Yeast color

So everything I have read about washing and keeping yeast is that when it turns the color of peanut butter, throw it out. What if it starts that color?

I boiled up a gallon of wort to make a starter/farm to try and get more out of my smack pack. What you see in the pic below is what I got after pitching.

My biggest concern is that perhaps the packet got too cold in the fridge. After the smack I waited a few hours with no swelling activity at all. I checked the Wyeast web site and it stated that you don't have to wait for swelling to pitch so after about 5 or 6 hours of nothing I pitched. Within a few minutes you see what I got.

The wort was about 75 degrees when I pitched and the pack was within about 5 degrees of that. It's Wyeast 1214 Begian Ale Yeast.

I fully intend to ride this out a few days and see what happens but was curious about opinions. Is the yeast in this dead or just playing opossum?

Wyeast 1214 is notoriously slow to start. I made a starter with 1214 last week, and the packet never swelled, even after sitting at room temp for 8 hours. This is pretty typical for 1214. The starter didn't show any visible signs of activity until about 36 hours after pitching. Be patient with this yeast. It may take a few days.

As for the color question, different yeasts come in different shades. You're starting from a fresh smack pack, so no need to worry about color. More than likely, though, what you're seeing in your starter is precipitated yeast nutrient from the smack pack and/or proteins from the wort.

That is good to know, thank you for the feedback.

No problem, btw, here is a photo of my 1214 starter after it has fermented out and crashed chilled. The picture quality is crap, but you can see the darker layer of trubby bits and the lighter layer of yeast. You're probably only seeing the darker stuff in your freshly pitched starter. Give it a couple of days and you ought to see the whiter looking yeasty layer.

Sure enough, last night I saw a tiny tiny ring around the top and this morning I have a happy little circus going on.

Thanks again.

skeaterbait said:

Sure enough, last night I saw a tiny tiny ring around the top and this morning I have a happy little circus going on.

Thanks again.

Click to expand...

Rock on. :rockin:

Wasn't sure if I should start a new thread for this or not but decided to keep the clutter down.

Now that the starter/farm is doing nicely and I am getting a nice layer of yeast at the bottom. Should I cold crash or just let it run it's course until it fully ferments before harvest?

If you're not planning to use the yeast straight away, then definitely let it ferment out fully, and then crash chill it before harvesting it or further propagating it. If you're going to use it immediately to ferment a batch of beer, then as with everything brewing related, there are numerous opinions. But the two most common schools of thought boil down to

1. Pitch the entire starter when it is at high kräusen
-or-
2. Let the starter fully ferment out, crash chill it, decant off the starter wort, and pitch only the yeast layer at the bottom

I do both, depending on how far in advanced I've planned. I usually prefer to do the latter because I don't want all that starter wort going into the main batch. But if I've forgotten to plan ahead, I'll make the starter the night before I brew and then pitch the whole thing once it's going at full whack.

Thanks again Noch. Next time I'll just PM since this appears to be a private convo.