Yeast Vial Explosion

Last night I was making my starter, and when I went to open my vial of White Labs San Diego Super yeast it fizzed out quite a bit. I quickly closed the cap, but I would say I lost at least half of the vial's contents if not more. I went ahead and pitched the remaining yeast into my 2L starter, but I'm not sure if I should add more. Will the yeast propagate in the starter enough to adequately ferment my beer once its time? I'm not making a very big beer, but it will be my first time doing all grain so I want to make sure everything goes as smooth as possible.

Thanks in advance for all comments!

that happens all the time. hard telling from here how much yeast you had left in the vial but nothing left to do but carry on. you could step up the starter a second time if you feel you don't have enough with the first starter.

I hope you sterilized the vial before that happened. You MIGHT of infected the yeast if you didn't sterilize it. Only time will tell but if your not up on sterilizing anything around your yeast you might run into issues.

You should always crack the seal when you take it out of the refrigerator. Then put it in a cup or something where it will stay upright. Cracking the seal will let the CO2 escape as it warms up.

sherma said:

You should always crack the seal when you take it out of the refrigerator. Then put it in a cup or something where it will stay upright. Cracking the seal will let the CO2 escape as it warms up.

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Yes, every half hour or so just barely crack the cap then tighten it back down. By the time you're ready to pich you haven't had 3-5 hrs of pressure building up. When you opened your yeast, if you cracked the cap down right away it seems hard to imagine you lost half the yeast and unless you did it directly over your starter and the yeast ran down the sides of the vial and into the starter you won't have to worry about infection. Nothing bad is sneaking in that tiny little space with all that co2 and liquid rushing out.

Thank you for all the responses! I think it's unlikely that the yeast i pitched was infected as i cracked the cap away from the wort and pitched only that which was left in the vial. There has been some activity in the starter. It bubbled up to the top of the of the erlinmeyer and i was left with a decent krauzen. My main concern was the cell count and viability of my starter since i lost some yeast during the pitching process, but it looks to be pretty lively.

Open it, pour out a little of the clear liquid, THEN shake it up. Works like a charm.

If you can I'd pitch more, don't want to ruin a beer underpitching.

Only reason I mentioned the sterilization issue is because I had an issue once with a semi explosion where I got an infection. The only thing I could place it on was maybe a bit of the yeast touched the outside I'd the vial, which I didn't sterilize and it infected the yeast. All my other sanitation was in place but at that time I didn't make starters and I never worried about the yeast vial. It probably was not the cause in this cause but I will never again forget to sterilize anything around the yeast now. To me, that's the most crucial step.

The starter will take care of itself. Once propagation begins, you'll get up to your cell count. Remember, yeast are like rabbits, except they do it solo.

If I was to open my vial right now, there would be a mess as I left it on the kitchen counter over night. I tossed it in the fridge where it belongs. Will the yeast go back to it's "rest" state once it gets cooled down?

The exact same thing happened to me the first time I used White Labs yeast. The beer I used it in turned out fine. I even harvested 800ml of the starter to bank the yeast.

PackerfaninSanDiego said:

If I was to open my vial right now, there would be a mess as I left it on the kitchen counter over night. I tossed it in the fridge where it belongs. Will the yeast go back to it's "rest" state once it gets cooled down?

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Yep, just bring it back up to room temp before pitching.

lpdjshaw said:

Yep, just bring it back up to room temp before pitching.

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It spewed out a tad.....all is well. Spilt a vial of WLP775(English Cider Yeast) in my gallon of Apfelwein and gallon of Grandmas Liquid Pie