0% Viability, lets find out.

[Inkleg]

Found some old Wyeast 1056 in the the fridge that I farmed 7/12/14. I farm yeast by over building a yeast starter and pouring 500mL into a pint jar from the starter and using the rest in the beer I'm brewing. On average this "Farms" 100 billion cells. I made a 1 liter starter of 1.020 wort and poured in two of these jars that I had. I've used old yeast before, but not this old. I'll let this spin up and see what happens. I'll cold crash this then do at least a second step and maybe a third. Plan to use this in my Pine IPA. Will update with progress.

[Inkleg]

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[Kealia]

Cool. I bet it will work but will be slow to take off and show activity. My oldest starter was built from yeast 1 year old so I'm anxious to hear how this goes.

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[Beer-lord]

I bow to your yeastiness. 8 months is as long as I've ever revived but I've read that many have been successful.

[John Sand]

I think yeast has been revived from bottles more than a century old.
But I'm interested in your results. I have a jar of slurry that is from May. (I think)

[Inkleg]

Found this when I got home from work tonight. 72 hours from pitch.



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[John Sand]

Don't you want to laugh maniacally and say "It's alive, It's ALLLLLiiiivvvve!"

[mashani]

Something is alive. The question is it the yeast in question

[John Sand]

Only two ways to be sure: Send it out for DNA matching under an electron microscope; or Make Beer!

[Beer-lord]

Jeff, you gonna step it up?

[Inkleg]

Yep, I plan on stepping up to a 2 liter of 1.040 wort. I'll let this keep spinning for a few days then toss it in the fridge to cold crash, decant and pitch into the step. Like those of us that do starters, I've developed a pretty good eye for the amount of yeast that settles at the bottom of a flask. So I'll judge it after the second step cold crashes.

[Beer-lord]

Glad it's taking off. I always over pitch a bit.
I'm amazed it's doing this well for its age. My only concern would be if it's wonky. Does the fact that old yeast gets revived necessarily mean it's going to not cause off flavors
or other problems? Guess you'll find out in a few weeks.



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[FedoraDave]

Glad it's taking off. I always over pitch a bit.
I'm amazed it's doing this well for its age. My only concern would be if it's wonky. Does the fact that old yeast gets revived necessarily mean it's going to not cause off flavors
or other problems? Guess you'll find out in a few weeks.



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I don't wash yeast anymore. Too much trouble for me, which amounts to Brewer's Choice. But when I did it, I had some very good batches from WLP001 (which I use for a number of recipes). But then, after repeated batches/washing, I started noticing off-flavors in recipes that I'd done multiple times. I seem to recall reading about minor mutations or other changes that can occur in yeast over time.

That's not to say that Jeff's yeast is going to cause a scenario reminiscent of the John Hurt chest-bursting scene in Alien, but I also wouldn't be surprised if Something Bad Happened. It's a coin toss, really. 50/50, and I hope Jeff beats the House this time around.

[Inkleg]

I don't wash yeast anymore.

I don't either.
It's much easier to farm it when making a starter. I stopped washing yeast when I ran across yeast harvesting or what I call farming. The link to the BrewUnited starter calculator with the overbuild works great. Nice fresh yeast for each starter no matter how old.

No worry if this goes South this "House" brews Sours too. Which reminds me........I should check in on those aliens.

[Inkleg]

Alien One


Alien Two



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