is it beat?
i planned on brewing christmas day, i'll hold off if my yeasties are deceasedies..
thanks.
This is just what I'm afraid of with online ordering. I know some people don't have the luxury of a decent Homebrew store nearby, but so far I trust the guys at my LHBS to carry good product, and they seem to have a good turnover of supplies. Almost every time I go in there they seem to be switching out the bulk LME barrels. Maybe washing your yeast and growing it yourself would save you some headaches?
+1 on making a starter to let your yeast prove their virility.
You almost certainly have SOME viable cells left, but most of the yeast will be toast, so I would recommend the following procedure to culture what is left.
First, be paranoid about sanitation. Sanitize everything twice as well as you normally would, scrub your hands thoroughly before handling any equipment, spray down your work area with sanitizer. With such a small population to start from you want to avoid any chance of culturing wild yeast or bacteria instead of the yeast you need to do the job.
Let it thaw for 24 hours in the fridge, then smack the pack and leave for 24 hours on the counter. Make a small starter 1oz of DME in 8 ounces of water, you could boil that little bit in the microwave. Let it cool and add it to a sanitized 2L sized bottle (a 2L soda bottle will work in a pinch). Pitch the smack pack into that and cover with sanitized foil. After 24 hours you should notice some bubbles. If not give it another 24 hours. Then boil up 3 ounces of DME in 24 ounces of water, let it cool, and add to your starter with a sanitized funnel. Swish it up well; after 24 hours you should have a good krausen and a fairly noticeable white ring on the bottom. If you do, you are good to go. If you don't, give it another 24 hours; if you still don't have a nice ring of white yeast after 48 hours in the second step you will need to start over with viable yeast or culture a yeast strain using the same procedure from a microbrew which is bottle conditioned (pitching the last 2 oz from 3-4 Sierra Nevada pale ale bottles and following the above procedure will usually work really well, and will yield the WY1056 Cali Ale strain).
One last comment, if you don't have any spare DME on hand, you can use Malto Goya from the grocery store (look in the Hispanic foods area). Use 3 ounces of Malto Goya with 6 ounces of water and boil/cool for the first step, use 12 ounces of Malto Goya with 12 ounces of water and boil/cool for the second step.
Good luck. Let us know how it works out... thread subscribed.
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