Smack pack ??

Which is the yeast and which is the nutrient? I am having a running discussion on this with a friend at work who didn't pop the little dodad and chucked it out and dumped the contents of the pouch into his wort. Needless to say the wort never took off and ended up getting moldy. My friend swears the yeast is in the pouch and the nutrient is in the dodad, I disagree and ask the learned brewers here to set me strait. MPW

I believe the small package inside is the yeast nutrient, which activates the yeast growth and provides food for the yeast. The small pack is always a darker color and the liqud inside the main pouch itself is the same yeasty color we all know and love.

Regardless of which pack it is, it sounds really stupid that he just dumped the yeast in his wort without smacking it! Even if he got it right, there wouldn't be that many yeast cells in there, making for a REALLY good chance of something else taking off in there...

Did you dare him to do it or something?!? What a dumb ass... :cross:

"A liquid yeast smack pack consists of a pure yeast strain isolated in a plastic bubble from a small quantity of malt extract. When the yeast bubble is burst by "smacking" the pack, yeast and malt mix, beginning the fermentation process." Wyeast Labs

So then the yeast is in the doodad and the malt extract is in the pack, at which point all he really did was add malt and throw out the yeast? How funny!

If you think about it, youd expect there to be more food than yeast.

I stand corrected!!! Thanks David.

Thanks for the clarification. That is the way I thought it was but he swore it was the other way around. BTW the batch was a write off, and it was the first batch for the new ss conical fermenter he had just put together. MPW

Well, I need to correct this thread on the make up of Wyeast Smack Packs. I had previously posted that I believed that the little inner pack was yeast nutrient, and that the outter liquid is the actual yeast. And, since I really wanted to know, I emailed Wyeast yesterday to get the lowdown:

The following is the response:

"THe small inner packet contains the nutrient. The large packet contains the yeast.

Please let me know if you have any other questions.

Jess Caudill
Brewer/Microbiologist
Wyeast Laboratories"

Now we know for sure!

Good catch, Tony! I didn't see this thread when originally posted (I was moving).

As stated, the yeast is the whitish/yellow sludge. The brown stuff in the packet is the nutrient. If all the guy pitched was the stuff in the inner packet, then he didn't do squat!

In the past, I had one that didn't break open, so I just pitched both at the same time. Not the recommended method, but will work in a pinch. Now I just make a starter every time, and there's no question.