Wyeast ? Pitch or Toss

Got an odd Wyeast pack. When I pulled it out of the kit at first I thought it had been accidently smacked & activated but then I found that it was just the inner yeast pack, obviously still intact, had seemingly expanded. Puffed up, hard as a rock. My first thought is that there must be some sort of contamination but who knows? Has anyone ever gotten a pack like this? I've used lots of them but never seen this before. Not sure if I should even bother making a starter with it.

I once pulled a pack out of the fridge that was only a month old, left it on the counter and it started to swell, before I even activated the inner pack.

From the Wyeast website FAQ's

"27. What are the causes of swollen packages? Can you sell them?

Swollen packages are almost always the cause of a small amount of sugar or CO2 being left in solution at the time of packaging. Upon shipment, CO2 can be released from solution or the yeast can consume the sugar and create a small amount of CO2. Cell autolysis, or cell death can also be a cause of swelling packaged. However, this is only in rare cases where the yeast is exposed to high temperature for an extended amount of time. If a package is swollen and has not been mishandled, it can be sold with confidence."

I would not worry too much about it. Just make a starter to test the viability and go from there if it seems to still be good

I can tell you that a lot of what you have going depends on the strain. It seems that some strains tend to swell the packaging for no reason. I have not really ahd any problems using any packages that have swelled before being smacked. I have taken many calls and emails about it though, and I have never had someone come back and say the yeast did not work properly.

I think it's 1388 if I remember the number right, a Belgian strong. Sounds likely it's not going to be a problem then. Guess I'll go ahead with the starter anyway & see how that goes.

That is a pretty high attenuating strain, so I would expect that if any residual sugars were in the packaging 1388 would certainly eat them up.

Anecdotal evidence: I've used swelled packages and they have worked fine.

This thread makes my package swell.

uh, that's great chumprock...

Starter started & smells ok so I'm sure all is well in yeastyville.

chumprock said:

This thread makes my package swell.

Click to expand...

Someone can slap my smackpack.

You can probably tell I'm bored.

Every time I've bought 1056, the smack pack has arrived fully engorged...hard as a rock, you could crack walnuts on them. They always worked fine.

I actually received a Wyeast smack-pack from BMW last week that apparently got smacked in shipping, because damn if I couldn't find the inner yeast pack when I took it out of the fridge to get ready to brew. I left it on the countertop while I brewed, and it never swelled at all. I pitched it the next morning, and was terrified that it was going to fail, but 36 hours later, bubble bubble boil and trouble, we got us a krauzen!

Moral of this little tale: Yeasties are resilient.