Semi old yeast

[Beer-lord]

I found some yeast in my fridge, WLP007 with a best use date of July 8. I prolly won't brew for another 2 weeks but I'm thinking about making a starter with it now, then cold crashing and making another starter in another week or so.....with some 001. Maybe 50/50 then use it for a hybrid, American/English hoppy pale ale.
So, am I nuts? Wasting my time? Wasting my money?
What say ye naysayers?

[BlackDuck]

Just do it!


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[Dawg LB Steve]

Nope with a starter you will bring it back to life, and some 001 I think you will have a good enough cell count.

[swenocha]

Seems like a solid plan to me.

[Beer-lord]

I'm not really worried about the cell count. I'm more concerned about blending the two and wonder if a pale is too light to use a blended yeast.

[mashani]

White Labs makes a yeast which is basically a mix of WLP001 and WLP002. It's called "Best of Both Worlds". MoreBeer sells it.

So I don't see mixing WLP001 and WLP007 as that much different.

It will just not seem English like as WLP007. And it will floc out harder then WLP001 because the 007 will take out the 001 with it when it flocs.

[Beer-lord]

I've only used 002 once and the beer wasn't all that good but I can't blame it on the yeast. I've thought about the blend but I'd rather use what I have in house already.
Thanks for the info.

[Foothiller]

About the worst that would happen is for your starter to not start, in which case you can easily just start with fresher yeast. It should be worth the try.

[Beer-lord]

Just like I thought this yeast is taking a long time to grow since it was so old. mrmalty.com showed it as only 37% viable and I know it wasn't going to be gangbusters but 24 hours later, it does have a small ring of growth but this looks absolutely nothing like any other 007 I've started before. They are usually chunky and fuggly. But, you can't expect old Lazarus yeast to come back to life like a teenager so I'll just keep it going.

[Dawg LB Steve]

Use it as a yeast nutrient if your not happy with the growth.

[Beer-lord]

Good idea but it's starting to come to life and old yeast can take up to 48 hours to start to go crazy. I did 3 liters of it knowing that I want between 1 and 1.5 of it and 001 to blend in the pale ale I'm still working on.

[Beer-lord]

It's alive but not a monster. I'm sure it'll be done in the morning but this is the tamest 007 I've seen. Usually it's big and chunky but it is alive and will do it's job.

[Inkleg]

I've made starters from yeast harvested 8 months prior. I'll start with a light 1.020 starter to wake it up and have no problem letting it go for a week, before cold crashing and doing the next step. Just give it time.
You know from using this before it looks like egg drop soup when it's done and you know how much you'd like to see on the bottom of the flask. So if you're not happy with how much you have step it up again.

[Beer-lord]

That finally happened overnight.....48 hours later but based based on the age of the yeast, it's not surprising. It's chunkier than it looks as the heavy stuff is on the bottom. Gonna split into jars then this weekend bring back to life 3 month old 001 and then blend them the following Friday for brew day.
It's all good in the yeasty hood!

[Inkleg]

Thought I'd add to this thread and not start a new one.
I just made a 1200mL starter of some leftover 4KC wort adjusted to 1.020. After boiling for 5 minutes and chilling, I pitched some farmed WLP007 from 6-30-14. Thats right, over year old stored yeast. I'll keep this updated with the progress. If this makes egg drop soup like 007 always does, I'll step it up again for an IPA I have coming up.
Yes Paul, I'll post about the IPA too.