Yeast starter with expired yeast - question

Hi all,

So I went to my LHBS yesterday in preparation for a Saturday (tomorrow) brew day. They had everything i needed EXCEPT ale yeast (ridiculous, right?). They did, however, have expired European Ale yeast that was half price. So I bought it.

Yesterday afternoon I prepared a starter. Now, I've done this about 4 times before, always with un-expired yeast, and always woke up the next morning to a nicely fermenting airlock. I could even see the yeast action in the beaker.

Today, nothing. No doubt, it's due to the expired yeast, right? Is there any hope for this starter? Should I shake it up to get the yeast going?

I have a couple of smack packs so I have a backup plan, but it'd be nice to get this starter going. Oh, the yeast was stamped "Use by Sep 23 07". So quite some time ago.

Thanks for any advice you might have!

I would expect it to do something by now. I hope "expired" doesn't mean, "oops, we lef it on the shelf for 6 weeks before realizing it wasn't in the fridge!"

Should I shake it up or just leave it alone?

I've never used one that old but I've made starters from vials that were a month or two out of date with no problem (just pitched a lager starter from an expired yeast last week in fact). They usually have much greater lag times in my experience so I would shake the heck out of it and give it some more time.

Give it a really good smell before you actually use it though, if it at all smells bad don't use it.

I would give it a few days before worrying.

I had an old smack-pack dated to expire May 08 (assuming viability of 1 year) so I recently decided to use it. It took 4-6 days (I forget which) before the pack started to inflate to any serious degree. I then pitched into a starter. The starter itself led to an airborne airlock overnight last night - after pitching at 10.00 pm.

The starter smelled ok, but the "beer" I poured off before pitching the yeast slurry tasted fairly bad (no I didn't drink it - just tasted), but I kinda expected that

Well, I'm brewing tomorrow night - if the starter still isn't visibly doing something by then, should I risk it and throw it in anyway? Or should I go with one of my back-up smackpacks?

All opinions welcome.

With it being that old, if it hasn't started by then I'd say it's not going to. I'd go with the smack packs in that case.

Well, still no activity this morning, and we brew tonight. I guess that's the last time I buy yeast that's been expired for 7 months. Live and learn.

Hey, so we're about to start brewing, and my expired yeast is showing signs of life. Out of my standard airlock we're seeing bubbles about every 2 minutes. Can I pitch this tonight safely?

Does it smell ok? Also since it was so old I would pull a tiny amount of the starter liquid and taste it. It won't taste like beer but it shouldn't taste bad either. If it smells or tastes bad I would dump it and use your other yeast.

Good news, everyone!

Brewed on Friday night, and finally, this morning, active fermentation has been spotted from my airlock. Seems pretty healthy, too; I'm getting bubbling every twenty seconds or so, and yesterday morning I was getting nothing.

I did smell the starter before I pitched it, and it smelled... well, like any other starter I've made (all 3 of them). Definitely didn't smell rancid or anything, so I figured, why not. And I saved $4 on the expired-since-Spetember yeast! Not that I'd voluntarily do this again. I gotta find a good online source for yeast.

Now I only need to know how long to keep this brew in primary. I had another thread at:

http://homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=66013

in which I asked "what do I do with all my little leftover bags of grain" and a very nice guy posted a recipe for me. I've always left stuff in the primary 7-10 days but then my batch before this one was an IPA where the recipe (also given to me here) specified 3 weeks in the primary. So I have no idea on this one. Please feel free to visit that thread if you have any advice for me!

Thanks again guys. This isn't just the best homebrewing site on the web, it's the best site for getting useful advice on anything I've ever seen, period.