Here's the story in a nutshell:
I recently moved from Washington to Texas and decided to stick with Northern Brewer because I have never had any issues with their products. I assumed my yeast would arrive a little warmer than usual due to the Texas heat but I was completely wrong - the yeast was insanely hot as was the ice pack.
I figured it was probably toast just due to how hot it was to the touch and I was basically right.....broke the inner pouch and didn't get any swelling at all after 14 hours but I decided to pitch it into a 1 liter starter anyways (which is more than double what I need for my brew). The yeast was definitely darker brown than it should have been and it seemed to me that the smell was off as well so I didn't have any hopes for being able to revive it.
Much to my surprise, after 24 hours I have fermentation in my starter so I went ahead and got it on my stir plate but now I am having second thoughts as to whether or not I should just use this starter and brew today or wait and order a fresh smack pack from Austin Homebrew which should get here in 1 - 2 days and still be plenty viable, and brew next weekend instead.
My grain is pre-crushed and I have it in the ziplock bags that it came in, inside of a bigger plastic bag, inside of my chest freezer at a temp of 63 degrees.
What do you guys think? Is it too much of a risk to use this yeast or do you think the new cells that I have are just as good and that I should go ahead and use it?
I recently moved from Washington to Texas and decided to stick with Northern Brewer because I have never had any issues with their products. I assumed my yeast would arrive a little warmer than usual due to the Texas heat but I was completely wrong - the yeast was insanely hot as was the ice pack.
I figured it was probably toast just due to how hot it was to the touch and I was basically right.....broke the inner pouch and didn't get any swelling at all after 14 hours but I decided to pitch it into a 1 liter starter anyways (which is more than double what I need for my brew). The yeast was definitely darker brown than it should have been and it seemed to me that the smell was off as well so I didn't have any hopes for being able to revive it.
Much to my surprise, after 24 hours I have fermentation in my starter so I went ahead and got it on my stir plate but now I am having second thoughts as to whether or not I should just use this starter and brew today or wait and order a fresh smack pack from Austin Homebrew which should get here in 1 - 2 days and still be plenty viable, and brew next weekend instead.
My grain is pre-crushed and I have it in the ziplock bags that it came in, inside of a bigger plastic bag, inside of my chest freezer at a temp of 63 degrees.
What do you guys think? Is it too much of a risk to use this yeast or do you think the new cells that I have are just as good and that I should go ahead and use it?
In order for the yeast to actually get killed off the temperature would have to be exceptionally high, meaning well into the 100's
