Dead WY3724?

[Murphys_Law]

I am using WY3724 with a mid-Aug date (not ideal to say the least!). Brew Dad's calc said its at 25% and I followed the steps to make a (2 step) starter. I followed my normal starter procedure and added nutrient.

Here is the first step at 24 hours and no sign of life! I am thinking I should punt and buy more yeast. Or should I ride it out another 24 hours since its so old?

 

[jwelch1103]

Definitely give it more time. I've had similar experiences and the only way I knew the yeast were alive was by checking the gravity and seeing a large drop in that measurement.

 

[IslandLizard]

I'd let it spin a few more days, but it certainly doesn't look good.

I've had some looking like that. After spinning for a week they yielded a decent amount of viable yeast that got stepped up nicely.

With one of them, for some reason I don't think that yeast performed as it should have, it wouldn't clear, even after 4 weeks of cold crashing at 32F. I bought new and re-brewed. Difference was day and night.

That said, if you have the time, see what it yields, and maybe ferment a small 1/2 or 1 gallon batch with it from some extra wort, and see what it does. It's not a rare yeast, so you can easily buy a fresh pack. Mind, though, WY3724 is a notorious staller and takes a long time to resume. Now WY3726 (PC) is much better in that regard, from what I've read.

 

[trav77]

I just brewed an Alt with a similar situation. Yeast from mid-July. Smacked it and started it in 500 mL then stepped it up to 2000 mL total, cold crashed and decanted. It worked well... starter looked healthy on the 2nd step, with a bit of krausen on the stir plate and the wort was fermenting away < 24 hrs later with a very healthy krausen.

Your starter does not look healthy to me and personally I would not use it. Last time I used a starter that looked like that I ended up repitching 48 hrs later with a completely different yeast (turning my ESB into a Franken-Saison cause that's all I had on hand!).

Maybe grab some Belle Saison if you have some locally and don't have time to get fresh liquid yeast and build another starter?

What volumes were your starter steps?

 

[trav77]

Or... alternatively you can crash the starter you have and estimate the amount of yeast from the slurry and try a 3rd step. Very rarely is a culture 100% (or near) dead... it's just a matter of how much effort you want to put into reviving it and how much risk you want to assume in terms of contamination and culturing up undesirables in the process of doing that outside of a controlled lab environment.

 

[Murphys_Law]

My first starter was 1L with 100g of DME (per the calculator). The 2 starter is supposed to be 1.5L with the same amount of DME. This is/was going to be an over pitch w/an extra 1B cells but not sure I have 1 cell at this point!

I am leaning toward getting a new pack and I think I know the answer but would you repitch on the same starter or start from scratch?

 

[trav77]

Start from scratch if you can. I've used the DuPont strain from WL quite a bit and you want a healthy pitch with it (and ability to get it hot) otherwise it can stall easily.

 

[SoggyWood]

If you'd have just bought a new pack you could have it in the fermenter by now.

 

[Murphys_Law]

Ok, this may be a good time to play! My wife has a microscope so I may get a sample of my so-called starter and see if I can find any live cells! I am heading off to the store now to buy methylene blue! And some fresh yeast!!

 

[trav77]

Going to have a hard time getting an accurate cell count unless you also have a hemocytometer and an accurate way to measure volume/serial dilute (i.e. micropipette).

I'm sure you'll have some viable cells in there it's just a question of how much effort you want to put in to culture them up.

 

[Murphys_Law]

Going to have a hard time getting an accurate cell count unless you also have a hemocytometer and an accurate way to measure volume/serial dilute (i.e. micropipette).

I'm sure you'll have some viable cells in there it's just a question of how much effort you want to put in to culture them up.

I'm not really looking for anything more than just playing around with this starter, to be honest. Just to see if I can tell live from dead cells with this set-up.

Thanks to all for the input!