Yeast issue with my brew...

HI all.. This is my second brew so I'm still pretty new at this.

I brewed a Belguim Wit yesterday. All was going very well until my brew was done and I pulled out my liquid yeast to throw it in. I noticed on the label it said "Best if used before 12/20" My local dealer accidentally sold me expired yeast. It's been refrigerated this whole time until now but I'm still alittle concerned about this one.

Of course I had my brew already done so I went ahead and pitched it and shook the fermentor up real good. I'm gonna check tonight to see if it's bubbling but I have a bad feeling about this one.

Any insight on what to expect?

I also had had a small mishap with faucet water. As I was cooling it in the sink I had some faucent water splash into the Wort when it was about 148-150 degrees... Hopefully it was hot enough still to kill any contaminantes.

**sigh** this one just didn't go as well as planned.

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And my LHBS cells outdated tubes and packs of yeast dirt cheap 2-3 dollars each and I usually grab a couple tubes of belgian or other interesting yeast when I am there and shove it in my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.

Same with jarred yeast.

With any stored, old yeast 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. The purpose of a starter is to reproduce any viable cells in a batch of yeast....that;s how we can grow a starter form the dregs in a bottle of beer incrementally...and that beer may be months old.

Even if you have a few still living cells, you can grow them....That's how we can harvest a huge starter (incrementally) from the dregs in a bottle of some commercial beers. You take those few living cells and grow them into more.

If yeast can be grown from a tiny amount that has been encased in amber for 45 million years, 45 million year old yeast ferments amber ale we really don't need to sweat too much about yeast viability....

we just need to think in terms of making starters. Viability isn't really an issue if you are reproducing a lot of healthy cells. Which is what you are doing when you make a starter.....

Since it appears you didn't make a starter you will have lag time, probably even longer that the https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/fermentation-can-take-24-72-hrs-show-visible-signs-43635/ we talk about here.

But by visible signs they DON'T mean airlock activity.


Just wait it out and at 72 hours take a hydro reading, you should at least have had a moderate amount of a decrease in gravity. If you have none, then repitch with something like us-o5.

But more than likely the cells are having their orgy right now and making plenty of babys to work for you. It's just going to take them awhile.

Thanks for the reply Revvy and you are right, I did not do a starter. To be honest I'm not certain how so I'll need to do alittle research on that.

I simply let the tube warm to room temp, shook it up really good, than pitched it.