 940 eventually, but I want to get it going in a couple steps because of the difficulty Greg had with it.




Posted 34 days ago.

homebrewdad
Charter Member
Birmingham, AL
2480 Posts


940 or 920? I've had success with the latter.





Posted 34 days ago.

testingapril
Charter Member
Atlanta, GA
595 Posts


940 Mexican Lager. That's the one he had 4+ day lag time with a month or so ago.




Posted 34 days ago.

homebrewdad
Charter Member
Birmingham, AL
2480 Posts


Ah, yeah. I remember.





Posted 34 days ago.

Jump to:    1 2 3 [Next] [Last Page]