Carbonated liquid yeast vial

Hey all,

I just opened a vial of White Labs 009 super high gravity ale yeast and there was a significant amount of carbonation in the vial and it smelled like it had been fermenting. Is this normal? If it's not normal can I still use the yeast?

Always take caution when opening a WL yeast vial, as they warm to be pitched, pressure can build and you can get brewkakked with the yeast. It is totally normal, just open slowly to avoid getting yeast jizzed.

Perfectly normal...it builds up an amount of co2 in there.

Schnitzengiggle said:

Always take caution when opening a WL yeast vial, as they warm to be pitched, pressure can build and you can get brewkakked with the yeast. It is totally normal, just open slowly to avoid getting yeast jizzed.

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what he said... just less gross

Yep I made that mistake on my first vile of WL yeast. Now I just crack the seal to bleed out the pressure when i first take it out of the fridge. Then every 1/2hr or so I unscrew the top to prevent the pressure from rebuilding up. Works like a charm.

Haha I did get "brewkakked"... but only slightly. I'm pretty new at this but the last time I used WL yeast i only got a slight hiss when I opened the vial so I got a little worried that I would end up throwing 70 dollars worth of rotten honey down the drain (trying my hand at a mead, if for no other reason than the long ferment time will tie my equipment up for a while, forcing me to stop dumping money into this new hobby for a few months). Started noticing airlock activity after only 5 hours.