Storing yeast in the bottle for 6 months

Hi,
I've got some bottles of yeast I saved from prior batches (siphon the yeast cake into a 12oz bottle and cap it). One is Wyeast London III #1318, the other is White Labs German Lager. They have been in the fridge for about 6 months now. The batches they came from went fine, so at least at the time they were healthy. Is it worth making a starter and seeing if they are still viable? I have used this yeast storage technique after a month or two and it works fine, but never tried pushing it this far.

Bobby M recently did a test on year old stored yeast here; https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/testing-limits-yeast-viability-126707/

And my LHBS cells outdated tubes and packs of yeast dirt cheap 2-3 dollars each and I usually grab a couple tubes of belgian or other interesting yeast when I am there and shove it in my fridge. and I have never had a problem with one of those tubes. I usually make a starter but I once pitched a year old tube of Belgian High Gravity yeast directly into a 2.5 gallon batch of a Belgian Dark Strong, and after about 4 days it took off beautifully.

You just need first to apply the "sniff test" if it smell bad, especially if it smells like week old gorilla poop in a diaper left on the side of the road in the heat of summer.

Then make a starter, and if it takes off you are fine.

I would make a starter with it. I did that with some 1388 I last used in May. I bought the original smack pack over a year ago and I've used it four times now.

I used a 8 month old Wyeast smack pack for my Pliny Clone and bought another as insurance and the 8 month old swelled up and was hard as a brick. I pitched both but and no issues.

Has anybody ever had off batches as a result of re-pitching?

Revvy said:

You just need first to apply the "sniff test" if it smell bad, especially if it smells like week old gorilla poop in a diaper left on the side of the road in the heat of summer.

Click to expand...

Now that made me laugh, but I've had good luck with old vials too. So your storage method should be fine. The only thing I'd worry about is off tastes from possible hop trub left that long.

cheers

~r~