Liquid yeast delivered very warm, is it OK?

[Jayhem]

Ordered White Labs English Ale yeast and some hops.

The yeast came with an ice pack and wrapped in bubble wrap but with the 2-day shipping in 85 degree heat it arrived to me luke WARM. Yeast temp was about 80F when I received it. I put it in the fridge immediately.

Can someone put my mind at ease that it will be OK? I'm brewing this weekend and making a 2L starter for it tonight.

 

[AerationStation]

Itll be OK. It's possible the yeasties you've got in there might be a little worse for the wear, but a couple of days in a good starter and the new population should be ready to go.

 

[sweetcell]

yup, make a starter to confirm that the lil guys are still alive.

when calculating the starter size (via mrmalty.com or something similar), i might add 2 or 3 weeks to the pack's age, since some cells probably died during the warm period.

 

[TrickyDick]

I have had such bad luck with liquid yeast online in FL. Luckily I now have a LHBS and they get overnight, refrigerated packs. I have at other times paid for overnight priority shipping to avoid the heat problem - 2 day just doesn't cut it in the south and summer months. I had almost decided to setup a mini-lab for checking counts and viability, but decided I'd rather spend extra money on shipping than lab equipment and not to mention the time it takes to do the counting.

The good news is that dry yeast is much more tolerant of temperature swings, and also packs twice the cell count (usually). These days, the dry yeasts available are excellent, and in many instances available in same strains, though by far there is more variety and options with liquid yeast. I have had good experiences with a few mangrove jack strains, and all of the Safale strains of dry yeast. When I must use a liquid strain, I will now be buying from the LHBS, but if he cannot get it, I suck it up and get overnight priority delivered to my business address.

Agree that you shouldn't worry about it too much, and just make a starter to play it safe.

TD

 

[Jayhem]

Thanks for the reassurance! I always make starters since I use 1 vial of yeast for 11 gallons of wort. Going to add 30% to my starter size to be safe.

 

[william_shakes_beer]

And once the starter is ready to pitch, decant and reserve a little, pouring it into the tube the liquid yeast came in. Tag it with the date you made the starter and you have yeast for your next batch already in the fridge!!!

 

[Jayhem]

And once the starter is ready to pitch, decant and reserve a little, pouring it into the tube the liquid yeast came in. Tag it with the date you made the starter and you have yeast for your next batch already in the fridge!!!

Wow. What a great idea! I'll just start making my starters about 500 ml larger than Mr. Malty recommends and doing that!