I'm a lazy brewer and while I muster enough energy up to collect mason jars or 12oz bottles full of slurry from my primaries, I hardly ever wash the yeast. I usually don't get around to brewing something that can use that yeast in the next month or so and I'm likely scared to pitch it. It got me thinking though, really how long is too long and how can you tell on the fly if you've still got viable yeast in there.
Yesterday I brewed 11 gallons of Belgian Wit and had prepared a 1.5 liter starter from a fresh Wyeast 3944 activator pack. I was pretty confident that would have been enough to split between the two carboys but I also have about a pint of WLP-400 slurry from last August in the fridge. Yes, that's 11 months old.
I decanted off all the beer and smelled and tasted it. It wasn't delicious but it wasn't foul either. It smelled like witbier. I transfered it to a growler, added 500ml of wort and oxygenated the hell out of it. It bubbled in about an hour.
Into one carboy, I pitched the fresh yeast in 1.5L starter, in the other I pitched the awoken and fed year old slurry. They both started fermenting in about 6 hours and are blowing off like nuts. Let's see what happens.
Yesterday I brewed 11 gallons of Belgian Wit and had prepared a 1.5 liter starter from a fresh Wyeast 3944 activator pack. I was pretty confident that would have been enough to split between the two carboys but I also have about a pint of WLP-400 slurry from last August in the fridge. Yes, that's 11 months old.
I decanted off all the beer and smelled and tasted it. It wasn't delicious but it wasn't foul either. It smelled like witbier. I transfered it to a growler, added 500ml of wort and oxygenated the hell out of it. It bubbled in about an hour.
Into one carboy, I pitched the fresh yeast in 1.5L starter, in the other I pitched the awoken and fed year old slurry. They both started fermenting in about 6 hours and are blowing off like nuts. Let's see what happens.