Frozen yeast

I accidentally froze my yeast. I wasn't paying attention to what I was doing. Think they'll be ok or do I need to buy more.

Buy more. When you freeze any living organism, you have to use some cryoprotectant. You didn't, so your yeast are dead. When water freezes, it crystallizes. Think about all these tiny swords being created and puncturing the cell walls of the yeast.

I knew that but I guess deep in my heart I was hoping they would be ok. Now I have to drive an hour to go get more.

Pitch it and see what happens. Any yeast spores can probably take the freeze. Worst case scenario: nothing happens.

The heartbreak is better now than when you realize than that your whole batch of beer is crap!

Flycal6 said:

Pitch it and see what happens. Any yeast spores can probably take the freeze. Worst case scenario: nothing happens.

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Man, why do you want to set yourself up? Bad advice.

If the yeast are all dead, I think they would just sink to the bottom of the fermenter. Toss in a new pack the next day. If they start fermenting though, you saved yourself that hour drive.

I can't see a down side.

But take my advice with a grain of salt. I've skunked my share of beer.

I would make a starter with it well before you want to brew and see if it krausens. If it does, then you are okay...enough yeast survived the cold temps. Put the starter in the fridge until brew day, take it out when you setup and it should be good to pitch at the end of the day.

Did you freeze it solid? If so, it probably will be completely dead. I have partially frozen yeast before and had no problem getting a starter going and a rocking batch of brew afterwards.

There is certainly some cellular damage, but you may well be able to recover.
It's critical that you make a starter before pitch for a few reasons:

1. See if you have any viability (see if the starter is active)
2. Rebuild your cell count up to where it should be
3. Beers even under the best conditions benefit from proper pitch rates, which normally means making a starter

With that all said, don't give up. I and many others here have had a brain fart and frozen our yeast, and been able to recover and make a great beer after building a proper starter.

I'm just going to get more. I froze 3 ten gallon batches worth of yeast. And it was at 0 F. It's solid as a brick. I'm gonna play it safe and get more. I would hate to have 30 gallons just sitting there waiting only to find out they didn't have the yeast in stock.

MG1602 said:

Think about all these tiny swords being created and puncturing the cell walls of the yeast.

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Great mental image! My mind is getting all Game of Thrones on some yeast cells right now.

wolfman_48442 said:

There is certainly some cellular damage, but you may well be able to recover.
It's critical that you make a starter before pitch for a few reasons:

[*]See if you have any viability (see if the starter is active)
[*]Rebuild your cell count up to where it should be
[*]Beers even under the best conditions benefit from proper pitch rates, which normally means making a starter

With that all said, don't give up. I and many others here have had a brain fart and frozen our yeast, and been able to recover and make a great beer after building a proper starter.

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Do this.

So my wife accidentally did this to my Wyeast Neobrittania. Planned on using it for a Barleywine...(uh-oh). Anyhow, made a starter, used a stir-plate for ~20 hrs. Now chilling in fridge. Seemingly okay, but only real way to know is to pitch it? Keep in mind I live in MS and have no easy access to a replacement product (aside from online shipping rapid method). Thoughts?

lawnboy881 said:

So my wife accidentally did this to my Wyeast Neobrittania. Planned on using it for a Barleywine...(uh-oh). Anyhow, made a starter, used a stir-plate for ~20 hrs. Now chilling in fridge. Seemingly okay, but only real way to know is to pitch it? Keep in mind I live in MS and have no easy access to a replacement product (aside from online shipping rapid method). Thoughts?

Click to expand...

Let me know how it turns out. If they survived.

I can tell you what White Labs told me when I spoke with them a few years ago when I froze some yeast by accident. The chances that you froze all of the yeast to the point that it all died is highly unlikely. Make a starter, step it up at least once more and you will know if you have viable yeast. Seemed to me like pretty good advice....guess what, everything worked fine and I am still harvesting and washing and using that same yeast...or at least their great great grandchildren.

So like I said, thawed it, made a starter. Used on stir plate for ~20 hrs, cooled it and pitched it. It looked great, lots of yeast settled out. My barleywine has been churning since Wednesday and is seemingly fine. My OG was 1.082 so I need those fantastic yeasties to work hard!

I'll update when I rack to 2ndary for the gravity reading or if I stall out.

I racked to 2ndary and gravity was 1.021 on 10/31. Just FYI, make a starter and see what happens!

Dry or liquid yeast? If it's dry I probably wouldn't even think about it, and just pitch it. Liquid I would make a starter, probably step it up.

I wouldn't waste the gas money to buy more yeast, but I'm ALWAYS up for a road trip to the brew store.

I had a top crop of wy1318 in the fridge that I was going to use this weekend and I noticed it was half frozen. I have a starter cooling right now to see if it does anything but I thought I'd look on HBT to see if anyone else has had luck regrowing a frozen yeast cake. Did the beer made with frozen yeast turn out? Was it the same as you expected (attenuation, flocculataion, malt profile, etc) or did it change?

This was an English barleywine and it tastes fantastic. I hadn't used this yeast prior to this experience, so I can't comment on some of the particulars. But the finished product tastes really good.

Thanks all - this thread indirectly answers the question I'm searching this afternoon -

I just cold crashed five gallons in the freezer of Katherine Kegerator (Big Kate to her friends), my 25 year old Kenmore frig / freezer. She can make a five gallon batch of 10% ale into a beersicle in 24 hours.

I usually try to intercept and keg up at about 16 hours or so, when ice is just forming. There was a beautiful dropout of yeast on the bottom of my cold crash bucket, and I was debating using it.

Now I know - make a starter and find out.

Again, thanks all
normzone

Just a few hours later, and my starter is going crazy - Big Kate has done me good again...

normzone

My starter of the frozen wy1318 looked good and smelled good but before pitching I poured a bit into a glass and tasted it (as I always do). It was very dry and tart with a weird ester I haven't tasted before - not the same wy1318 london 3 I know and love. Maybe it would still be okay but I didn't feel like risking it after a long hot brew day so I put it down the toilet and pitched my back up pack of S04

Well, I never taste mine but I guess I'll have to begin so I can get a baseline. I just tried mine and it tasted beerlike, so I guess I'll plow ahead.